Winter routine
Dressing a baby under a cover without adding bulk
Thin layers, harness, then warmth. The order does more work than the fabric does.
The order
Dress thin, buckle, then add warmth on top. Almost every winter problem in a car seat comes from doing those three in a different sequence, usually because the car is cold and the walk to it was colder.
Thin does not mean cold. Two close fitting layers hold heat better than one bulky one, and they hold it without standing the harness off the body. Fleece pyjamas under a knit suit, or a bodysuit under a fleece, both do the job.
The pinch test, done properly
Tighten the harness, then take the strap at the collarbone between finger and thumb and try to pick up a fold of webbing. Flat means tight enough. A fold you can pinch means loose, and it means loose no matter how snug the buckle felt.
Do it at the shoulder, not at the hip. The hip strap will feel tight long after the shoulder has gone slack, which is exactly the strap that matters when a coat is involved.
What to do with the coat
Take it off before the seat. Then put it back on your child backwards, arms through the sleeves the wrong way round, so it lies over the harness like a blanket with sleeves. It looks odd and it works, and it means you are not fighting an unhappy toddler in a car park.
If the walk at the other end is long, a cover that goes over the whole carrier saves you the coat argument entirely. Buckle in the warm house, drop the cover over the top, lift the carrier out at the other end.
Hands, feet and the head
Extremities lose heat first and are the least likely to affect the harness, so this is where to spend your bulk. Mittens, a hat that stays on, socks under a footmuff. None of it sits between the strap and the chest.
Check the back of the neck rather than the hands when you want to know if the layering is right. Cold fingers on a warm neck are normal. A hot, damp neck means one layer too many, and that matters in a heated car more than it does outdoors.
Getting into a warm building
The end of the journey is where overheating happens, because the cover is still on and nobody wants to wake anyone. A cover with a front flap you can fold back solves this in one movement, which is a large part of why we cut them that way.
The same applies in the car once the heater has caught up. Warmth is easy to add back and slow to take off a sleeping child, so take it off early.
Made to go on after the buckle
Footmuffs and carrier covers with front openings, so the layer underneath stays thin.
