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Old 04-20-2009, 05:59 PM   #1
Island Girl
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Default Infant Life Vests

My daughter had twins in mid February. They weigh about 10 lbs right now. They will be coming to the island in a couple of months. What are the best vests to buy for them? How have you carried these little ones in the boat?

Two is more than double trouble. Hazelnut, how did you manage? Any tips would be appreciated.

IG
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Old 04-20-2009, 06:16 PM   #2
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my son is 20 months so last summer he was also 10 months. I do not know of a specific model that is comfortable for him. I went through 3 different ones and they all were too tight causing him to heat up quickly. The nice part about these vests were they were HIGHLY rated for protection but not so much on comfort level for him. He hated them to the point that we would only take him out if we absolutely had to. Sorry I couldn't be more of a help, but the rule of thumb I found was although they were highly rated and NOT cheap doesn't mean they are good for the child.

P.S. if you find a good one please post on here for I would like to get one for future children and guests as well.
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Old 04-20-2009, 07:47 PM   #3
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Default It aint easy but it's fun!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Island Girl View Post
My daughter had twins in mid February. They weigh about 10 lbs right now. They will be coming to the island in a couple of months. What are the best vests to buy for them? How have you carried these little ones in the boat?

Two is more than double trouble. Hazelnut, how did you manage? Any tips would be appreciated.

IG
Ha ha ha It certainly was not easy! I just did a quick scan on Overtons and found this:

http://www.overtons.com/modperl/prod...ID=1009&r=view

That's kind of like the one's we had. The important part is that there is no flotation material on the back and there is a flip up part behind the head. Obviously they are designed that way for a reason. As with anything they hated them at first but grew accustomed to them over time. One thing we made sure to do was buy the ugliest brightest orange color we could find. I am constantly amazed that they make dark colored or blue life jackets for infants and toddlers???? Call me crazy but I wanted to make sure that the vest was easy to spot in the water.
As for having twins on the boat.. At that age they pretty much had to be held. However, we did figure out that if you put on the life jacket they actually fit in their infant carrier seats (NOT STRAPPED IN)! But it helped when it was just the wife and I and she could put one down. Here is a picture of our daughter, she's 2 now, in her vest in her car seat. Notice that my foot is propped on the seat, it used to allow me to rock her while we boated.
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Old 04-20-2009, 09:17 PM   #4
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We used a Mustang for our little guy prior to him becoming a "big" 3 year old. we got it at West Marine.

Mustang makes a lot of high end safety gear for boating. Their infant stuff came highly recommended.
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Old 04-20-2009, 09:24 PM   #5
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Default two years ago

We had our daughter about that age two years ago. WE found that that a nylon vest with zipper and clips was best for that age. Snug but breathable and we always made sure to make her damp during the hott days. The next year we had a nice tight neoprine (misspelled I know) Same set up as a the nylon one but not as bulkey but had same boyancy. She used that one for a year and half this year we hae to get another one, I will try to get another neoprine one because they stay on the body like a wetsuit, but has the floating parts of a vest, she loved it and she just started to understand the only way on the boat was to wear that, at those ages though my best idea that worked:

Put the vests on the kids at the house or around 15 minutes before the boat ride. let them sit in it and hopefully get used to it, or they will atleats tire themselves out. then hit the boat and lay them across your lap, they will fall alseep from the gentle roll, or a nice smooth ride on plane.
It worked for us everytime then eventually did not have to put her in the vest until we got ot the boat
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Old 04-20-2009, 09:46 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Island Girl View Post
My daughter had twins in mid February. They weigh about 10 lbs right now. They will be coming to the island in a couple of months. What are the best vests to buy for them? How have you carried these little ones in the boat?

Two is more than double trouble. Hazelnut, how did you manage? Any tips would be appreciated.

IG
IG,
Ours are 14 months apart so we did not have twins. However, we brought the baby to the store to see which fit better. We did not get the most expensive one because it did not fit well. The one we ended up with was the LL Bean orange one, like hazelnut we wanted visibility. We also put the baby in the car seat (unstrapped) and all they did was sleep any time the boat moved. We put the vest on a few times before we needed it for the boat so when we got to the boat it was not new for them. They never had trouble. We were lucky. One was 3 months the first time on the boat the other was only 6 weeks. Hope this helps.

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Old 04-20-2009, 10:25 PM   #7
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All three of our children used the LL Bean orange infant vest. It fits well and holds up amazingly well. I would recommend it to any parent.
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Old 04-21-2009, 05:48 AM   #8
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IG,

Although it was a long time ago, we also went for the bright color, in our case, yellow. The vest was a Stearns and had the aforementioned "pillow" behind the head feature. It also had a strap attached to the shoulders so, god forbid, if the infant went in the water, you could quickly grab the strap and yank them out. All 3 of our kids were on the boat early and in my daughter's case, just 12 days old.
If you get the right vest and with your confidence in a boat, you'll be fine.

BT
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Old 04-23-2009, 09:44 AM   #9
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Default Try Overtons

Overtons has infant vests.
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Old 04-24-2009, 06:54 AM   #10
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We had my son out early. They LOVE boats. This is a picture of him his first summer. He was probably 6MO at this time
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