Common mistakes parents make when installing a car seat

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Hey, it's Maryel. I'm not a parent yet, but I am a TT. And even from where I sit, when that little baby comes on the scene, and they're so tiny and helpless,

and their little skull hasn't even fused yet. It's terrifying. And then you tell me I'm supposed to put this baby in a car? Have you seen how people drive? And I know, of course, by a car seat, right?

But how do you pick one? There's a lot of decision-making as a parent, and especially as a new parent, and it's very overwhelming. And it's important because you don't get to choose your crash.

You don't know when a crash is going to happen. You don't know what direction it's going to happen.

“So you have to make sure that your child is protected”

for every single car ride. And right, like we're all doing the best we can. That's Emily Thomas, the Associate Director for Auto Safety at Consumer Reports. She's also a mom, and she's a PhD in pediatric injury

biomechanics. She says kids are a lot safer in cars than they used to be in decades past, but traffic crashes are still a leading cause of death for children in the US and around the world.

The research shows that car seats and booster seats significantly lower that risk, but it can be hard to know where to start, and there are endless options to choose from. There are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration,

but ultimately, as a parent, you can rest assured

that one every car seat that's sold in the United States has to meet a federal minimum safety standard. Meaning that any new car seat you buy has been rigorously crash tested. It's got clear height and weight limits,

plus labeling to help you install it safely. So they're all considered safe. And to the safest car seat is going to be the one that fits your car and fits your child every single time.

“On this episode of LifeKit, how to pick a car seat?”

And use it safely. Reporter Andy Tagle will talk to Emily about what features matter most, what's just window dressing, and the most common mistakes parents make when they're installing those seats. Would you like us breaking down for us the different stages,

the different types of car seats available that people are going to be looking at? Sure, so most people will start off with an infant car seat. Most children are going to outgrow their infant car seat. Probably around 6 to 9 months old, either by height or weight,

oftentimes it's by height first.

So when your child outgrow their infant seat, you're going to want to move them into a convertible or an all-in-one and use it in the rear facing orientation. Convertible refers to a car seat that converts from rear to forward facing. All-in-one, one seat that can do it all.

Infant to rear facing to forward facing to booster. No matter which you go for, plan to keep your child rear facing until they're at least two years old.

“And if it's possible, hold out for longer.”

As in, you're going to want to keep your child rear facing as long as you can up to the manufacturer height or weight limit for the rear facing mode. And really, that's because their bodies are still maturing, especially their skeletons.

And so you want their bones to be stronger. You want their neck and spine to be able to support their head. The most common type of crashes of frontal impact. And so when they're rear facing, those crash forces are going to get spread out across the back of that car seat shell.

And it's going to distribute less forces to your child. And it's going to really protect the head and spine. Now, if they're forward facing to early, those crash forces are going to be applied across the harness onto your child's body.

And their heads, they're still getting stronger than their bodies were still growing. And so you're putting more strain on that head neck complex. And so there's a greater likelihood for head and neck injury. When they reach the max height or weight limit of the rear facing car seat,

it's time for a front facing seat with a harness and tether. Then, wait again until they reach max capacity there before leveling up again to a booster. Once they grow to that one, you're still going to want to keep them in the back seat until they're at least 13 years old.

So take away one, it sounds just subtably simple, but make sure you've got the right chair for your child. For infants, it's pretty straightforward, but as they get older, you can quickly hit some gray areas. The expert advice, take your time.

For example, maybe your six-year-old son is right in between his forward facing chair and the booster, and has been begging for a big boy seat like his older brother. Hold out. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, every time your child moves up a stage, they're a little less protected.

It's tempting to want to rush through the car seat stages.

because you want to make sure that your child is properly protected for every single car ride. Emily, there's a huge range of price points for car seats,

“and it can be really unnerving, I think.”

I remember being like, "Am I a bad mother for not paying $700 for this infant car seat?" Why do you cost very so much? So a lot of times the costs can be dependent on, you know, perhaps the types of fabrics that they're using or other materials. You don't need to have an expensive car seat to have a safe car seat.

Now, a more expensive car seat might get you perhaps some more premium fabric choices, maybe some nicer ease of use features, but when it comes down to crash protection, you know, just because you have a more expensive seat, doesn't necessarily mean that you get better crash protection.

Is it okay to use someone else's car seat or to buy one second hand

as long as it's not expired? Our recommendation is that you don't purchase car seats second hand, unless you are getting it from somebody that you really trust, that you also know it's being truthful about the history of the seat, because you want to make sure it's not just about expiration.

