To think my brother's wife is a lunatic

[acornfed]

So far around the enforced family dinner table I've heard she thinks car seats are largely unnecessary and are a result of intense lobbying by the car seat manufacturers. She regularly will pull out her 1 year child from the car seat and feed them in the back seat..on the motorway..she seems very proud of this

She also dismisses the Health Visitor advising her about finger food as "middle class advice " due to the waste generated with food being thrown on the floor. Safe to say SIL is the epitome of "middle class", living in a very "middle class area" and undertaking a very "middle class" job. Weird.

My maths and driving theory are just fine, thank you.
25 miles in 15 minutes means a vehicle travelled at 100 mph mate.

If the police saw someone hold a baby on the motorway I bloody hope they’d fine them.

Sorry MissBax but not the greatest idea it was only 15 mins!!

I didn't say it changes the risk, but I'd trust my own driving over that of a taxi drivers

Your driving won’t save you if you’re hit by an idiot on a motorway.

Also don’t they say that most drivers think they’re good drivers but statistically that doesn’t make sense.

Absolutely baffled by some of the excuses for passing a tiny child around in a moving car. Why wouldn’t you want your child to be safe? Can you not imagine the horror of losing your child in a car accident and knowing you didn’t do everything to keep them safe?

My sibling was killed in a car accident. Road safety is no fucking joke and as for that “tiny risk”? 24,610 people in the UK were killed or seriously injured on the roads last year. Absolutely arrogant and ignorant to think it could never happen to you.

OP you should have told your SIL that she can be reported to the police.

She’s right about car seat hype. Front facing rear facing high back no back this height that height all fabricated to make you buy buy buy.
A car seat is a very good thing BUT the BS that comes with it isn’t.

MissBax you’v no chance on this thread

A poster was the height of irresponsibility on here the other week for leaving baby out of carseat to drive around aldi car park at 5 mph from one space to a better one

Yes it is not right to take a baby out of a car seat on a motorway.
I totally dispute the finger food being wasteful belief too, both my boys were BLW'ed but they eat everything and are very unfussy. The amount of food fussy children waste is awful so in the long run, BLW is definitely less wasteful IMO.

I’ve soothed a crying baby in the car seat loads of times! You sit next to them and speak calmly and hold their hand - they may still scream but they know you’re there, it isn’t like cry-it-out. Taking the baby out for those 15 minutes is utterly stupid, irresponsible and terrible decision making. Honestly, whatever the risk it is not worth living with the worst case scenario there.

Oh, and if you’re driving alone with a baby then they just have to scream don’t they? There is nothing you can do then - if you have a spare adult in the car, they can soothe without taking the baby from the seat.

A poster was the height of irresponsibility on here the other week for leaving baby out of carseat to drive around aldi car park at 5 mph from one space to a better one

That’s hardly the same ballpark. What a lazy argument.

For those who think rear facing is all hype and marketing

m.youtube.com/watch?v=sssIsceKd6U

nannyogg has it in a nutshell. your driving may be impeccable bax but you can’t trust that everyone else’s is.

Case last year in Ireland where a Mum had taken her baby out of the car seat to comfort them, car struck and baby killed. This happened in a housing estate and speed was not a factor.

The word “lunatic” is probably not applicable to your relative OP but not using a car seat in a moving car is asking for all sorts of trouble.

She's incredibly irresponsible, but no, I doubt she is a lunatic based on what you have said. Do you think only lunatics (I'm assuming you mean people with mental ill health?) make poor judgements and/or act in a manner that might be consider by some to be reckless?

I've also had other mums tell me to take DS2 out of the buggy to feed him on a bus when he was a baby. I was . I'd rather have let him cry until we got off.

Well few will agree with the SIL on the car seat issue but I wonder if she is the poster who wrote on here that hummus and olives were something that 'middle class' people were into but only pretended to like them as a demonstration of their middle classness?

"She’s right about car seat hype. Front facing rear facing high back no back this height that height all fabricated to make you buy buy buy.
A car seat is a very good thing BUT the BS that comes with it isn’t."

Yeah, these fuckers that look at the safety of kids in the car and try to make them safer. Total bastards who Wang you to spend more than £10 from a car boot sale on a bashed around old seat...

Actually a lot of the campaigning comes from parents (like myself) who look at the research and watch crash rest dummy videos of what would happen to my child in an accident and decide taking my child out of their seat/having them front facing sooner than necessary is not a risk I want to take.

My v tall son was rear facing til 5 (we had a tiny 3 door car, so not an easy option) and is still in a well fitting high back booster at 9/140cm. My equally tall dd is rear facing at 4.5 and will be for as long as possible.

Op I agree your sil is mad, but then so are a few other posters on this thread, who decide car seats aren't always a necessity.

MissBax I’d hide the thread if I were you .

I’ll admit to taking DD out of car seat, not on the motorway but at the end of a very long journey. (Yes we’d stopped numerous times throughout the day) she had jist had enough and was inconsolable, despite me sitting next to her. We’d also pulled over to try to calm her but decided we just had to get her home. So we took her out and I fed her.
Yes it’s safer to have a child in an appropriate seat, which the vast majority of parents adher to. Deciding you need to consol your child by taking them once during their whole childhood, does not make you a bad parent.

People take chomdren out of car seats....on motorways....idiots idiots idiots!!!!!!!!

Astrid ITV? Oh my Lord. Whatever would the neighbours think?

As I’ve pointed out before it’s a form of natural selection: idiots do idiotic things and delete themselves from the gene pool.

Just sad that they do it to their own children. I can’t actually believe people think so highly of their own opinion that they can’t admit to being wrong about this.

Never take a baby out of the car seat while you’re moving! The recent story about the couple whose very young baby died as a result of doing so is tragic. The mother was driving and the father took the crying baby out of the car seat and almost immediately they had a fairly minor crash. Both parents were fine as they were strapped in. The baby went flying and died immediately as her father lost his hold on her as they crashed.
If you need to see to a crying baby then park up. If on a motorway take the next junction, you don’t have to drive to the next services.
If you can’t stand the noise turn up the radio but never take a child out of its restraint in a moving vehicle.

It doesn't make you a bad parent but it means you aren't safeguarding your child by doing this

My son hates his car seat. I completely get that it's stressful and horrible for all involved when a baby gets inconsolable, but we just have to minimise long journeys as much as possible (luckily family understand having been in the car wth him, and come to us for the time being), and stop as often as we can. When he's crying and we're on the motorway we sing to him and talk to him so he knows we're there but I can't understand how it would be ever worth the risk of taking him out of his seat. A crash might be unlikely, but the results would be horrific.
I would never leave him crying in other circumstances, but it really is the only option if you are on the motorway.