Shopping cart safety

The babies are toddlers, Spring is in the air, and we have been venturing out of the house more often.  I have noticed a huge increase of parents with their infants in the infant carrier car seats out and about too.  It pains me to say, but I have also seen at least 2-3 people in every store we visit that are putting their precious babies at risk.  They are setting the infant car seat carriers on top of the shopping cart.  They either bridge it sideways across the basket area or they perch it on top of the toddler seating area.  I know how difficult it can be to go shopping with an infant....I have had three!  It is even more difficult to go out with an infant and an 18 month old toddler.  So, I can understand wanting to make the most of the space that you have and to quickly and efficiently get your errands done before having to rush back home again.  But there are somethings that we just shouldn't do as parents.

Now, I have written about this subject before.  But I can't stress enough about how important it is to not ignore this warning.  Just because you hear a "click" or you can't "pick up" the carrier when it's on the cart, doesn't mean that it's secure if the cart were to tip over.  Plus, carts are more likely to tip over if infant car seat carriers are attached because it changes the center of balance on the cart making it top heavy.  Now, most people think that their baby is safer when they are closer to their face and they can see them and touch them, but that's just not true.  Even if you keep two hands on the cart all the time, there is no way to  keep the cart from tipping slightly if you accidentally run over something in an aisle or if someone bumps into the cart.  If the cart tips slightly, your infant car seat carrier can easily slide off the cart and possibly injure your baby.

This is my thought.  I think that we should petition all of our local stores to enact a security policy in their stores.  They should post at all cart storage areas information stating that car seat carriers are not allowed on top of their carts.  They should teach employees to kindly ask people who ignore those signs to please remove their infant car seat carriers from the top of their carts whenever they see it happening.  If the stores stop permitting this behavior, then there is a bigger chance that a baby won't be needlessly injured.  So please, next time you are at your favorite store, take a moment to talk to a manager about this.  Little by little we can make our world a safer place.