car seat

.....1-800-407-8665 TO ORDER OR TALK TO A LIVE PERSON

WEB PAGE SETUP AND DESIGN 800-228-7488 © salesco 1997 all rights reserved

Car Seats: Rules of the Road

How to guarantee that your littlest passenger has a safe and comfortable car ride.

William Sears, M.D.
Martha Sears, R.N.
Adapted from The Baby Book: CD-ROM Version

<Picture: M>ake baby’s first ride a safe ride by purchasing and properly installing a car seat before taking baby home from the hospital. Some advice for travel:
<Picture>

General Safety Tips

•Decide where in the car to put your baby. Theoretically, the center of the rear seat is the safest place for baby in a safety seat. Practically speaking, parents traveling alone with a child frequently take their eyes off the road and turn around to check that the child in the backseat is all right. If you are an easily distracted parent, consider putting the child in the front passenger seat. Unless you have no choice, do not put a tiny baby in a rear-facing car seat alone in the backseat. The infant would be unsafely out of your vision, and specially installed safety mirrors to view your rear-facing infant may be too distracting. Better to put your infant in the front seat, but never put a rear-facing car seat in front of an air bag. A three-seat-belt, bench-type front seat is much safer and more practical for family car travel than sporty bucket seats.

Use a car seat only in a seat that faces forward.

•Read the instructional manual for anchoring and attaching the seat belt correctly. Be sure your car seat can be used with the particular seat belts in your car. Pull the seat belt tight, then test its security by pulling the car seat forward. If you can easily tip it over, tighten or reposition. Use the locking clip (provided with newer car seats) if your car’s shoulder/lap belt latch plate slides freely; otherwise the seat will not be anchored securely. Do not put the shoulder portion of a shoulder/lap belt through the car-seat slots. Automatic seat belts will not safely anchor a car seat. Regularly inspect seat belts and connections for wear and tear. Also be sure the car seat fits in your car. The seats of some cars have such an unusual contour or slope that some car seats will not safely fit.

•Position the car seat at the correct angle. If the position is too upright, baby’s head may plop forward; too far back and the car-seat back may not contain baby in the event of a crash. Some car seats come with a correct-position indicator.

•Support baby’s wobbly head, especially in the first few months. You can use rolled-up towels, diapers, or commercially made car-seat inserts. A folded baby sling makes an ideal horseshoe-shaped head support for a tiny infant in a car seat.

•To avoid burning little skin, cover plastic or metal parts if the car has been sitting in the hot sun. Car-seat covers protect your infant’s skin against hot or cold surfaces as well as cushioning baby.

•For cold weather, if you do not have a fitted car-seat cover, drape a blanket over the seat and cut holes in it for the harness strap and buckle to come through.

•Do not wear your baby in a cloth carrier in your car. Keep him in the car seat at all times. If baby is crying and hysterical, it is safer to pull off the road, stop, and comfort your baby rather than remove baby from the car seat.

•Let older children model “buckling up” for the toddler. Be sure they understand the non-negotiable rule that the car does not start until all the buckles are snapped.

•If you’re planning to use the car seat for plane travel, be sure your seat is certified for use in aircrafts.

•If you are borrowing or buying a used car seat, check the label to be sure that it conforms to government safety standards.

•Choose a car seat appropriate for your child’s age, weight, and height.

<Picture: Up>
<Picture: Jump>
<Picture: Down>

<Picture: Share Your Experience>
<Picture>

Birth to Twenty Pounds

Safety seats for this age and weight are rear facing and recline at an angle of forty-five degrees. With this design, most of the forward force of a collision is transmitted to the seat belt holding the seat. The rear-facing, semiupright position allows the remaining force to be distributed throughout the baby’s back to bones and muscles. Be sure to secure baby snugly in the seat with the safety harness. There are two types of starter car seats: infant seats and convertible seats.

Infant seats. These are tublike seats for infants weighing less than twenty pounds (nine kilograms), they have the added advantage of doubling as a carrier to transport a sleeping baby outside the car, and can be used as an infant seat inside the house. Infant car seats are designed only to be used in the rear-facing position.

Convertible car seats. Heavier, taller, and more expensive than the infant seat, convertible seats can be used for a child weighing up to forty pounds (eighteen kilograms); so you do not have to buy a second car seat. But these are cumbersome. The weight and design of convertible seats make their use as an out-of-car transport seat impractical. And some of the convertible car seats seem too big for a baby under three months. Even though most manufacturers suggest facing the convertible car seat forward when the infant reaches twenty pounds (usually at nine to twelve months), a safer rule is to leave the seat facing the rear until at least one year of age. If the seat is turned forward too early in baby’s development, his heavy, wobbly head could lurch forward. Rear facing is the safest position.

A recommendation from the Sears family: We have logged many miles with many kids. Our choice is the rear-facing infant seat until baby becomes too tall. Then switch to a forward-facing seat with a three-point harness and T-shield. How can you tell when baby is too big for a rear-facing infant seat? The usual manufacturer-suggested guideline is twenty pounds. A safer guideline is baby’s height. When baby’s head protrudes over the top of the seat, it is time for a forward-facing seat. If baby becomes too tall for the car seat, his large head could pitch backward, unprotected during impact.

<Picture: Up>
<Picture: Jump>

<Picture: Share Your Experience>
<Picture>

Twenty to Forty Pounds

These seats (usually for babies older than nine months) are higher and face forward. A fact of human life is that if a contraption is not easy to use, we won’t use it. Not only should parents choose a government-approved car seat for each age, they should also test the seat in the store before purchasing to be certain they are comfortable with it. The harness connection is what causes most impatient parents to become lax in the use of the car seat. Choose one that requires only a single connection. The easiest is the harness strap that is attached to a large plastic T-shield that fits over baby’s lower torso and from which the safety catch protrudes. The harness strap and T-shield are drawn from the back of the seat over baby’s shoulders and snapped into place at the crotch. Be careful not to pinch baby’s leg while inserting the crotchsnap