Big Girls Seat

At the beginning of this year we realised that both our girlies were bursting out of their car seats! The timing was perfect as Naomi needed to move into Abigail's at the same time as Abigail was just getting too big for hers. The scary thing is they both now look so 'grown-up' when you look at them in the back of the car! What happened to my babies?

Some friends who are missionaries in Papua New Guinea visited us in the UK about 5 years ago with their two young children. Having grown up in a culture with no seatbelt/child restraint laws, they found it a real challenge to be strapped in and not to climb out of their seats and all over the vehicle.

We were very aware again when purchasing this new seat that safety guidelines differ throughout the world and we will need to use our seats in more than one country. We found that the UK seem to set the clearest and the strictest guidelines and so chose to follow those to cover all bases. It's definitely worth taking that into consideration when working and moving internationally ... as kiddy car seats not cheap and you don't want to have to buy more than you need!

Something else we've found helpful is that a friend gave us their son's old car seats which they weren't able to sell on and didn't want to just dump in a landfill. They are in the two sizes that the girls are now and we have left them in the UK with the grandparents so that every time we travel to and from England at least, we don't have the added extra car seats to negotiate around airports on top of all the luggage and two children! Very useful!

Abigail loves her new 'big girls seat' as she gets to use the 'big girls strap' ... and the baby car seat has once again been relegated to storage. We have two happy girls in the back of the car ... which makes for one happy mummy and after all, that's what's most important!