Staying put in bed

As expected, the battle for minibeanie to stay put in bed continued for a few days. It's now the 6th day after the side of his crib is removed, which allowed him to get out of his crib by himself, and I think victory is on hand! Last night, I marched him back to bed SIX times within a span of 15 minutes. He surrendered finally either because he was so tired or because he knew it'd be futile. Or both ;) This afternoon's nap took 3 tries. As for tonight's bedtime, he tried to make an escape only once. Yay!!


Recently when having some friends over with their 13 month old daughter, I realized that some parents over-indulge their kids, to put it nicely. I don't mean the occasional candy or even the very occasional extra episode of Sesame Street. In this particular instance, the toddler refused to sit in her car seat and what did the parents do? Put her in the middle seat albeit with a seat-belt. What's wrong with this scenario? Firstly, she's too small to be sitting without a child-seat - why are child-seats or boosters even invented in the first place? Secondly, the middle seat only has a seat-belt across the lap. A 2-point harness is hardly the best safety belt for a regular adult let alone a toddler. Thirdly, physics tells us that a 10kg toddler becomes a 400kg torpedo at 40km/h. Therefore, "she won't sit in her baby-seat" or "we only drive in the city (implicitly saying "we aren't close to the autobarn speed") are merely whinings of over-indulgent parents. Who are the adults in the family who should know better?

I made a post on Car Safety eons ago when we were still in Finland. If anything, I've even more vitriol for our 'friends' yesterday because Chinese drivers are nuts. You can absolutely gurantee stupidity from others. If I'm dogmatic about this issue, that's because this is a black & white issue. It isn't even close to the pacifier or the sippy-cup debate by a far measure. Because in this case, over-indulgence can kill.


minibeanie is 1 year, 8 months, 2 weeks & 5 days old