Car Seat and Shopping Cart Safety
I see this ALL. THE. TIME. I know you must see it too. Perhaps you’ve even been guilty of this yourself. Here’s why it’s such a concern and what you can do to reduce the risk of your baby being seriously injured in a fall off a shopping cart.
The Problem: Infant carseats aren’t designed to be secured to the top of a shopping cart. Most carseat manufacturers specifically prohibit using their seats this way but that warning is usually buried along with 30 other generic warnings in the instruction manual so it doesn’t get much attention.
According to the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics):
It is more common than most people think for children to be hurt in shopping carts. These injuries can be severe or even deadly. Each year approximately 23,000 children are treated in hospital emergency departments for injuries from shopping carts. Most injuries are caused by falls from the cart or by the cart tipping over. Many injuries are to the head and neck.
Unfortunately, we’re a monkey-see, monkey-do society; so many parents think this is a perfectly acceptable practice. The problem is that the carseat isn’t strapped in or snapped onto the cart. It’s just perched on top. Sometimes it’s perched in a way that’s fairly stable but very often it’s just teetering on the top of that cart with very little support. One good bump and that seat is going to topple. If baby is old enough to kick, grab, or try to sit up – that increases the chances of falling. If the harness straps are loose, or worse yet – not buckled at all, that greatly increases the chances of a fall. And if you have a preschooler shopping with you – the chances of baby toppling off the cart just increased ten-fold. In case you haven’t noticed, little kids like to push the cart, climb on the cart, and hang off the sides of the cart as soon as you turn your back. The cart isn’t the most stable object on 4 wheels to begin with, so adding a toddler or preschooler into the equation can be a recipe for disaster.
The Easy Solution: Don’t do it.
The Reality Check: You gotta put the baby somewhere and while a baby carrier or sling is a great option, wearing your baby while you’re trying to shop isn’t always practical or convenient. Here are some suggestions for making a trip to the store a little less hazardous for your baby.
- Try wedging the infant seat sideways into the toddler seat of the cart. Different carts have different dimensions so it may be possible in some carts but not in others.
- Place the infant seat in the main portion of the cart and drag an extra cart around with you if you need to do a big grocery shopping. I’ve BTDT so I know what a pain in the rear this is – but it’s doable. And it certainly beats a trip to the ER.
- Take advantage of carts that have built-in infant carriers. Just remember to buckle your baby in nice and snug. And I highly recommend a receiving blanket to cover the surface before putting the baby down.
- Use common sense! If the seat is poorly supported (as in the picture above), don’t leave it that way! Nothing you’re going to buy at Target or the supermarket is worth risking your child falling off the cart face first.
Years ago, when my oldest child was a toddler, I saw a woman’s baby (in an infant car seat) fall from the cart at the store. I can still remember the sound the kid’s head made when it hit the floor. She scooped him up and ran out of the store with him while the store manager ran out after her. I don’t know what happened after that but I remember being really upset by what I had just seen (and heard). It stayed with me and from that day on I was always super-conscious about how my kids were secured in shopping carts. However, I am obviously in the minority because far too often I witness dangerous baby in shopping cart situations. Sometimes I’ll say something – in the nicest way I can, of course. But giving unsolicited advice to strangers can be more dangerous than playing in New Delhi traffic, so I just keep quiet and hope that this information reaches them somehow. Please help spread the word!
I find the easiest way to to ensure my baby’s safety in a shopping cart (depending in the size and shape of the cart, for this example I am using a wal-mart cart and Graco Snugride car seat.) is to use the red latch in the back of the carseat that normally click into the base, and make sure it is hooked onto the top bar in the rear of the toddler seat. THEN, take a buckle strap off of a highchair or something else with an adjustable, and sturdy baby harness and loop the strap around the outside of the toddler leg holes and then up over the seat belt hooks on each side of the carseat. Buckle and cinch tightly. Keep baby strapped in to his/her car seat and your baby is now secure! This isn’t fail safe of course, but I am confident enough in the method to use it with my own baby.
What about babywearing? To me, that’s the BEST solution by a landslide! My second child’s infant car seat NEVER went into a store. I wore him from day 1. He’s now nearly 20 months and 30 lbs, and I still do most of my shopping with him on my back. He’s happy, safe, and can nap, and I have my hands AND my cart free! I also mastered nursing in several of my carriers so that I could shop and nurse at the same time!
