If you’re like most Canadian parents, you already understand that your child is required by law to be safely and properly restrained each and every time they travel by automobile. In fact, parents need a proper infant car seat before they can take their newborn home from a hospital or birthing centre. Because we care about the health, happiness and safety of our readers, we are pleased to present the following information about the best practices of car safety seats that are to be used as your child grows up.
Car seats for beginners
The first seat your baby will ride in will be a backward-facing car seat designed for infants only. This sort of car seat works wonderfully from birth until your baby is around two years old, weighs in at around 22 pounds or when the top of their head comes to within a few centimetres of the top of the seat. A convertible car seat is right for parents who don’t want the added expense of switching to a forward-facing car seat when their child attains approximately 30 pounds of weight.
Traveling with toddlers
Children who have attained or exceeded the weight and height capacity of their car seat are ready to graduate to a slightly larger, forward-facing seat. As mentioned above, there are convertible seats that can be converted from a backward position to a frontward position as your child grows. Most forward-facing seats are appropriate for kids who weigh up to 60 pounds, says Parents magazine.
Combo seats that come with a safety harness are just right for comfortably restraining young riders until they weigh around 80 pounds and are tall enough to ride in a booster seat with a standard car safety belt such as those found in reliable family vehicles such as a Dodge Grand Caravan. As a general rule of thumb, youngsters need to ride in approved car seats until they are four years of age and may ride in belt-positioning booster seats until they are somewhere around eight years old.
Are used car seats safe? Sometimes.
If you’re on a slim budget and wish to save money on car seat expenses, you may consider purchasing and using a gently used infant car seat or car seat for a toddler. This advice does, however, come with its caveats. Don’t even think about using a formerly-owned car seat until you are 100 percent certain that the seat’s in perfect working order.
The Child Passenger Safety Association of Canada recommends checking the entire seat for evidence of an expiry date. Look for a sticker or other markings that clearly indicate the manufacturer’s company name as well as the date the seat was built. If any part of the seat is missing, bent, broken or malfunctioning in any way, destroy the seat and purchase a new one.
Kids depend on parents and adults to keep them safe at all times. A big part of this safety involves securing young passengers in age-appropriate, perfectly functioning car seats.
Anna John has two kids, an eight year old daughter and a three year old son. She writes about parenting in her online articles which are published on Mommy lifestyle blogs mostly.
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