Avoiding a baby driver death in hot cars

It was 2017, I was wearing these horrific grey maternity leggings that I refused to throw away even though Maya was already ten months old, and I was sitting at a red light on 4th Avenue with iced coffee literally pooling in my crotch. I had just grabbed my cup too hard, the plastic lid popped off, and brown liquid was everywhere. In my frantic scramble to grab a napkin from the glovebox, I glanced in my rearview mirror. I saw the empty base of the Graco car seat, and my stomach completely dropped out of my body. My chest seized up. I started hyperventilating so loudly the dog in the car next to me started barking. I pulled over so fast I scraped the absolute hell out of the front right rim of my old Honda CR-V.

It took me a full three minutes of ugly-crying into my sticky, coffee-covered steering wheel to remember that my husband, Dave, had taken Maya to daycare that morning. She wasn't with me. She was never with me on Tuesday mornings. But my brain—running on maybe four hours of broken sleep, raging postpartum hormones, and pure caffeine—had just completely fabricated a reality where I was supposed to have her in the back seat.

The horrible thing I used to believe

I used to be so incredibly judgmental before I had kids, which is hilarious because now I'm basically a walking dumpster fire of anxiety who can barely remember her own zip code. When you hear about a baby left in a hot car, the pre-kid reaction is always, like, absolute disgust. I remember being 25, single, and reading a news story about a tragedy like that, and I literally said out loud, "What kind of monster forgets their child?"

I remember telling Dave, back when we were still trying to get pregnant and I was tracking my ovulation like it was an Olympic sport, that those parents must be on drugs. Or they were just deeply selfish people who didn't love their kids. I was so arrogant. I thought love was a magical shield that protected you from making catastrophic mistakes. Oh god, I was so stupid.

And then I had Maya. And then, a few years later, I had Leo. And I realized that sleep deprivation is a literal military torture tactic for a very good reason. I found my car keys in the refrigerator once next to a half-eaten block of sharp cheddar cheese. I've poured orange juice into my coffee maker. If I can forget where my keys are while I'm actively holding them in my own hand, how the hell can I guarantee my brain won't glitch when I'm driving on autopilot?

If you try to search for safety statistics on this stuff now, the internet is completely useless. You type in anything about cars and kids, and you just get bombarded with pop culture garbage. You get articles about some baby driver movie from years ago, or random gossip about an actor, or maybe some obscure baby d vitamin recall notice. Like, no, Google, I don't care about a baby driver cast member right now. I care about the fact that I'm terrified of my own failing memory and I'm trying to figure out how to keep my kids alive in a metal box that heats up to 130 degrees in the summer.

Why my brain is actually broken

My pediatrician, Dr. Aris, told me once that babies aren't just tiny adults, which sounds obvious but structurally they're completely different. Their little bodies heat up like three to five times faster than ours do. A car can hit deadly temperatures in minutes, even on a day that feels like a crisp fall afternoon.

I fell down a rabbit hole at 3 AM while nursing Leo and read this study by a neuroscientist—David something, Diamond maybe?—who explained why loving parents forget their kids. He said it's a fight in our brain between "habit memory" and "prospective memory." When you drive your normal route to work, your brain goes into screensaver mode. It just drives. You don't even remember the commute. Usually, Dave takes the kids to preschool. That's his job. But last Tuesday he had a massive toothache and an emergency dentist appointment, so I had to do the morning baby drive.

My whole routine was shattered. When your routine changes, your "prospective memory" (the part of your brain that plans to do a new thing) is supposed to override your habit. But if you're exhausted, or stressed about being late, or if the baby falls asleep and stops making pterodactyl noises in the back seat, the habit part of your brain just violently takes over. You drive straight to work. You literally forget the kid is there. It's a neurological failure, not a moral one. And wrapping my head around that fact honestly scared the crap out of me.

The shoe trick and other weird hacks

Instead of just telling you to stop being tired and start being a perfect parent who never makes mistakes, here's what actually works for my garbage brain to prevent a tragedy. You basically have to trick yourself into being safe.

The left shoe trick: I literally take my left Birkenstock off and throw it in the backseat next to Leo's car seat. I started doing this when Maya was a newborn and Dave thought I had entirely lost my grip on reality. But you can't walk into the office with one shoe. You just can't. It forces you to open that back door to retrieve your footwear, and boom, you see your kid.
The annoying stuffed animal swap: Keep a giant, brightly colored plush toy in the car seat. When you strap the baby in, move the toy to the front passenger seat so it's staring at you with its dead plastic eyes while you drive.
The hostile daycare pact: I made our daycare provider promise to text me if Maya or Leo wasn't there by 9 AM, even if she thought I was just running late or playing hooky, because I'd rather be annoyed by a nagging text than live the rest of my life in absolute hell.
Locking the driveway doors: Toddlers will absolutely sneak into a hot car in your own driveway to play pretend, so just keep the damn doors and trunks locked at home. Keep your keys hidden.