“You need to check recalls on the seat to make sure there's no open recalls on the”

or they've been addressed. You also want to make sure that the car seat hasn't been in a crash. And so, you know, just picking up a seat in a tax sale or, you know, that someone's just put out to the car or, you know, a discount store or something like that, you're not going to know those things.

And so, really, we don't recommend doing that unless, of course, you can really verify the history of the seat. Take away, too. You don't have to break the bank to find a safe car seat for your child. Luxury options are often just that.

They offer features that can make travel for a kid or a parent that much easier. And that's not in substantial. Things like a swivel bottom, for example. So, you don't have to contort yourself in and out of that 90 back seat. Or more plush padding, magnetic buckle holders.

Only you can decide if those things are worth the cost. One great tool for comparing and contrasting is consumer reports, car seat ratings. They're free online and based on their own independent lab testing, including crash testing. You can filter by things like ease of use or fit to vehicle and read the pros and cons for lots of different car seats, broken down by experts like Emily.

Just generally speaking though, Emily says a lot of seats come with additional safety features like flame retardant fabrics or enhanced sight impact technology. Not just the fancy ones. The one that I will say probably has the most benefit for crash protection that we've seen in our testing is what's something called a load leg.

So, essentially, this is a support leg that extends off of the front edge of the infant car seat base to the vehicle floor and what this feature does is that in the event of a crash, it reduces the forward rotation and motion of the car seat and so really the car seat is going to bear down on that leg and as it does that, the leg is really absorbing a lot of the crash energy which means that there's less crash energy being transferred to the child in the car seat.

The data on this is pretty striking. Depending on the type of car seat, studies have found load legs can reduce the risk of

head injury from anywhere from 25 to 65 percent.

Here's another one. A lot of car seats now also come with some sort of belt tensioning or a belt lock off. This is a feature, sometimes it'll look like a big clamp or a shoe buckle that ensures your car seat is locked into that seat belt real nice and tight every time, where it doesn't move more than one inch side to side or front to back when you pull that belt path.

The one in control can be really frustrating sometimes, but it's super important to get right. Imagine if your driver seat shifted or slid every time you took a big turn or caught a bump

“on the road. That's what you're trying to avoid happening to your child's car seat.”

The more secure that installation is, the more tied the car seat is to the vehicle, which means that it's going to work together as a system and the car seat in the child are going to experience the benefit of the vehicle's crash management systems. The car seats that I have right now, neither one of those have that feature. Yeah.

And I didn't know that before I bought the car seats and I cannot tell you, I cannot tell you the pain that I experience every time we have to take those things in and out. Okay, what about design features? So something like a no-rethread harness is really helpful. As your child grows and you have to change the harness height in the car seat.

So a no-rethread harness basically just allows for you to make those harness adjustments

Okay, what about car seat accessories?

“They sound like cushions to make the car seat level or they have those pads,”

sometimes they're made out of cloth or rubber to protect the back seat.

You don't want to ever be using third-party or after-market accessories with your car seat.

So you know, it's a shame that when you go to a store in the baby aisle or in the car seat aisle, there's lots of different accessories that you can buy, cute little harness covers or toys for the carry handle and all that kind of stuff. However, you know, anything that you're adding to your car seat, you're now changing the dynamic performance of the car seat and so you don't want to be doing that.

You don't want to add anything to the carry handles that could turn into projectiles during your crash. So really the recommendation across the industry is to only use the accessories that come with your car seat or that are approved by the car seat manufacturer. I have one of those car seats with a user manual says if it's not quite secure, you can stick something underneath the base of it. It really worried me. It's still,

it still worries me because I'm like, I'm making it as secure as I possibly can,

“but they basically leave it up to a parent's discretion to figure out the best thing to stick”

under your your kid and your car seat. Any advice on how best to go about that? Yeah, so typically that's you're going to add a pool noodle or a roll towel when you're trying to achieve the proper recline. There's so much variance in vehicle seat design and in car seat design, right? So having perfect compatibility like the way with the way that our industry and

regulations are is not always guaranteed. So if if that's what's prescribed by your manufacturer

and it will say in the car seat manual, then yes, you know, that's fine. If you're really struggling many of the manufacturers that you can call their customer service, they have certified car seat technicians available, that will like go through your installation with you, help you with any tips and tricks. So that's really the best advice is follow whatever your manual says. You know, if the manual does not allow for a pool noodle or a roll towel, then I would not introduce it and I would

