All posts in: Booster Seats

5 car seat mistakes parents still make

Family & Pets
By Sandra Gordon on February 26, 2013 in

Car seat mistakes you can fix

Roughly 73 percent of child car seats aren't installed correctly, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. There's a good reason -- car seats are complicated.

There are lots of decisions to make that can affect your child's safety in the event of a crash, including which seat to buy based on your child's age, height and weight and the best fit for your vehicle, where to put the seat, whether the seat should be rear- or forward-facing, and how to tighten the car seat properly, says Eileen McDonald, program director at the Johns Hopkins Children's Safety Center in Baltimore, Maryland. To make matters worse, 20 percent of parents wing it, neglecting to read any instructions on how to properly install their child restraints, according to a recent NHTSA survey, which interviewed 4,167 drivers at child restraint inspection stations across the country. Even those who do read the manual don't always get it right. Here are five of the most common car seat installation boo boos: Read more

Newest booster seats focused on safety first

Family & Pets
By Rita Colorito on November 26, 2012 in

Newest booster seats focused on safety first

Car seats aren't just for babies anymore. The NHTSA says all children should be in booster seats until at least age 8. Manufacturers are stepping up, making seats look less babyish for children ages 4 to 8 with mod patterns, bold primary colors, and other designs. But safety isn't taking a backseat to aesthetics when it comes to the newest child booster seats on the market.

Fifteen of the 17 booster seats introduced in 2012 earned the top BEST BET rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.  The IIHS defines BEST BETs as "seats that provide good belt fit for typical 4 to 8 year-olds in almost any car, minivan or SUV."

A few of this year's winners are also ConsumerSearch Best Reviewed convertible car seats and booster models. Read more

Child restraint FAIL: Your car's LATCH system

Family & Pets
By Rita Colorito on June 20, 2012 in

Blow up pig in a car seat

Installing a child car seat can make the most capable parent want to kick a tire in despair. Secure in the fact that our vehicles have LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) systems to supposedly make installation a breeze, many of us instead find ourselves searching for hidden parts or jerry rigging the restraint.  Or worse, we think we've installed our child's car seat properly, when, in fact, it's a disaster waiting to happen.

According to a study of LATCH hardware and passenger vehicle rear seat design, parents can finally rejoice that it's not us, it's the system itself that's the problem. Only 21 of the 98 top selling 2010-2011 model passenger vehicles evaluated have LATCH designs that meet ease-of-use criteria, found the joint research conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. Read more

Should you babyproof your child's car seat?

Family & Pets
By Sandra Gordon on April 9, 2012 in

Two little girls climbing over their car seats

From crawling to walking, babbling to talking, children go through a predictable set of developmental stages. But the "Look, I can push the little red button on my car seat buckle" phase, which can happen as early as age 1, is a one of those milestones that can take you by surprise, especially if you're a first-time parent. Read more

Child seat belt safety: When to transition out of a booster

Family & Pets
By Rita Colorito on January 31, 2012 in

Boy smiling in car

Parents might breathe a sigh of relief when their children no longer need a bulky child car seat or booster, but they shouldn't exhale just yet. Many young children who use adult seat belts are improperly secured because of ill fit, finds a study by the University of Michigan. Read more

How to recycle a car seat

Family & Pets
By Rita Colorito on November 29, 2011 in

Car seat skeleton on beach

My family is already on our third car seat. We're big into donating and recycling, but we couldn't do either with our first infant car seat: Most charitable organizations won't accept donated car seats because of liability issues and most municipal recycling facilities can't handle the extensive labor involved to break down a car seat, so you can't just stick one in your recycle bin. 

So, we left our car seat on the curb with a "Free, Please Take" sign. Our seat had several years left before it surpassed the expiration date, hadn't been recalled, and hadn't been in any car accidents, the main reasons most charities won't take them. And because places like Goodwill or Salvation Army can't verify the latter at all, most of us with these backseat behemoths on our hands are stuck trying to find another, responsible way to make sure they don't end up clogging a landfill.

Luckily there are ways to recycle car seats, if you know where to look, or who to bother. Read more

Car Seats: Know your LATCH system weight limits

Family & Pets
By Angela Stringfellow on July 25, 2011 in

Toddler in a car seat

You know those metal U-shaped anchors nestled into your car's back seat? How about the metal rings found just behind the back seat's headrest? Those are part of the LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) system, a standardized child restraint anchorage system that allows child safety seats to be installed without using the vehicle's seat belt system. Cars are required to have upper tether anchors in at least two rear passenger seats. These rings are affixed to the top of an infant car seat to provide a more secure attachment and reduce the risk of injury in an accident. And while most parents adhere to the guidelines from their car seat manufacturer in terms of weight and age limits and proper usage, vehicles' weight limits for the LATCH system can differ from what car seat manufacturers recommend. Read more

Study shows toddlers escape car seat restraints

Family & Pets
By Rita Colorito on May 13, 2011 in

Image of boy in car seat through rear view mirror

While parents play chauffeur, their little ones might be playing Houdini in the back seat, undoing their safety belts much to their delight but to their parents' horror. According to a recent pilot study by Yale University School of Medicine, most kids start to unbuckle themselves at age three. And many children play escape artist while the vehicle is in motion, putting them at a 3.5 fold increased risk of serious injury. Read more

Backless booster seats: Are they safe?

Family & Pets
By Tara Tuckwiller on March 3, 2011 in

Girl in backless booster

If your child rides in a backless booster seat, you might consider switching to a high-back one. Backless boosters provide little protection in side-impact crashes, according to studies we cite in our latest report on booster seats.

"We want backless booster seats to be phased out," says Which? magazine, a British consumer testing organization similar to ConsumerReports.org in the United States. Which? editors call backless boosters a "safety risk," and they post a crash-test video on their website showing a child-sized crash dummy in a backless booster being flung violently from side to side, slamming its head into the door and window. "Nobody who has seen the footage of a side impact collision on our website would choose to use a backless booster seat," Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith told “The Guardian” on June 21, 2010. "While they’re better than using no car seat at all, they simply don’t provide enough protection." Read more

Safe and secure: A look at the latest booster seats

Family & Pets
By Sarah Burns on March 29, 2010 in

Booster seat

Once your child outgrows his or her infant seat or convertible car seat, it's time to step up to a booster seat. Though today's boosters appear to mimic each other, they can actually be boiled down to a couple of distinct types: combination boosters and standard boosters, with a few variations therein.

 

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