How To Choose The Best Style In Baby Car Seats, Infant Car Ceats And Child Safety Seats For Your Baby
There is such a huge array of baby car seats on the market today. We can understand the confusion that new parents experience when they head out to purchase their first car seat. Here are some suggestions to help you choose from the array of baby car seats, booster seats and booster chairs that are available at online and retail stores today:
- All baby car seats and child safety seats should be chosen according to the weight and height of your baby or child. The newest regulations state that all children under the age of one, regardless of weight should be in rear-facing infant car seats.
- All car seats manufactured later than September 1, 2002 are now equipped with a new Universal Anchorage System. In the U.S. this system is known as LATCH and in Canada this system is known as UAS. This coincides with a new requirement for all automobiles manufactured after this date to be equipped with two anchorage points that are attached directly to the car’s structure and are located at the bottom of the rear outboard seating areas. This allows the new specially designed baby car seats to slide into the seat of the car and automatically attach directly to these anchor points. This is wonderful news for parents, as if you own a new automobile with this system you will no longer have to fuss with threading seat belts into your infant car seats! The decision to introduce a system of lower anchors for baby car seats was made to reduce the possibility of incorrect installation of baby car seats by consumers.
- If you do happen to choose one of the many infant cars seats available (as opposed to a convertible infant car seat that converts to a child safety seat), be aware that you will have to upgrade and choose from an array of child safety seats once your baby is over one year of age and is heavier than 22 pounds (10 kg).
Types Of Infant Car Seats To Choose From
- Rear facing infant car seats (with or without base)- for infants from Birth to 1 year. They are designed for utmost protection of a small baby’s delicate head and neck.
- Convertible baby car seats (with a 3 or 5-point harness system) - these car seats are rear-facing for infants up to 30 lbs. (13.6 kg), and then convert to forward-facing baby car seats for babies from 20-40 lbs (9-18 kg). They come with a 3 or 5 point harness system that usually has 3 shoulder height adjustments.
- Belt positioning booster seats - these car seats are a vehicle belt-positioning booster seat for babies 40-80 lbs (18-36kg). Some have a removable 5 point harness system for 40-50 lb (18-23 kg) babies. Once your baby reaches approx 50 lbs the car’s regular seat belt fits into the child safety seats Comfort Clips™ to help position the vehicle’s shoulder belt away from babies’ neck. The main purpose of these car seats is to position the seat belt correctly across your child’s lap and shoulder, so as to cause minimum injuries in case of an accident.
About The Author:
Nikki Jade is a successful author and the talented publisher of many
websites, a1-baby.com included! Providing a wonderfully researched resource
for your babies needs, including baby products, strollers, baby bedding,
safety, clothing and specialty baby items.
Special Offers
Resource Center
Submit your topic related site and we'll
review it for our Partner Sites where we
provide link exchange information.
Tour our site using the Site Map. We respect your privacy - see our terms for more info.