Answers to Your Car Seat Questions

rebeca  Monday, December 21, 2009

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As you remember, The Average Parent has partnered with Britax and Dr. Laura Jana to answer some of your car seat safety questions directly. As a media spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and a member of the AAP’s Section on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention, Dr. Jana is one of the leading experts on child safety and development. Below you will find her answers to some of the most prevalent questions The Average Parent Readers posed. As always, I recommend all parents take the time to visit a certified car seat inspector just to be on the safe side. It’s free and gives you peace of mind. To find an inspector near you, visit SeatCheck.org.

1. My son is 8 years old and weighs about 60 pounds. I currently have him in a backless booster. He is not complaining about sitting in one, but at what point is he able to just be in the seat?

Parents should take their time when it comes to graduating a child to the vehicle’s seat belt alone. State laws, which are the bare minimum for keeping a child in a belt-positioning booster, shouldn’t dictate this. Rather, you should wait until your son can sit all the way back on the vehicle’s seat with the shoulder belt crossing over his shoulder (not across his neck) before deciding he is ready to move out of a booster. The lap belt should also sit low across his hips, and his knees should be able to bend naturally over the edge of the seat. This usually happens when a child is 4 feet 9 inches tall and between eight to 12 years old.

2. Where is the safest place for a car seat in the back of a car?

While the middle of the back seat is often cited as the “safest” position, there are many other factors that dictate who sits where. Since a car’s seating position and a child’s age, size and circumstance varies, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I recommend visiting a CPS technician to help you determine which is safest for your family, car and seat combination. Visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Web site to find trained professionals in all parts of the country.

3. Is it safer to use both the latch and seatbelt to secure the car seat to the seat or just use one or the other by themselves? You would think using both is safest…but I’m not so sure.

While it may seem that doubling up by using both LATCH and the vehicle seat belt would be safer, it is not only unnecessary but not recommended! The recommendation is to use either the seat belt or the LATCH system (but not both) to secure a car seat. Both are equally safe when used correctly, and the one that provides the best fit should be used. Parents should always follow their vehicle manufacturer’s instructions to know which seating position(s) in the vehicle are designed for use with the LATCH system.

4. My son is 8 months old and is already 29 inches tall and 22 pounds. Do we really need to wait until he is a year old to face him forward in his car seat?

Yes, because infants should never be turned face forward before a minimum of one year of age. In fact, while parents are sometimes tempted to turn their children forward facing as soon as they reach the bare minimum requirements (one year and 20 pounds), children are safest when they remain rear facing for as long as possible within the height and weight limits of their seats. New research indicates that toddlers are more than five times safer riding rear facing until the age of 2. Fortunately, there are now car seats on the market that allow rear facing well past the bare minimum of 20 pounds and one year.

5. Should I take my son’s coat off before I buckle him in, or is it OK just to leave it on as long as I tighten the straps appropriately?

Big puffy coats make it difficult to secure children snugly in their car seat harness straps, and therefore have a tendency to add unwanted slack in the harness straps. If you simply wait until after your son is safely and snugly secured in his car seat before putting his coat on (backwards) over top of the harness straps, you can keep him both warm and well-secured.

6. I just had a newborn, and as we were leaving, the nurse told us the law might be changing so a child has to be rear-facing until he’s 2 years old. Do you know anything about this and, if so, how many of these forward-facing car seats can actually be turned around?

The current official American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation remains that children should stay rear facing for as long as possible within the limits of their seats – at least until they are 1 year old and weigh at least 20 pounds—whichever comes later. That said, we know that infants and toddlers are safer rear-facing. Fortunately, there are now seats available that allow children to sit rear-facing much longer before exceeding the seat’s height and/or weight limits, which means that parents will now be able to keep their children rear-facing as long as two years if not longer.

7. Any tips on getting kids to learn to buckle and unbuckle by themselves?

Learning to buckle can involve different levels of skill and dexterity depending on the seat you have. As you begin to teach your child, you’ll want to make sure you always double check that the buckle(s) are, in fact, secure. Also be aware that with the understanding of how to buckle up comes the ability to unbuckle as well. Many parents start early by conveying to their toddlers that the car simply doesn’t run without everyone being buckled in. Of course this means that parents should always set a good example and buckle up before putting the car in gear as well!

Congratulations, Caty P! You won the Britax Roundabout 50 giveaway. Please shoot me a note with your shipping address and phone number before the end of the day Wednesday, Dec. 23. (the phone number is needed for UPS input).