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Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
Jake's Mom
member
UPDATED:This story is a reminder for all of us about shopping carts & babies/kids...
Jake's Mom
member
We need to be careful and vigilant with our babies/kids when it comes to shopping carts.
https://www.ajc.com/news/macon-infant-dies-in-1186672.html
So freaking sad.
Another link:
https://www.macon.com/2011/09/22/1713527/infant-dies-after-falling-from.html
This discussion has been closed.
Re: UPDATED:This story is a reminder for all of us about shopping carts & babies/kids...
Britax seats are specifically made to not "sit" deeply on the top of a carriage and are actually quite slippery and easy to move.
This story tells more of what happened. Sorry about that. I will replace the first link with this one.
https://www.ajc.com/news/macon-infant-dies-in-1186672.html
I think its possible that the baby was in the carrier portion of an infant carseat that was set in the top of a grocery cart. You can't strap your infant seat into the grocery cart. I would guess they hit a really big bump and the carrier toppled out of the grocery cart with the infant strapped in. Even if the LO did not bang his head, the sudden stop could have caused head trauma similar to shaken baby syndrome. How absolutely awful.
I know our infant carseat carrier is too large to sit securely on the top of a shopping cart. We take two carts and put the seat in the bottom of the full basket of one cart and use the other for our shopping purchases. If I am shopping with LO alone, I just place my purchase items in the front or on the bottom of the cart.
When my son was little I would get annoyed with DH being anal about the carrier being attached to the cart and him holding onto it all the time while he pushed.
With my older child I just put her on the top of the cart and went about my business, we weren't married then.
I am glad nothing happened to her or my son but this story just shows how something so harmless and routine can turn into something utterly tragic.
I wonder why the employee was pushing the cart and not the customer? Is that common at Kroeger (we don't have one around here)?
Where we live it is common for them to push the cart out and put the groceries in your car for you. I practically have to fend them off with a stick and bullhorn at the store when I tell them "No".
ETA- One story somewhere said the person pushing the cart was a family friend and the employee of the store.
I have never heard of an employee pushing a cart out either, maybe sometimes for an older women or something.
So sad, but I can see how that can happen - people probably dont realize the infant carriers really dont fit on top real well. We also always put ours in the basket and then I would just cram my stuff around the carrier.
There are two grocery stores in my town/city that don't have the parking lot shopping cart return stalls, so if you have more groceries than you can hand carry out to the car, an employee HAS to help you out to your car so they can return the cart to the inside of the store. I guess it's store policy or something since the store doesn't want the liability of random carts left loose in the parking lot.
Anyway.....this is such a tragedy. I hope I never have to know what those parents are going through
Yes, here in Georgia, the Kroger stores all have the employees push your carts out for you.
I also knew of a toddler who fell out of a cart and broke his arm because his mom was a negligent drug addict. Just a good reminder for all of us to keep our babies safe and secure!
Sometimes when DS is with me I accept the help with loading my groceries in the car (if it's raining, I wasn't able to get a spot near the cart return, I have a ton of groceries, etc.), but I always push the buggy and let the associate walk beside me. I know I'm a super paranoid and over protective parent, but even being afraid of other drivers in the parking lot - I don't trust a teenager that I've never met before pushing the cart.
This really is sad. I did put the infant carrier in the front part at some stores (where they fit), but I never will again if DH and I are able to have more children.
i'm under the impression that the baby was buckled in the seat and they sat the seat in the top part of the basket. when he hit the speed bump, the seat fell off and the baby inside of it hit his head. i always put my infant seat in the basket itself and put my stuff around her, at the top where the little kids sit, and under. there have been lots of warnings about how the infant seats are not made for the top of the basket.
This story has really been eating away at me. I had Graco SnugRides for both of my boys and I still have both manuals. I looked and even the one from 7 years ago has a Warning to never put the carrier on the top of the cart. I never read that and both of my boys were in carriers in the top of the cart. My youngest was only that way a few times, because my grocery store got new carts and the seat didn't sit securely at all.
I think I'm going to have a hard time grocery shopping tomorrow because I know I'll see people shopping like that and it's going to remind me every time I see one.
Cam 6.6.10 - Autism, Global Developmental Delay, Mixed Receptive/Expressive Communication Disorder
You don't? I grocery shopped solo with my 2u2 all the time and never put an infant seat up there. I'd wear DD (the baby) and buckle DS (the toddler) into the seat of the cart.
(read it. you know you want to.)
anderson . september 2008
vivian . february 2010
mabel . august 2012
I always did this with DS. For some reason, the Graco Snugride seemed to "click" onto the cart. I actually had a hard time getting the seat off sometimes!
