After purchasing our first car seat (Uppa Mesa) two months before Cataleya was born, we left the huge box just sitting in our living room. Then I was 37 weeks pregnant and my midwife Renee asked if we installed it into our car yet ?. We just thought to swing by a fire department and have them ensure we installed it right. What we didn’t know was that most aren’t technicians nor certified. Here is a good article to read from the Car Seat Blog ?. That’s when Renee recommended Karen Apolinario, who’s is a Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPST).
We scheduled a private appointment with Karen. When we met up with her we literally just took it out of the box, tags, and plastic still intact, placed it in our trunk and headed to our appointment ?. Of course we completely forgot the manual, bad enough we didn’t even read nor adjust it for a newborn?. Thankfully we weren’t the only first parents that have done this and she easily just whipped out her iPad and brought up the specific manual for our brand. Thank gosh for technology!
Karen, basically inspected our car seat in detail, ensured we understood our car seat, when to adjust it when our baby grows, the different ways of installing it as well as finding the best installed location in our vechicle.
She shows you how to use and install it, then in turns, gives each parent the hands on experience. She even brings a fake baby, this way we get a more realistic idea how to install our newborn.
Man their is a lot to a car seat, like the harness tightness, crotch strap adjustment, placement of the chest clip, etc.
She also brings up points that we never even thought of like traveling, cleaning it because I’ve had Cataleya definitely throw up in her car seat, how to dress your babies to ensure the car seat is still effective, what to do if you were in an accident and so much more! She has so much useful information that you may not think of.
I’ve constantly have e-mailed and Facebook messaged her many times and she’s super quick at responding to simple or complex questions. It’s quite impressive being that she has four kids!
We recently met up with Karen again because we’ve been eager to get Cataleya upgraded to the next car seat. Only because I’ve heard babies tend to like it better than their infant one, being she’s 9 months she still hates the car seat ?. However, her safety is first and I want to ensure she’s truly ready for the upgrade.
She gave us the green light! It was time to learn and secure the “beast” as Karen calls it into our car. Over course we still didn’t learn from the first time and didn’t read the dang manual ?. We went with the Clek Foonf, a convertible car seat because I like the solid color choices, it’s a narrow seat, and allows to keep a child rear facing up to four years old!
If your near Santa Clarita contact Karen. You can find her Facebook page here and website for more information.
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