I could honestly rant about the shoe trick for three more paragraphs because it's the only foolproof method for me. I've tried putting my purse in the back seat, but half the time I just grab my phone out of the cup holder and walk into the grocery store without my purse anyway. I've tried putting my laptop bag back there, but I work from home twice a week so that's not consistent. But the shoe? The shoe is non-negotiable. Walking on hot asphalt in one sock is a very immediate, physical reminder that you left something very important behind. As for those expensive Bluetooth car seat alarms that sync to your phone? They beep all the damn time for no reason when I hit a pothole, and I ended up getting so annoyed I disabled mine after two weeks, so honestly save your money.

Sweaty car seats and organic cotton

Speaking of the reality of hot cars, let's talk about how much babies sweat in those restrictive car seats even when you've the AC absolutely blasting. With Maya, I used to buy these cheap, stiff polyester outfits from big box stores because they had funny sayings on them. I'd pull her out of the car seat after a twenty-minute drive and her back would be absolutely drenched. She'd get these awful, raised red heat rashes all over her shoulders.

Dr. Aris took one look at her back during a checkup and was like, "Cotton, Sarah. Just use breathable cotton." That's why I became slightly obsessed with the Flutter Sleeve Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit. It's 95% organic cotton, which means it actually lets their skin breathe instead of trapping heat like a plastic bag. I put Leo in a gender-neutral version of this same fabric and he immediately stopped getting those angry red bumps behind his knees. It's wildly soft, it survives me washing it on the "heavy duty" cycle because I refuse to hand-wash anything, and the flutter sleeves on the girls' version are just stupidly cute without being irritating. It's an absolute must-have for summer driving when the car feels like an oven for the first ten minutes.

If you're overhauling your kid's summer wardrobe because you're tired of peeling them out of synthetic fabrics like a sweaty, crying banana, explore our organic baby clothes for pieces that genuinely breathe and move with them.

Keeping them awake versus letting them sleep

When we're in the car, I try really hard to keep them entertained so they don't fall asleep, which is exactly what triggers that terrifying brain autopilot I was talking about. A quiet car is a dangerous car for a sleep-deprived mom. If Leo is awake and throwing his snacks at the back of my head, I know he's there.

I bought the Bubble Tea Teether thinking it would be a cute, quiet distraction for the road. And honestly? It's just okay for the car. The silicone is totally food-grade and amazing for his swollen gums—he gnaws on the little boba pearl bumps like a little rabid dog—but the shape means he drops it under my seat constantly. I spend half the trip blindly reaching backward at red lights, dislocating my shoulder trying to fish it out from under old french fries and dried mud. But for home use when he's sitting in his high chair? Great. In the car? A dropped-toy nightmare.

To avoid the drop-the-toy game entirely, sometimes before a long trip, I'll purposely wear him out on the Wooden Baby Gym in the living room. I just lay him under those little wooden elephant toys and let him kick and reach and scream at the geometric shapes until he's completely exhausted. It's made of natural wood, it doesn't have any obnoxious flashing lights that give me a migraine, and it really tires him out physically. Of course, that means when we do finally get in the car, he's 100% going to pass out immediately—which means I absolutely have to use my shoe trick. But at least the drive is peaceful.

Anyway, the point is, you aren't a bad parent for being afraid of your own memory. You're a normal, exhausted parent. Stop relying on your brain to be perfect, and start throwing your shoes in the backseat.

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Stuff you're probably wondering about cars and kids

Why do cars get so hot so fast anyway?
Dr. Aris explained it to me like a greenhouse. The sun comes through the windows and heats up the dashboard and the seats, and that heat gets trapped inside. It doesn't matter if you parked in the shade at the grocery store or if you cracked the windows an inch. The air inside barely circulates, and within ten minutes, it's literally an oven.

Can I just leave the air conditioning running while I run into the gas station?
Oh god, no. Aside from the fact that it's illegal in a lot of places, cars can stall. The AC compressor can fail. Someone could literally steal your car with your kid inside. I know it's a huge pain in the ass to unbuckle them for a two-minute errand, but you just have to drag them inside with you. Buy them a bribe snack. It's fine.

What if I don't wear shoes I can take off easily for the shoe trick?
Then use your left shoe anyway and drive in your socks, or use your phone. Or your employee badge if you've to scan into work. Put your purse back there if you're the kind of person who literally can't function without it. The item just has to be something you absolutely need to start your day.

Do those baby car seat mirrors honestly help you remember?
Honestly, yes and no. I love my mirror because I can see if Leo is choking on a rogue Cheerio, but they can also create a false sense of security. If you're on total brain autopilot staring at the road ahead, you might not even glance at the mirror. Plus, Dave always bumps ours with his head when he's getting the baby out, knocking it out of alignment anyway. Use the mirror to check on them, but use the shoe trick to remember they're there.