Oh shit!

Well all of a sudden I had a light bulb moment I don't know why, but it's bloody lucky I did. The grandparents have a car seat in their car for when they need to go somewhere with The Monstar. They live next door and we're lucky enough to have them look after him while we're at work.
They have an Aussie seat which he now has to forward-face in. It does not thrill me, but I try to console myself with the fact that he doesn't travel with them too often. But, they bought the seat from a good friend of theirs who used it when they were driving their grandchildren. Anyway, it just came to me that I never checked the expiry date. The grandparents, and their friends, didn't know there was an expiry date for car seats, (they aren't car seat freaks like me) so it didn't occur to them to check before they bought it. It was a nice seat in great condition, so if you didn't know you would just think great seat no problem.
So I went out to check and sure enough it was expired!!! Shit!! Only just, luckily, but about 1 month, but shit my heart jumped into my stomach when I saw it.  Bad bad Mummy moment! I really should have checked that straight away :(
So I broke the bad news to the grandparents and let them know to cut the straps and dispose of it.
An expired car seat can fail big time in an accident. Even if it looks fine, the plastic will be weakened just from age, sun, heat etc and won't protect you kids in an accident. So very important to check.

You can check your seat's expiry date by looking at the sticker on the side or maybe back of the seat. In Australia, I think they still just have the manufacture date (I am not positive about that though) But Australian car seats generally have a 10 year expiry date, so 10 years from the month and year of manufacture is the expiry date. Don't use the seat after this date. If it's not 10 years the manufacturer will state how long, be sure and check the seat's manual.

Most seats will have 'date clocks' not always easy to find but another way to check.
Some seats will have the actual expiry date stamped on them too.
There's a detailed explanation of all this here Car seat manufacture/expiry dates explained-NZ Child Restraints

Seeking short passengers only.

So we are loving the Radian still, and are happy The Monstar is rear-facing. He seems very comfy and the head wings are perfect for resting his head on when he sleeps. But, after the initial novelty starts to wear off, the reality of really no room for a passenger taller than me (which is really short!) kicks in. You can squeeze someone in there but I really don't feel it's safe. They seem way too close to the airbag, especially if they have long legs as their knees actually rest on the glove box where the bag is :/ So generally we put passengers in the back. This means the car is now really only a 4 seater instead of 5. Not always convenient.
A big problem too is when a passenger does get in the front and before you can tell them not too they move the seat back. Faaarrrk!! This mucks up the installation of the seat and you have to redo it before you can let The Monstar in again, so frustrating!
If you have a decent size car none of this is a problem, actually with the Radian you do need a pretty big car before you don't have passenger issues, it is a huge seat, and my car is tiny.

I have joined the army of Radian lovers appealing for a 'toddler boot' or some such wonder to make it possible to install the seat more upright. You really only need the 45 degree angle for newborns. I think it's actually safer for older heavier kids to be more upright rear-facing. Fingers crossed there will be a magical attachment not too far off.

A bit of an unexpected bonus with the Radian :D

So we're off to visit grandpa, a good 40-45 minute drive from home. We had to make a detour on the way, something The Monstar hates. When the car stops he thinks he should be getting out, and if that doesn't happen he gets cranky big time! So we were hoping he would fall asleep on the way and we could leave him in the car with his big brother. (The big brother is really big, 17, so not leaving 2 kids unsupervised in the car! Although I guess that's debatable lol) It really is a hassle to get him out for the whole 3 minute stop then wrestle with him to get him back in again when he thinks he needs a bit more of an out of car adventure before we head off again. He was getting very tired but just not dropping off. I was siting in the back with him and thought it was a shame I couldn't get a boob in his mouth then he'd drop off in no time. Hmmm... actually, looking at it, the new seat is really low to the actual car's seat, I think it's doable. If I just squidge over a bit and sit up really tall and lean just a bit over to the left, BINGO! Yes, and in no time, and after only one car passing, looking over pointing and laughing,  we had a happy sleeping baby :) Mission accomplished. Not the most comfortable position for me, but I didn't need to take my belt off, not that I would anyway, and at least we know when it's needed we can calm The Monstar without stopping. Well, provided I'm not driving that is :) Just another little woohoo for the seat.

IT'S HERE!! :o)

Much to my relief the new seat arrived safe and sound :) Now the fun part, get it all out read the instructions and play with it before installing it. Ooooh very heavy, looks good, the Monstar's trying it out on the floor in the lounge room while I peruse the instruction book. It even has instructions for installation on planes! Something I've never heard of here, Geez, we're not only behind in car safety, but air travel safety too. Come on Australia it's time to wake up! Seriously! Are our kids that much less valuable than the US and European kids?

So after reading the book a few times it's out to the car. I'd heard horror stories about installing the Radian, not very user friendly apparently so I was ready for a fight. But you know it really wasn't that bad. There was a slight struggle, but we got it in. There was some swearing involved. The most frustrating thing was if you accidentally let go of the seat belt buckle while threading it through the seat's belt path. In the middle of the belt path is a slot, which inevitably, the buckle would slip into and flip over making it extremely hard to get your hand in (a very small space) and at the right angle to get it out. *@%#!

Anyway, it was a team effort, one of us holding the seat belt ready to click it in, with the other squatting or kneeling on the seat bouncing until the belt was done up. LOL I'm pretty sure the neighbours wondered what the hell was going on in the rocking car, in the driveway, in broad daylight Hahaha. But it's a successful instalation technique, called the 'Bounce-bounce-click' (one I'd picked up from the car seat forum I'd joined) used when installing with the seat belt rather than Isofix, which is another thing we don't have in Australia. Well not unless you have a newish car that has the points, and even if you're lucky enough to have them, you can't buy a seat here to take advantage of them. But that's probably for another post.

