Congratulations, you’re expecting your first child!
Your pantry is stocked with homemade food and sauces stored in your favorite glass jam jars wholesale solution. Also, your home is soon going to be filled with baby gifts coming in pretty wraps and boxes by the top cardboard gift box factory.
You’ve picked out your baby gear plus the baby seat and figured out which way it has to face in the car. The proper installation of a child safety seat in a vehicle is now an issue of paramount importance.
This issue is exacerbated by the fact that not enough people utilize car seats or use them incorrectly when they do. Yet, when used properly, car seats have a 71% success rate in preventing injury to babies.
Now that you know how important car seats are for protecting your child, you can take the necessary precautions. Read on to learn about the most typical mistakes and how to correct them.
1. The Wrong Reclining Angle
Reclining a rear-facing seat to the correct angle is not easy, but it is essential. To prevent your baby’s chin from falling to his or her chest and blocking his or her airway, ensure the seat is not too upright. A child’s spine is safer when he or she is reclined because the complete body absorbs the impact of a collision rather than just the head or neck.
Today, most chairs by any top safety car seat manufacturer feature an inclination indicator that will light up when the seat is tilted to the correct angle (usually 45 degrees). Experts warn, however, that the recline angle recommended by some car seats varies with the weight of your kid, so it’s important to check the handbook.
As an added bonus, others bring up the point that some seats have been designed and tested to accommodate a more upright posture for the sake of safety.
2. Poorly Secured Assembly
It would appear that putting on a car seat would be a breeze: To use, just thread the lap belt through the base or attach the universal anchorage system (sometimes called LATCH in the US) connectors to the vehicle’s anchor points.
That’s not the case. Having a loose seat may be the most common issue with car seat installations because, as anyone who has really installed a car seat can tell you, it’s rarely that easy.
When you shake the car seat firmly with your hands, there should be less than one inch of movement at the belt route. Although every car seat is different and reading the instructions for both the seat and your automobile are important first steps, a general guideline is to ensure that the movement at the belt’s path is less than one inch.
3. Poorly Adjusted Or Loose Straps
A crying infant is the quickest way to get a tired parent to unbuckle their child’s car seat.
Determine if the harness is too loose by pinching the top of the strap at your child’s shoulder with your thumb and fingertip. If you can easily grasp the strap, it’s too loose. Additionally, the chest clip should be around the armpit level to hold the straps on the shoulders effectively and prevent the neck opening from being too wide.
The straps must be threaded through the appropriate openings in the back of the seat. For rear-facing infants, the top harness straps should go through the slots positioned at or just below the shoulder; for forward-facing toddlers, the straps should be at or just above the shoulder.
The varying heights allow for adjustment as your child grows and provide the best protection possible for each seating position. To put it bluntly, it’s all physics.
4. Prematurely Switching To A Forward-Facing Or Booster Seat
Some areas just require drivers to adhere to the height and weight limits for the rear-facing position set by the manufacturer of the car seat they are using. This is in contrast to other provinces and territories, where rules detail the weight, height, or age criteria for shifting your little one from the rear-facing to forward-facing position.
Don’t rush the transition to a booster seat either; most convertible car seats may be used rear-facing up to 40 pounds and forward-facing up to 65 pounds.
5. Putting Your Child In The Wrong Car Seat
It is recommended that children use each car seat until they surpass the height and weight limits, but proper fit is also crucial. Most car seats stipulate a minimum distance between your child’s head and the seat’s top to provide adequate protection during a collision.
Refer to the booklet for updated sizing instructions as your child develops. Your newborn’s body type is unknown, but it will matter when he outgrows his infant seat and needs a booster.
When choosing a new car seat, it’s best to do it with the youngster present.
Conclusion
Some insurers won’t pay up if your child wasn’t in the seat during the incident, but we advise fighting for it since the maker of your seat likely demands replacement. Another thing to remember is to remove the restraint and UAS straps from an old car seat before disposing of it.
This will make it less likely that the seat will be taken and used again or sold on the black market.
