Why Wearing a Poncho In Winter Is Necessary

Thank you to OliverAndAbagail for sponsoring this post. I was sent these ponchos in exchange for a blog review so all opinions, images and thoughts are my own. 
It's an easy mistake. I've been one to make for a long time, especially when I first lived in Chicago. I put my daughter in a huge coat because it was freezing outside and I wanted her to stay warm. But I didn't know was the danger I was putting her in being in such a big coat in her car seat.
For your child's car seat to offer the maximum protection in a crash, the harness or seat belt needs to be as close to your child as possible. Adding layers of padding or clothing between the child and the harness will make it harder to properly fit. The harness can end up fitting to the thick coat, and if in the event of a crash, all that extra air is forced out between the layers. This leaves the harness to loose to protect your child. With a loose harness, it means extra crash time on your child, or worse, your child could be ejected from their seat. This also applies to children in boosters and even adults wearing seat belts.
Learning all this information as my toddler grew bigger was a huge concern for me and as we expect our next child coming in a few months, I wanted to be as prepared as possible for the safety of both kids. Although moving to Atlanta a few years ago helped our family to not struggle in freezing temperatures, we still can get into the low 20's from time to time and we need heavy coats to keep us warm.
My daughter has NEVER been a fan of wearing a coat in her car seat so I had opted to have her wear a coat in the car, take it off and then once buckled in her seat, I put a blanket over her lap to keep her warm on our car ride home from school or out running errands. This process would take several minutes which could result in screaming or temper tantrums depending on the day. Let's just say we would both get a bit stressed with taking the coat on and off to and from stores and back in the car.

When I thought about it, I really needed something that was like a blanket but that Lily and I could both wear to and from the car and stores. Why not try a poncho, and not just any poncho but a gorgeous handmade one from Oliver And Abigail. This adorable shop is run by two Mom's who love to hand-sew their children's clothing to help coordinate and match both boy and girl outfits. After being told many times that they should open up their own store, they took a leap of faith with families and started their own website Olive and Abigail, which is named after their two youngest children. Aubrey and Amanda create all these gorgeous ponchos themselves so you know the amount of love and time put into it is precious and worth each stitch!
Lily is wearing their jazz poncho which could not be cuter on her! I love that each poncho is made with 100% cotton flannel and have snaps to close on each side which makes it easy for me to open and drape over her car seat when we travel! It's going to be our new favorite thing to wear for the next few months until we can pass this onto our baby boy when he gets older!
For those interested, there's a sale happening at 10am! All children's Perfect Ponchos are marked down to $40 through Friday at 11:59pm. Use code PERFECT10 to get an additional 10% off any order that has 2 or more items in your cart! Oh, and every $100 you spend you'll get an extra gift ( it's posted on their Instagram so check it out ) !! These make great gifts or just grab some of you and your littles!