Visit http://www.thebabywearer.com to learn all the ways you can wear your baby.
my car seat snaps in and is perfectly safe, not to mention my baby is sstill too young to cause her seat to generate any type of momentum, when shes older I’ll just wear her because grocery carts are freakin gross- I dont care how many times you run a sani cloth over it or if you use one of those cart covers-unless you run that thing through the washing machine after every use your just taking the grossness home with you. Anyways-I would NEVER “perch” my child ANYWHERE. I wouldn’t do anything that put her in danger. Ever. Period. However I have read heart wrenching stories of parents perching their children atop carts in infant seats that were clearly not made for that sort of storage and they’ve flipped their seat and one child that I know of died =[ Apparently she fell onto a speed bump =[ =[ =[ =[ So even though my baby girls infant seat snaps onto the cart I always leave the car seats handle upright in case the unthinkable happens and I always have one hand on her seat when going over ANY sort of bump because I can’t get that poor baby out of my head every time I see a speed bump in a parking lot.
one customer thought she had placed it good enough on the small drugstore shopping cart, when it was really too far to the left. she was manuvering the cart not by the handles but the shopping cart basket. She when to turn the cart around and the carseat fell out. she couldnt/shouldnt sue the store because of her misplacing the carseat. i think the baby ended up with a concussion not sure. It fell baby side down.
This article says it all, this just happened this week! So Sad! http://www.macon.com/2011/09/21/1712353/baby-dies-after-fall-from-grocery.html?story_link=email_msg#ixzz1YhiXzfzF
When my oldest son (now 9) was 4 yrs old, he got a broken leg from a shopping cart accident ! He was in the child seat, buckled in even (yes, we had managed to find ONE cart with working buckles!!).
It tipped over front ways as his father pushed the cart, he hit something in the parking lot that put the far wheels up, and with the weight of a small 4 year old in it, he hit the pavement feet first, hard enough to break one of his legs just above the ankle.
Yesterday in Macon, Georgia a 3 month old died when his “perched in the shopping cart” carseat toppled and hit the grocery store parking lot. Just take your baby out of the carseat and put them safely in a body carrier. Shopping cart children’s seats are not meant to carry carseats and you are risking your baby’s life to do so. I don’t really care if some carseats say to do it and that it is safe. When a three month old’s head cracks on the pavement and dies during surgery to relieve pressure on it’s blood filled brain while the parents and grandparents wait in anguish in a waiting room, it is just not worth risking. Safety is not an accident.
I also had a Baby Trend seat with my youngest that actually snapped onto most shopping carts. I didn’t usually use it that way tho because it was so hard for me to see where I was going with the baby seat up there. I usually put it sideways on top of the main basket, in most shopping carts it fit snug on top of the basket sideways and most of the infant seat sat down in below the top of the basket so no risk of it toppling off the top. It left me ample room to put groceries in the remaining opening of the basket and I could still fill the bottom of my basket under my infant seat with groceries without the seat taking up the whole basket.
We tried this one time with our Chicco car seat it didn’t lock on there so our son is always in the basket. It’s a pain in the butt, but like you said, my shopping trip is not more important than his safety.
I have seen a cart tip of in fron of me at Giant. A little girl was standing on the side while mom was waiting in line the cart tipped over on her and there was a horrible noise the girl was quiet then there was screaming(the screaming was from mom) and milk everywhere. The couple of gallons of milk burst and it took 3 big grown men to pull the cart off the little girl about 5 years old. The cart was filled to the top. The girl finally started crying as the mom and the manager carried her out the door. I can still remember the sound and that was when I was 16.
I see this alot sadly, and I find it scary. When my son was an infant I put him inside the cart. Most mothers just have their kids like that but i find it irresponsible because if that infant gets hurt the parent(s) are gonna have to do alot of explaining .
FWIW, my old Fisher-Price Safe Embrace infant seat had metal latches specifically to LOCK it onto a shopping cart. But I still put the seat in the toddler compartment sideways or put it inside the main basket. Even though the back of the carseat latched on, the front of the seat wasn’t always well supported by the cart. Really, above all else, just use common sense if you put a carseat on a shopping cart and take extra precautions if you have another child with you.
IIRC, my ancient Century SmartFit infant seat had specific instructions on how to use the seat with a cart. However, just because the manual advocates it, by the mere mention or by having specific instructions, doesn’t make it a good common sense thing to do. Just because my vehicle’s speedometer says it can go to 160 mph doesn’t mean I should go drive that fast. It’s not a safe thing to do.
