Are my car seats breeding?

When I first had DD I was convinced she was going to be an only child. This was not (just) because of the 52 intimate stitches that accompanied her arrival, and nor was it solely because of the shocking lack of sleep I experienced in, ooh, the first 12 weeks [thinks of DS three years on, rolls eyes, yawns].

No, it was actually because of the amount of car seats one would have to own if one had more than one child.

Dubai-based mum Lesley Cully has made it her mission to get Dubai residents to “Buckle up in the back” but it’s still not mandatory for children to be in car seats in Dubai. Shocking, no?

As a new mum with a full-time job, I was traumatised by having one car seat permanently fixed in the back of my car. How would I be able to drive more than three of my work colleagues out to lunch now, I wondered?

And worse: If I had two children, there would be two car seats in the back, rendering the entire back seat a no-go zone for trendy media types needing a lift to press conferences / the airport / boozy lunches.

Furthermore, as DH got involved in dropping off DD, we were faced with another dilemma: It was too damned complicated to take the car seat out of his car in the morning, leave it at the nursery, and for me to fix it into my car at pick-up (I was truly blonde then, my dears).

So a second car seat was purchased for DH’s car – and I practically came out in hives. Two car seats! What was my life coming to?

And now I feel we need to dub these two original car seats Adam & Eve, for they have, in the last six years, bred exponentially.

A recent inventory of car seats I now own shows prolific growth:

3 x high-back boosters (for DS – one in my car, one in DH’s car, one in granny’s car in the UK)

5 x booster seats (three in Dubai for DD and friends; two in UK)

2 x BubbleBums – One in UK, now punctured but apparently still safe thanks to pelvis buckle bits, and one new, in Dubai, for travel and unexpected children in car.

I have two children and I own 10 car seats. Honestly? The new-mum “me” would have been horrified.

Edited to add: I have two more I forgot about! Both baby seats needing to be sold – one in Dubai and one in the UK, so 12 car seats!!!