Blue Coyote Safety LLC

07/24/2023

Hello DMV neighbors,

It’s me you friendly neighborhood EMT, CPST and Dad. You May of noticed that I haven’t been posting or advertising in the recent months.

I unfortunately have been diagnosed with Cancer and have been focused on my health. I have been still able to do some Car Seat installation without any issues.

On August 3rd, I will be going in for a pretty large and complicated surgery to hopefully remove all the cancer. Post surgery I will be limited of movement and lifting for about a month…:… which means no car seat installations.

I will still be able to answer questions you all may have about Car Seat and installation, so feel free to drop a message or email.

Jacob Miller, Blue Coyote Safety

02/03/2023

01/04/2023

Hello, it’s your local dad, EMT and CPST. It never fails that when I start a car seat safety/ installation consultation I get “I’m so sorry the car seat is a mess” from the parent I’m helping with an older car seat. I want to reassure you all that I am completely fine with it and not judging it at all.

I’ll even air my dirty laundry….. or car seat. There are large patches of dried applesauce, and yogurt. We can see spots of dried milk/formula. When we explore the crevices we find, Goldfish, Bambas, Cheerios, french fries and a key to an apple keyboard!

Did you know that you can wash your car seat if you have time……which we all are very short off. I luckily needed to produce content, so I had an excuse to clean one of ours. In reality the only time you need to clean your car seat is if straps and buckles start to get sticky, start not working and become unsafe

Your owners manual (all owner’s manuals are available online) will have the manufacturer recommendations on how to properly clean your car seat. It’s very important to follow the instructions so you don’t damage any part of the car seat.

I cleaned our Grace 4ever convertible car seat. The most important rule of most manufacturers is no harsh cleaning chemicals, no bleach, no strong disinfectants, no purple wipes (medical people will understand that one). Most of the time you just need hot water and soap.

Graco allows you to wash all the padding in the washer on gentle and then hang dry. If you don’t have a washer a sponge or towel with hot water, a mild soap, and a little elbow grease get off most dried substances on the padding. Do not use your drier to dry, the heat can damage the foam material.

The webbing can not be submerged so a wipe down with a sponge and warm water did the trick. Any tricky spots you can use a mild soap. I wiped down the plastic body of the Graco car seat with warm water and then wiped it dry with a paper towel.

On a lot of car seats the buckle tends to get mucked up either gets hard to unbuckle or hard to actually buckle. Graco recommends soaking the buckle in a cup of warm, agitate it and press the buckle rapidly to dissolve or break up any material inside the mechanism. Then hang dry. Remember you can soak the buckle, but don’t submerge the buckle strap.

Every car seat manufacturer will have different ways to wash their car seat. Please follow your make/model specific cleaning instructions.

01/01/2023

Happy 2023!!

What is my New Year Resolution? Personally it is try to find more time for my family and hobbies like cycling, and volunteering at my firehouse…… I know my officers would be a lot less stressed not sending me notes about getting my shifts done.

My New Year Resolution for Blue Coyote Safety is to help families be and feel more safe, without feeling judged. I know personally I have really worked on talking with safety to families with out sounding judgmental, and I still have work to do.
To often I see parents online talk down to other parents because they aren’t as being safe as they can……. Being a parent is hard and you can’t know everything, and as a human we can’t be 100% safe all the time, if you did want to be 100% safe, you would never get in your car.

I recently was part of a parenting post about traveling with a child in a car seat. The parent wanted to leave early morning around 3am so their child would have 4hrs of sleeping for the 6hr car ride. One parent went completely rude and brought up the 2hr car seat rule so they “Can’t” do that and need to have another plan. Then another parents brought up that driving late at night is dangerous and they weren’t being safe parents.

As a parent who has had done a couple 6hr drives, I drove purposefully so that my son would sleep through as much of the ride as possible. Have you driven in traffic with a child screaming for 2hrs, I have and it’s terrible and dangerous.

If you come and ask me at Blue Coyote Safety about driving at night or longer drives, I will share with you what the “Best Practices” are and ways to consider to be safe using “Good Practices”.

If you come and ask about an expired car seat or one that was in a crash and tell me that you can’t afford more. I will tell you that the “Best Practice” would be get a new car seat, but I would give you resources for “Good Practice” like going to a free car seat installation clinic, or help you try to find free resources for free car seats….. did you know that DC has a car seat voucher program.

There are reckless parents out there that carry their kids on their laps and don’t have a car seat because they don’t want to put their kids in it……. Those parents are judged by me.

But then their are those parents who don’t know how dangerous driving with an unrestrained child is or that they can’t afford a car seat or that the ride they were able to get doesn’t have a car seat, this are parents that I refuse to judge.
Parents that don’t have their child’s chest harness in the proper place, that is not judged, but I will give you the tools of Best Practice so you can be as safe as possible.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun 2023, and that you never have to see that outcome of the tools I share with you.

Jacob Miller, Blue Coyote Safety.