Infant @ MindSay

Kid car seats are something that is usually overlooked by parents when they are cleaning their babys products. It is important that the seat is cleaned regularly for hygiene reasons. You should try your very best to wash it at least one time each and every month and possibly even more if needed.

Step 1 - Take the youngsters seat out of the vehicle, then you should position the seat lightly onto an old blanket or cloth outside the car. Before setting your car seat on a blanket etc give the seat a really good shake as this will dislodge any small crumbs etc. Before you clean the seat, make sure you have put all your babys toys and blankets etc away.

Step 2 - You should now be ready to hoover and wipe over the rear seat of your vehicle around where the baby car seat was fitted.

Step 3 - Pick up any crumbs from your youngsters travel seat with a vacuum cleaner, it would ideally be a hand held vacuum cleaner.
 
Step 4 - You can now clean all of the plastic bits of your childs car seat using some gentle soap and water. Before cleaning the plastic parts of the seat, you should have already disassembled the removeable bits of the kid car seat which should be wiped down separately. When you have finished cleaning each part of the safety seat, you can now put the parts back together and make sure that everything is as it should be.

Step 5 - Put the baby car seats cover in the washing machines gentle cycle if the cover can be detached. A tumble dryer could shrink your seat cover so be sure not to make the error of using it. Hang it out on your washing line instead of placing it in the tumble dryer. If the soap isn't compatible with the child seats fabric or the actual seat then this can cause some damage. Always check over the label prior to using any cleaning products.

Step 6 - If it is not possible to remove the car seat cover then just wipe the stained patches of the cover. Wipe down all the other parts of the child seat gently. Let any cleaning fumes out by keeping all your car doors wide open for two or more hours. Have a look over the guidelines for the cleaning soap to make sure you can use it to clean the child seat without damaging the seats material.

Step 7 - The arms of the child seat, the back, and bottom are areas that should be scrubbed well as these places get very dirty.

Step 8 - Your childs car toys can be just as dirty as the car seat so those should be thoroughly cleaned as well.

Step 9 - Secure the child seat back into the car. Always make sure you follow the manufacturers fitting instructions. Take your time when fitting travel baby car seats as it is very important you do everything right. Make sure all parts of the travel seat are present and correctly installed.

By Kerri Bullock

BabyOnTheGo - Our online baby store (www.babyonthego.co.uk)

I don't know about you all, but in this part of the world we have had a bad problem with a huge crop of goldenrod this year.  Goldenrod is a beautiful fall flower, but daggone!  It has been really making us miserable with our sinuses and such.  There hasn't been a whole lot of it in the past few years and I forgot how it affects me. 

As predicted, my children were absolute terrors over the weekend.  It was just one thing after another with them and they were really trying my patience.  Especially Will and Klara!  They were just into everything and backtalking and pushing the envelope repeatedly.  I'm so glad school is back in session and the weekend is over!  Last night they were still awake at 1 a.m.!  I really cracked down on them this evening and so I am hoping for a quiet night.

My very good friend, Amanda, had her third baby today!  She was a little girl they named Kaylin and she was 6lb and 12oz.  She was sooo tiny compared to the big, beefy 9-10 lb babies she and I usually have.  Her little foot was only about as long as my thumb!  But this is the best part about Kaylin.  She is an absolute, 100% miracle baby from God.  Now, I know that all babies are blessings, but Kaylin is super special.

You see, Amanda had a tubal ligation almost 5 years ago after she had a c-section delivery with their second child.  The doctors were dumbfounded because tubal ligations done during c-sections are usually pretty thorough because they are right inside of you and are able to really see what they are doing.  During this whole pregnancy, we all just assumed something had come undone or grew back together...until today.

Amanda had Kaylin by c-section and after they took the baby out, they invited her husband to come have a look (and they filmed all of this also).  Both of her tubes still had huge 2 inch sections still cut out of them.  Each cut end still had a clamp PLUS two stitches behind that.  As a matter of fact, the ends of the tubes were completely healed over.  Medically, it was impossible for a baby to be conceived.  However, Kaylin proved everyone wrong!  The doctors were shocked and said it was obvious that Kaylin has a reason for being here and is a complete and total miracle.  I have to agree.  It was amazing just to hold her and look at her little face, knowing how rare a child like this has to be.  The doctors told them that when a woman gets pregnant after a tubal ligation, they always find that something is off with the procedure when they look at the tubes.  But this was a perfect, thorough job and it still happened.

I brought my camera and was going to take pictures, but when I got it out I discovered I had forgotten my memory stick...duh!  So I will go back tomorrow and take pictures of the little sneaky baby girl and post them tomorrow for everyone to see.  Watch the papers for this one because she's bound to do something amazing later in life!

~Alice