@Question – Sadly, I did not. And I regret it.
I can fit 4 kids in a cart at Target! And safely. 🙂
I use the one with two older kids seats, and two toddler seats. So 4 total. And technically it could fit 5 if you put the infant seat in the cart. But don’t even think about buying anything or being able to move the cart through aisles!
I never put the baby seat on the cart.
Did you say anything to this mother? It looks like the blow of the wind would tip this infant seat over!
Meagan – BabyTrend
Pixels – which seat is that?
The AAP reports that 23,000(!) kids a year are injured by shopping carts and recommends:
If you decide to put your child in a shopping cart anyway, then follow these rules:
Place your child in a safety belt or harness at all times when in a shopping cart.
Never leave your child alone in a shopping cart.
Do not let your child stand up in a shopping cart.
Do not place an infant carrier on top of the shopping cart.
Do not put your child in the basket.
Never allow your child to ride on the outside of a cart.
Do not allow an older child to climb on the cart or push the cart with another child in it, because it is very easy for a child to tip the cart over.
I’ve put the URL to their official policy statement in the link box. I generally go shopping alone (blessed alone time!) or take just one of my kids to the store. And shop online as much as possible.
a cart can indeed tip over… I’ve seen it happen… a child properly belted in and the seat truly clipped to the cart I’m not worried AS MUCH about… but you know that almost never is what we see out in the world.
I don’t like how it blocks the mom/dad’s vision, either… because it’s usually right in front of their face and they’re having to crane around either side of the cart to see.
I prefer to wear baby… and then I always had a larger toddler sit in the main basket in a corner rather than the big seat (besides, that’s where your bag goes)
My infant seat also locked onto some carts like the way it would snap into the base it came with. If it locked great, if not it went into the big basket. I never used it in the seat portion, even if it locked, if I had anther kid with me though. I once had ds2 sitting in the toddler seat and ds1 climbed onto the cart in front of the seat and the whole cart went over. Thankfully, ds1 landed on his butt and not his head and the cart with my toddler landed on him but was empty and nobody was hurt.
The clip was designed to work with the base and/or stroller, not shopping carts. Using it with shopping carts can actually damage the clip and make it more likely to malfunction with the base!
Our SafeKids coalition actually had a presentation by a shopping cart guy. The overall design of shopping carts hasn’t changed much since WWII, and although carts have spaces for kids to sit, they weren’t really designed to support weight in that way. Putting extra weight at the top of the basket does tend to make it more unstable.
Another option: Wear Baby in the store!
I did tip the cart over when I was about 4 years old and my sister was 1. It was one of those tiny carts like they have at drug stores. She was sitting in the toddler seat in the cart and I tried to climb in the back. I still remember the sound her head made. She screamed the whole way home. So did my mom. I don’t remember if we went to the hospital. She was okay but it was scary.
My infant seat specifically includes instructions TO use it on a shopping cart. It is designed to do so and is perfectly stable.
Some people have told me that I shouldn’t do it because it raises the center of gravity and the whole cart could tip over. One, I’ve never seen a cart tip over. Two, my three year old weighs much more than my infant plus seat, so I guess she shouldn’t ride in the cart either. Yet I’ve never been warned to not let my toddler ride in the cart.
What carseat was this?
I worked at a grocery store for 13 years and carts tipped over ALL the time. I’ve seen many children and babies fall and hit their head on the hard concrete floor or get trapped under the cart when it falls on them. It has happened when the child hangs on the side of the cart, it also happens when you take a turn too quickly and it happens often when there is a car seat on top of the cart. It DOES throw the center of gravity off and I’ve seen carts tip when you hit a tiny pebble or divet in the ground. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I can assure you that you don’t want to hear that loud smack of a child’s head hitting the hard ground or the screaming and crying that follows after. I’ve seen too many kids go to the E.R. because of this. I hate to be blunt but if you ask anyone who has worked at a grocery store for long enough, they will have at least one horror story about this.
Hey wow you are just waiting for something to happened to one of your kids. listen to me I have 3 kids and you know what when your baby carrier seat is on the top the cart and you have a child on the back trying to stand up or whatever it will tip over I know from experience that almost happened to me.listen baby makers that makeCarriers and stuff they’re all about child safety they would not recommend that. if you need a warning other than trusting your intuition then honestly you’re not ready to be a mother