You may see friends preparing for their first child and cluelessly trying to pick out and install a child seat for baby in their new vehicle. Lots of questions swirl around: where does it face? Backwards? Forwards? When is it time for a new one? There are a lot of important questions- and even more important proper answers.
Mom and dad- listen up. The Ministry of Transportation says that up to 80 percent of child-seats aren't installed correctly- a nasty statistic given that child-seats can reduce the risk of serious injury or death by over 70 percent. It doesn't take a math wizard to figure out that every year, children are needlessly hurt in car accidents due to improper child seat usage.
For infants, proper seating is in a rear-facing child-seat until they weigh in at over 20 lbs. Until this weight, it's important to position infants rearward and away from an active airbag. The Ministry of Transportation says that the seat should rest at a 45 degree angle (vertical to seat-back) and have no more than an inch of movement in any direction at the base. Ensure that straps are clipped in properly, and that there's no more than a fingers worth of slack in said strap at baby's collarbone. The chest clip should be flat across the baby's chest at armpit level, too.
Once your baby passes 20 pounds in weight, they can ride a forward-facing child seat, which may be attached by a seatbelt or a tether-strap and anchor system called LATCH. The abbreviation stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for CHildren, and includes various mounting points that help owners attach a seat without having to use the vehicles' actual grown-up seatbelts.
Anchoring points are installed between the vehicle's seat cushion and seat back, in at least two of the rear seating positions. These anchoring points work with top tether anchors, generally mounted to the rear window shelf behind the back seats. It's all intended to make installation of a child seat easier and more standardized- doing away with the need to deal with different types of seat-belts in different vehicles. You'll need to check your car and your child seat to ensure that they're LATCH compatible- but most made after 2002 are. Remember, LATCH is an option intended to make mounting easier- and if your vehicle doesn't have it, you can still install the child-seat safely using the standard seatbelt method.
Mom and dad- listen up. The Ministry of Transportation says that up to 80 percent of child-seats aren't installed correctly- a nasty statistic given that child-seats can reduce the risk of serious injury or death by over 70 percent. It doesn't take a math wizard to figure out that every year, children are needlessly hurt in car accidents due to improper child seat usage.
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For infants, proper seating is in a rear-facing child-seat until they weigh in at over 20 lbs. Until this weight, it's important to position infants rearward and away from an active airbag. The Ministry of Transportation says that the seat should rest at a 45 degree angle (vertical to seat-back) and have no more than an inch of movement in any direction at the base. Ensure that straps are clipped in properly, and that there's no more than a fingers worth of slack in said strap at baby's collarbone. The chest clip should be flat across the baby's chest at armpit level, too.
Once your baby passes 20 pounds in weight, they can ride a forward-facing child seat, which may be attached by a seatbelt or a tether-strap and anchor system called LATCH. The abbreviation stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for CHildren, and includes various mounting points that help owners attach a seat without having to use the vehicles' actual grown-up seatbelts.
Anchoring points are installed between the vehicle's seat cushion and seat back, in at least two of the rear seating positions. These anchoring points work with top tether anchors, generally mounted to the rear window shelf behind the back seats. It's all intended to make installation of a child seat easier and more standardized- doing away with the need to deal with different types of seat-belts in different vehicles. You'll need to check your car and your child seat to ensure that they're LATCH compatible- but most made after 2002 are. Remember, LATCH is an option intended to make mounting easier- and if your vehicle doesn't have it, you can still install the child-seat safely using the standard seatbelt method.
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