We're soon taking our first long drive since my 13 month old son switched from his infant seat to his forward facing seat. We're planning on traveling to NJ (about 4 hours) at nap time and then come home four days later at bed time. When the little guy was an infant this worked fairly well. One thing that I'm trying to figure out is how to shade him like we would have in the infant seat using the adjustable canopy. Does anything like this exist out there? Any ideas for a shading solution if it doesn't? I'm looking for a compete shading option not just those shades that you stick on the windows... let's face it folks, those only work if the sun (or street lights at night) are shining in one specific, unchanging direction. Thanks,
K.
Thanks for all the advice. Thanks especially to Tami for the web address (http://www.thefind.com/query.php?query=car+seat+sunshade&...) I will be buying one of those shades ASAP. There was no way to have my son back in his infant seat... he is too BIG! I did however, manage to use the canopy off of his infant seat for our trip. I felt a bit like Macgyver, tying the "arms" together with hair elastics and connecting them to the toddler seat but it worked, and he slept. Thank goodness. Thanks again.
At 13 months he should still fit in the infant seat. (unless he's a really big boy!) Just use that instead of the forward facing seat. Its much safer anyway.
K.,
At 13 months he should still be rearfacing they recomend going to the max weight of your seat before switching forward and when they rear face they are at more of angle so I found they sleep better. depending on which infant seat you had and how much he weighs he maybe able to fit in it still so I would recomend using that. I never had to worry about blocking out the sun or street lights because both of my boys will sleep either way dark or sunny.
I agree that the suction cup shades are the pits!
My MIL's friend gave me this tip at my baby shower: If you want to keep the sun out of the baby's eyes, get a receiving blanket and just close the window on the edge of it so that it hangs down shading the window. You could do the same thing with a couple of dark pieces of fabric.
Hang a crib sheet attaching to the head rest of the car seat to the head rest of the front seat in front of the child. It worked for us.
When I was trying to find something like what you described all I could find was a product at www.babycenter.com that is a canopy that goes over the top part of the seat. I also found other options at the following website:
http://www.thefind.com/query.php?query=car+seat+sunshade&...
I hope you find what works for you. I am having a hard time finding something myself that works for my son rearfacing.
I was reading other responses, and the only suggestion i really have is getting tints. Not the expensive ones, i think they're about 10-12 dollars per roll, and you only need one if you just do the back windows. They have the tinting cling in the automotive section at Walmart. It doesn't look very nice unless your a pro, but it does block the sun perfectly and stays on better then those darn suction cup ones. By the way, my pedi says that after 12 months, they SHOULD be facing forward. Even if not, now that he's already switched, i doubt he would enjoy going back to rear facing anyway. My son didn't fit in his infant seat at 7 months!! His legs would be crammed in the back of the seat. Didn't seem very comfortable to me..
