How to Install a Car Seat Properly By Lauren Dzuris At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Installing a car seat may seem like a piece of cake if you have the instructions and manual in front of you. Although, unfortunately 85% of all car seats are installed inproperly. When a car seat isn’t installed properly, your child isn’t as safe as they should be when they’re in the car. If you want to learn how to install a car seat, or you want to review the instruction to double check if yours is installed properly, continue reading below.

Seating -

First of all, you should always place your car seat in the second row of your vehicle, right in the middle. This is the safest place for your child to sit in their car seat.

Next, you want to make sure you face your child the right way when they’re in the car. Your baby should be rear-facing if they are younger than 12 months old, and less than 20 lbs.

Once your baby is older than 12 months and weighs more than 20 lbs, you will want to turn your car seat around so they are forward facing.

Although, once they reach about 40-80 lbs and about 4-8 years old, you will want to get them a car booster seat.

Installing –

Now, for the installing. Get ready to set up your car seat in the second row of your vehicle, in the middle seat, and get out the manuals and instrucion books.

Read over the instrucion manual and follow the directions step by step. When you install your car seat, you want to make sure the car seat is LATCH compatible. If it’s not, you will want to get a kit to make it LATCH compatible with your vehicle.

If you didn’t know already, LATCH stands for “Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children.” These are to make sure your car seat is attached to your vehicles anchors.

Now, when installing a rear-facing car seat, you need to make sure you put the car seat right up to the back of the car’s seat as tight as possible. This goes for forward-facing as well, except you will make sure the back of the car seat is flat against the car’s seat. You want to make sure there is no gap so that the car seat is less able to rock back and forth and move.

Once you have the car seat right against the vehicle’s seat, you want to make sure the seat belt is put in through the slots of the car seat correctly. Once the seat belt is slid through properly, you want to pull the belt as tight as possible. If it’s tight, it should feel secure. If it’s not, it might be easy to wobble.

One of the most important things to make sure of is that the seat belt is pulled as tightly as possible, and that you’re facing the car seat the right way. Once you read the manaul you should be able to take it step by step.

Although, if you don’t feel like it is secure enough, you may want to get it checked out. You can do so if you look up the Nation Highway Traffic Safety Administation’s website. Type in your zip code, find the nearest location, and see where you can get it looked over. They will be able to tell you if it’s properly installed or not.

Good luck, and make sure you go through the manual and instructions twice to make sure you made the right steps!

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