No More Hot Car Deaths

I have a pretty serious concern that I will forget Levi in the car someday.  I'm generally pretty sleep deprived and he trends to falls quietly asleep in the backseat. We have all seen news of babies left in cars because the parent forgot to drop the baby at daycare or forgot she was in the backseat when mom went to work. What a horrifying thing to carry around with you forever-that you inadvertently killed your baby.  Even though it's not "hot car" season, I would say "cold car" in Wisconsin is dangerous also. Supposedly, they are working on making high tech alarms to remind parents about baby in the backseat, but at the moment they are expensive and glitchy.

With that in mind, I've been trying to think of a diy way to keep myself from this awful memory lapse and I finally thought of something.  May I present the easiest invention in the world!

TADA!

I used a piece of brightly colored cardstock and punched a hole in the corner.  Then I attached a carabiner to it.  Done!

Here's the big idea: make it your habit that this thing NEVER leaves your car.

This is how I use mine:

1.  Carry baby in carseat to the vehicle, open door.  Remove card from the carseat base & insert carseat into base.

My view when I first open my door to leave home

2..Clip card to my set of keys & drive off

3.  Arrive at destination.  Get out of the car and remove card from keys

4. Remove carseat with baby from the backseat, place card on the base

5. Walk away from the car

That's it.  If you don't use an infant seat & base, just lay the card on the carseat until you need to put the baby in there.

So you see, I took this idea from pens at offices and keys to gas station restrooms: If you put something big and clunky on it, you won't accidentally walk off with it.  This bright pink card won't fit in my purse without my noticing, yet it's fairly lightweight and not bothersome when dangling from my keys in the ignition.

And if you ever see me walking around with this hanging off my purse, stop me and say "where's your baby?".

After using this system for a few weeks, I can say that it is another 2 seconds added to each car entrance/exit, and took a few trips to get the rhythm of it down.  BUT I would generally say that an inconvenient 2 seconds is much better than harming my little one.  Happy Travels!