We managed to get the seat in and at a slightly more upright angle than 45 degrees. The seat is pretty huge because it accommodates bigger kids. Because my car is tiny, this means that there was no way we could get it the in the centre seat, and it also meant the front passenger could only be comfortable and have any leg room if they were under 5 1/2 feet tall, so I just make it :) But for now we're happy The Monstar is travelling rear-facing!

Looking pretty cute and comfy while doing so too :)

Which seat?

 Now with only a few hundred grams to go before the dreaded 12kgs, the search for a new seat to keep the monstar rear-facing began. Where to start? You can't just pop to the shop, so internet here I come!
After spending what seemed like an absolute fricken eternity looking at seats on overseas sites, as well as joining a car seat forum and reading through posts, questions and recommendations on there, and only just before my head was ready to explode with an overload of information, we decided on a Radian XTSL.

We chose the Radian for a few reasons.


* Radians are one of the safest car seats on the market.

* The Radians have one of highest rear-facing limits available. Up to 20.4kgs. A hell of a lot better than our 12kgs here!

* It is a convertible seat (so can be turned forward-facing) and can be used with the five point harness up to 36kgs. So really should last until the Monstar needs a booster.

 * Diono (back then known as Sunshine Kids) Publish their crash test results. Car seat manufacturers aren't required to do this. Even though being able to see the results is good, you can't really compare them with other seats so a bit hard to make a decision based on the results, but, I thought it showed the company had nothing to hide with their products.

 * I liked the fact it had a steel frame which also made it heaps heavier than the plastic ones here.

* The XTSL model has head wings, for some extra side impact protection.

* The seat can be tethered rear-facing. There aren't a lot of extended rear-facing seats that allow this. Any extra safety features are good in my book.   Wondering what a top tether is? Click here :)

* I also liked that Diono have a branch in New Zealand, just a bit closer to home than the US or Europe. (This proved very helpful later on.)

So now with the final decision made it's time to find the best price. International postage costs are pretty high, so it's a matter of finding the best combined price, seat+shipping. Then to find a supplier that will actually ship it here. Far out what a bloody nightmare that was! Some didn't do international shipping just because. Some didn't  because they said it was too expensive, um, pretty sure that's my issue yeah? Apparently not, pfft. Sadly I think some of the US stores didn't know where Australia was and answered with a puzzled "Where?? No, we don't ship there."  :/  hmmm...
I was almost ready to order from a NZ supplier, when I got lucky and found a US eBay store with a sale! Woohoo saved a couple of hundred dollars!  **Oh and yes it was a brand new seat in it's box with instruction book and all.

With the seat ordered, it's time to wait patiently for delivery. Well a little impatiently actually. I love getting parcels and after the epic process of finding the seat, I didn't want to wait too long. I think I almost thought it was too good to be true after finding such a good price. Maybe it was scam, it might not come at all. Or will it not be what was advertised?? Only slightly paranoid lol

The decision to import

I'd just like to point out that the decision to import a seat that's not legal to use here, wasn't done on a whim. I have no interest in possibly compromising my son's safety just to be a rebel, yes someone actually suggested this *roll eyes* Not even to get back at him for chronically depriving me of sleep for the past 2 years hehehe. We researched, researched some more then weighed up the risks, and came to the conclusion that importing a seat would only increase the safety of the little Monstar.

The beginning...

So, the search for the perfect car seat began when it was time to return the capsule we'd hired before the Monstar was born. Not a huge issue I thought, Australia has the toughest safety standards for car seats so really you can't go too wrong buying a seat here right. We found a nice seat, good price, and well rated. Done. Well so I thought.
A few months later it was coming up to 12kgs, that's when it's time to turn your baby forward facing. Well we were lucky enough to have a convertible seat that allowed for rear-facing up to 12kgs, a lot here only allow up to 9kgs.
I was talking to a friend when she mentioned she was thinking of importing a car seat for her little one, only one month younger than my Monstar. This would let them keep him rear-facing longer. She explained to me how a child's head to body ratio is really top heavy, that, along with the fact that their little spines and neck muscles aren't fully developed can equal horrible outcomes in an accident if they are forward-facing.
That got me thinking. So I was off looking at stats, crash tests and articles and it didn't take long for me to work out I didn't want to turn my little Monstar forward-facing in another 300 grams! I started to feel really sick about having to do it, so started to look at seats from overseas. Even though it is illegal to use an imported seat here because they don't comply with Australian standards, I really felt that the benefits outweighed the risks. And so the quest began...

Here's a bit of a visual to help with the head to body ratio info...
A child’s head is 25% of their total body weight compared to an adult, which is 6%.  With the huge forces during an accident, if forward-facing, their head will be thrown forward and can lead to huge injuries, even internal decapitation.  In a nut shell, if they are rear-facing the force is spread over a larger surface avoiding their head being thrown forward and preventing the same horrible chance of injury or death.

Customisation complete! ...Just a test post really :)

Well what an ordeal that was! Trying to work out how to start and customise a blog with a toddler that's been particularly velcro all week and in an absolutely foul mood today. It's only taken me the best part of the day, a browser change and a tension headache, but I think I've done it. Maybe the monstar will be in a better mood tomorrow so I can have a bit of time to really make a start in here, fingers crossed. Things are looking up he's outside with the baby wipes now, wiping his BFF's bum and changing his nappy (his BFF being a stuffed purple dragon) very cute :)
I think I need to pay some attention to my freshly trashed house now, the price you pay to spend  hours at the computer fending off the feral toddler while trying  to start a blog I guess.



Here's the BFF left outside after his bum cleaning, wipes and all :D