Big Babies Don't Cry

Having a child in the 95th percentile for height and weight has its pros and cons. On the upside, a) I now have more defined arms than when I was baby less and had time to actually work-out and b) surely our son is on the path to a college football scholarship (big 10 or Ivy, of course). One big negative - certain products are just not made for bigger babies and the poor guy outgrows everything long before he should.

So, because one of the reasons I started my blog was to pass along all of my insight and extensive research, I thought I'd share a couple of the items that work for the big[ger] set.

1. The Baby Seat - BebePod Plus

We (read: the little man) were given a Bumbo Seat as a gift. But the seat was blue, and ever the perfectionist, I decided to return the gift for a yellow or green seat to better match my decor. I went to a local baby boutique and was told that they no longer carry the Bumbo Seat, but chose to stock the Prince Lionheart BebePod and BebePod Plus. I asked what their reasoning was. The store clerk mentioned something about the leg openings being wider and the seat back being higher. They had me at wider and higher (and I seemed to tune everything else out). [And I finally stopped having visions of the baby's chunky pulkes getting stuck in the Bumbo seat and mommy trying to lift him out but the seat just won't come unattached]. I chose the BebePod Plus, which doubled as a feeding chair for us pre-highchair at 6 months with its clever tray. Another bonus of the BebePod Plus is that both the tray and pommel come off - so it's even easier to get big babies in and out of the seat. [Note: the pommel does not come off in the original version].



2. Convertible Car Seat - Britax Decathlon

There are two words that describe why this car seat won our big hearts (even if it blew our big budget) - adjustible crotchstrap. For a baby who outgrew his infant carrier prior to his half-birthday, we were only looking at those convertible car seats that could hold up to 65 lbs. But, even among the car seats that go up to 65 lbs., we knew that our vertically blessed baby boy was far less likely to outgrow the carseat with a 3 position crotchstrap (and we knew that daddy was willing to pay top dollar if mommy could sell it to him as protecting the family jewels). We chose the Sahara fabric figuring the lighter color was less likely to get hot in a parked car during the summer. We purchased it on-line, pattern unseen, so we lucked out when it arrived and the fabric was a supersoft plush microfiber.