A New Year's Resolution That Benefits You & Your Baby

I saw something new on RESPs (Registered Education Savings Plans) the last time I was in Vancity. The BC government will give you an extra $1,200 over and above the federal government grants. I thought it might be useful to relate our experiences with this valuable financial aid.
We have two children in University now and I can assure that it will cost you between $10,000 (if they stay at home) and $15,000 per year per child when they embark on their post-secondary education.
The RESP is the Great Government Giveaway that anyone with a child can take advantage of. Open an RESP account any bank or credit union, deposit as much as $2,500 per year (or $100 every bi-monthly paycheque) and the government will give you $500. Invest this money any way you like. Any gains on your investments are not taxable until you begin to use the funds for education. Repeat every year. Do this for 18 years and you have $54,000, not counting any investment income. The BC money of $1,200 is available to you once your child has reached the age of 6. You could (if you wanted) choose to start your RESP account at that time.
When you take the money out, the grant portion (ie. the $500/year from the government) is taxable. Make sure you give it to your child who presumably is in a lower tax bracket than you are. The $2,500 you put in each year is not taxable if you give it back to yourself (after all you invested with aftertax income). Any investment gains are taxable, so once again, make sure you give those to your child to reduce your taxes.
Let’s say your child chooses not to go on to post-secondary schooling. No problem, just return the grant portions (the $500/year the feds gave you and the $1,200 BC gave you). Everything else is yours and the same tax rules apply as above.
We are really glad we have money to fund our kids’ education and we are really glad they will not have any student loan debt once they graduate.

What Car Seat Fits in your Car?

This is a pretty regular question from our customers and the quick answer is that car seats, when rear-facing, are the same depth. Yesterday, I helped install a Clek foonf into a Kia Forte and noticed that by using the "infant-thingy" from Clek for a newborn, the foonf is actually quite a bit shorter than any infant or rear-facing convertible seat.

The Kia Forte is particularly short in the back seat, much like the BMW X3 and all Audis. All of them are great cars, they are just not the greatest for rear-facing car seats.

Here is why:
A rear facing car seat has to be (1) properly secured; (2) properly angled to 45 degrees (so the baby's head does not flop forward); and (3) have space to react in a crash.

The back seat of any car or SUV is not flat, but rather inclined backwards towards the seat back. The car seats on display in our store are on a flat surface.

All infant only seats that we sell (the Peg Perego Primo Viaggio, the Maxi-Cosi Max30, and the UPPAbaby Mesa) all have a "bolster" built into their bases to allow the base to be properly angled to achieve the 45 degrees required. This makes getting the angle right easier, although in rare cases an additional bolster is needed. Our rear-facing "convertible" seats also have to be positioned so that baby is laying at a 45 degree angle. With the Britax convertible car seats, there are 7 different recline positions which generally achieves the purpose. With Clek seats, their rigid rebound bar combined with a tight latch belt fit allows you to put the seat at the proper angle. The Peg convertible invariably needs extra bolsters to get into the proper rear-facing position for infants.

The key point here about the angle is that it makes the rear-facing car seat longer, leaving less room for the front passenger seat. When I am assisting people to put in their rear-facing car seat, I always put the front passenger seat as far forward as possible. Once the seat is installed at the proper angle and tightness, I then have the front passenger moved back so that there are 2 fingers thickness between the rear-facing seat and the front passenger seat.

The reason for the space between the car seat and the front seat is to allow the car seat to react freely and DIRECT CRASH FORCES AWAY FROM YOUR BABY. So many people with good intentions ram the front seat back into the rear-facing car seat, thinking they are doing a smart thing. No, the car seat has to be able to move downwards in a crash and then back in a rebound, thus directing crash forces along the bottom of the car seat rather than into the cockpit where your baby is.

You can see in the picture above that the car seat is at the proper angle and that there is a space between the front passenger seat and the rear-facing car seat of about 1 inch (2 fingers).

What is interesting about the Clek foonf and Clek fllo is that when using the "infant thingy" (for babies up to about 6 months old), you remove the head rest, thus making the length of the rear-facing car seat slightly less than a standard infant only seat at the proper angle.

The video below shows an accurate representation of what would happen to a child seated in the forward facing position versus the rear facing position.

I will be writing a lot more about car seat installation and related items in the near future. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to keep abreast of the latest blog entries.

Why we chose Bumbleride Strollers for Crocodile Baby

We are very picky about what strollers we sell. Every one of them has to have great maneuverability, great durability, and be backed by great after sales service from the manufacturer. We have just added Bumbleride to our list, with the Indie, the Indie twin and, coming soon, the Speed a lovely jogging specialty stroller. here are several reason why we have chosen this manufacturer:

The Air is Guaranteed.

Bumbleride is the only stroller company that provides a 1 year warranty on the inner tubes and tires on its strollers. This means that if you get a flat tire, you advise the company (we will give you their hotline) and they send you the replacement you need. Now practically, only a few people are going to ask for this and it will cost Bumbleride to provide this service. Therefore, they are providing inner tubes and tires of a higher quality that do not get flat. This is just a common sense thing for them to do. The benefit for the consumer is fewer flat tires and less time spent fixing an expensive stroller.

Green Fabric.

The fabric is made of recycled PET bottles and from bamboo based fabric. Both are ecologically sound things to do. From pop bottles to stroller fabric is worthy of Cradle to Cradle consideration. Using bamboo as a fibre base for fabric is also an ecologically sounder way than using cotton or a petrochemical based fibre.

A Lighter Stroller

The Bumbleride Indie is 25% lighter than its "active stroller" competitors. I know this because I took my trusty Luggage Buddy scale and picked up each of our strollers on display. While my device may be off as to the true weight, the relative weights of strollers is the right way to consider the "How heavy is the stroller?" question.

Made in Taiwan

Bumbleride's factory is in Taiwan, not China. This is not a really big deal but it is nice to know the strollers are made in a smaller, family-owned factory with a real interest in making high quality products.

Getting Even Greener

In early 2016, Bumbleride will launch its new running stroller the "Speed". Coincident with that, all of their strollers will use fabrics that have drastically reduced water consumption during the production process while improving the colour fastness. The process creates an 84% energy savings which results in 67% less CO2 emissions. How is this done? I understand it is due to the process dyeing the thread before it is made into fabric, much like the Crypton process waterproofs Clek seat fabrics. Is this a big deal? To have an idea about the importance of this, you may want to watch “Ju Dou” (Red Sorghum in English) a Chinese movie from 1990 starring the glorious Gong Li. The film won both the Cannes festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. You will see the tremendous amount of water that goes into dyeing fabrics and the potential pollution problems that could arise (and you will watch a really good movie).

Safety and Health

The fabrics used in all Bumbleride stroller are Oeko Tex certified, which means they have been tested for 110 toxic substances and none have been found. Other good products with this certification are Baby Bjorn carriers and all Stokke fabrics.

Please drop by any of our stores to see our Bumbleride strollers on display.