BUT - after reading this. I think for the next LO (whenever that is) I will be using my front carrier while food shopping..
This! Mine clicked into the cart and I would have to unclip it. After reading this, I wouldn't do it again. I did also put the baby carrier in the cart and suff around her, for which I got way more side eyed.
Accidents can happen even when you take precautions.
Dd1 did fall out of the cart. She was a toddler and she was buckled up. She managed to unbuckle herself and stood up on the seat and fell backwards into the cart. I was standing right there, but was looking a soup lables for msg and looked over and gasped which is when she fell backward. Thank god we had just been in the produce department, some ground meat and strawberries etc broke her fall. She was totally unharmed, just scared. She screamed like bloody murder and some woman walked by and said something trite about not watching my kids or not being a good parent.
that's terrible! i was really paranoid about that when a was little. it's one reason i wanted to do more babywearing... because the carseat just isn't made to go into the grocery cart well.
on another note, i was at the store a couple weeks ago and there was a dad (or something) shopping down the aisle. he had a girl who looked about 7 and a toddler in the seat part of the cart. i don't know if the toddler wasn't buckled in or what, but while dad was rooting around in the refrigerated section, the boy was climbing up out of the seat to lean on the glass door. the 7 year old just watched but it scared the *** out of me! i actually started over to try to get dad's attention, saying, "sir, sir!" and the toddler turns around, totally busted, and sits back down properly. the 7 year old looked stunned and i don't think dad ever knew anything had even happened.
How sad.
I want to add that this is also why you shouldn't put infant car seats on highchairs turned upside down in restaurants. A few months ago we were at a restaurant and the high chair was knocked over and the car seat fell off (not us, another table). The baby seemed ok, but I can just imagine that even a short fall could potentially harm a small baby.
When DD was that young we'd decline a highchair and just set her car seat on the floor if we didn't have a booth or someplace easy to put her. We got so many weird looks from hostesses/servers, but those high chairs are obviously not meant to be stable upside down.
BF help & support * My Charts
Exactly, there are choices. Wear them. Have the older child walk. Put the carseat in the big part of the cart, the older child in the seat, and carry a basket. You make it work.
I didn't say there were NO choices. I said there weren't many. I'm well aware of the the things you listed. I also stated (as conveniently left out of the quote) that I held onto the seat the entire time. Not a whole lot different from carrying the seat around, the cart is just helping with the weight. And really, putting the infant seat in the large part of the cart doesn't work very well. I'm not talking picking up a few items, but big grocery shopping. Where would you put the food?!? When you have no family in town and your husband works crazy hours, you just do what you have to do. My children are alive and well and have never fallen out so I feel just fine about my choices :-D
Cam 6.6.10 - Autism, Global Developmental Delay, Mixed Receptive/Expressive Communication Disorder
I'm more concerned about other things happening with the car seat.
1) How did the child's head hit the ground? If he was buckled into the seat correctly (and snugly) he should not have had space to hit his head. If he was buckled loosely then perhaps he would have slipped some and had room to hit his head, but if I buckled DS into his infant carseat at 3 months and flipped it on it's front he wouldn't have been able to touch the ground with anything.
2) If the minor fall from the cart was enough to cause the child's head to hit the sides of the carseat hard enough to cause fatal injuries, how in the HELL are we supposed to be trusting them in an accident? I mean, what if I get t-boned! That would be a much harder impact, right?
I put the carseat in the top of carts that I could clip onto the cart only. If the seat didn't actually clip in totally (like the locking mechanism closed totally and the cart couldn't just be pulled off) and fit without wiggling, I went to a different store (the only store I ran into this was a small local grocery store that I was going to grab a few things at that I forgot on the way home from the bigger store with carts that fit perfectly. I just had DH get those things on his way home at the same store.) I didn't have a Moby wrap yet and that worked fine for us. This time I will be putting DS in the seat of the cart, so I'll wear the new LO.
I literally cringe every time I see a carseat on the top of a cart. Even the ones that "clip" in- it throws off the balance of the cart and makes it top heavy. I admit, when DD was tiny we did it once or twice until I read the link below about it. When we have our next baby, I vow to never do it. This baby will be worn every time in the grocery store. It's not worth the risk to me.
This link explains why an unstrapped in baby would actually fare better in a fall, and why putting the seat on top of the cart is a bad idea in general:
https://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=94954
ITA. I guess the baby could have fallen forward but how would the employee miss an infant carrier falling out and not try to catch it?
Um, because things happen quickly and even if you try to catch it doesn't mean you can. I can't believe people are even questioning this.