Another expired carseat question (aka my in laws..

[SusanBAnthony]

Aka, my in laws are crazy.

So 5 years ago my mil's nutty sister offered us three expired convertible carseats. We declined, and advised her and my mil to please cut the straps and throw them away.

Now SIL has a baby, and has been offered these seats. Also, MIL babysits niece two days a week and plans to use one in her car. I again reminded them that they are expired, and should be tossed. They didn't care.

At this point I feel like I have said my piece. I have thought about just buying niece a new seat (the cheap Cosco scenara one that is 45$ or whatever) for her birthday. But I feel like 1. It will be seen as wasteful and not be appreciated since they already have perfectly good ones, and 2. I won't buy one for MIL too, so she will still be in an unsafe seat quite a bit.

Wwyd? Say something else? Just buy sil the new seat so that at least niece is safe most of the time? Something else I haven't considered?

[bronxgirl]

Have you said anything to SIL, or just MIL? If you haven't talked to SIL it's possible that she might not know and welcome the new seat, but if she knows and doesn't care than she may just return the new seat you bought her. That must be soi frustrating for you. I hope your niece is okay.

[w2w]

Did you tell your SIL? If so, I probably wouldn't do anything more. In all likelihood, the carseats will be fine. I personally wouldn't take that chance, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it is super dangerous.

[SusanBAnthony]

Yes, I have told my sil. I told her once, and mil twice (once when we refused them, once when they were offered to niece).

I will tell sil again when I see her next, if I can find a way to bring it up without being totally obvious. Luckily niece is a peanut and probably will be in her baby bucket for at least 6 more months, so I have a little time to try to bring it up.

The seats have never been used and I don't know how they have been stored, so I can't really comment on exactly how unsafe they would be. I don't know if they have been in a hot garage (probably bad) or a cool basement (probably fine).

[Deleted]

My father is very old school and went off on a tangent when I mentioned that car seats expire.

Luckily my brother is a Quality Control Manager at an infant product company (and they make car seats) so I had him give him the lowdown. Would it help to show them an article like this - baby.about.com/od/healthandsafety/f/car_seat_expiration.htm (and there are more that was just the first link).

That way its coming from a source and not "your opinion".