definitely contact the manufacturer's customer service. All right, so we've gone down the car seat manual. We know what features might be worth considering and what accessories to leave behind. Now it's time to actually install the thing. When we come back, we'll go over what that should and should not look like. All right, we're back with life kit and it's time to talk about car seat installation. If you're

parent to be, maybe at this point you're tempted to tune out. You're thinking surely the process can't be all that hard. We're going to be great at this. No. We're not. So car seat misuse rates are pretty high. Right now, the post-natal misuse rate is 72% according to this digital dashboard of car seat installations across the country. 72% of people with car seats mis install their car seats. Right, and it could be how it's installed to the vehicle. It could be how they're using it with

their child or how they're harnessing it. It couldn't even be that they don't have the appropriate car seat for their child's age height weight. Digway 3. Most people are using their car seats

incorrectly. So don't stress if you're confused and don't assume you got it right on the first go.

Get your car seat checked by local expert and feel free to consult another one when you feel unsure or if it's just been a while. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or Nitsa can offer you resources by zip code. Find them at nitsa.gov. That's nhtsa.gov. That's nhtsa.gov. You can also look at safe kids worldwide to find where there's going to be car seat check events in your area. A lot of people think that if you just show up at the fire station or the police

department that somebody's going to be able to check your car seat, that could be the case but you do want to make sure that they're actually a certified car seat technician and they know what they're looking for. Now moving into the most common mistakes that parents make when installing a car seat.

“There are a lot of them and Emily has written about this extensively so you should definitely”

look her up for a full breakdown. But generally we can fit them into a few buckets. First up, the paperwork. Your car seat comes with a few important paper items in addition to all the hardware so don't accidentally toss them out with box. One is the card you need to fill out to register your

recalls on your chair. The other hold on your manual. Actually look at it. Keep it with your car seat.

“There is a storage pocket for you. Next, seat tightness. This refers to the installation of the”

car seat to the car so that no moving more than an intro that we were talking about earlier. Emily says often that seat belt will just be too loose. Another common mistake with seat belts is using the wrong belt path. That's where you feed the seat belt through to connect the car seat to the car. If you're using a convertible or an all-in-one there's usually one belt path for rear facing and another for forward facing. So look closely. Because the belt paths are designed

so that depending on which orientation you're using the car seat it's going to really pull the car seat close to the vehicle seat. So if you're using the wrong belt path you're introducing more room into the installation essentially. For front facing seats make sure to actually attach the tether. People often look at that part is optional. And for rear facing seats there's one more hurdle. You want to make sure that you're adjusting the recline of the car seat so that you're in

“the proper range. This is especially important for small babies where their next or not strong”

enough to hold up their heads alone and so if the car seat is overly upright their heads are going to flop forward and then they're going to obstruct their own breathing if they're overly reclined then that can increase their injury risk. Next up, harness height. The rule on this changes depending on which way your child is facing. So if they're still facing the rear you want to make sure that that harness strap is at or slightly below your child's shoulder where it goes into the

the car seat. If they're forward facing it should be at or slightly above your child's shoulder. You also want to make sure that the harness is snug enough that when you go to pinch the harness webbing at your child's shoulder with like your thumb and your forefinger you can't actually get any webbing between your finger. Once that harness is tight enough take a look at the chest clip. That's the extra connection point on each arm strap above the center buckle. You're going to move

that chest clip up to our armpit level and what that does is it helps to ensure that the car seat straps stay over your child's shoulder in our crash and help we're straining them and keep them within the protection of the car seat shell. And then what about the the bottom part of

their of that five part harness? Because I feel like I always hear about the chest clip but I don't

know what his you know is their best or worst thing to do with their with their legs. Yeah so crotch buckle placement it's going to be in your owner's mail and most we'll say you know it should be close but not underneath the child. Right so you don't want to be where the crotch buckle goes into the car seat shell that should not be underneath the child. So there's typically multiple slots that that crotch buckle can be in so you'll make the adjustment appropriately for that.

Last up harness tightness and final checks. Here's how Emily does it. What I often do is I kind of just press down on the crotch buckle area to remove the slack from around their hips. Slide the chest clip all the way down to like where the crotch buckle is and then tighten the harness strap. Because as you do that the chest clip is going to ride up anyways and then you can make the final

adjustment but doing that kind of just allows for you to get all the slack out of the hips first

and then get the rest of the slack out of like the torso area and then you can finally move the chest clip into the right position. And this is no no jackets right? Correct so you want to make sure that if your child is you know wearing any extra layers or they're wearing a coat that it doesn't introduce any slack into their harness system. So we typically recommend to not wear coats underneath the car seat harness so in a crash you know that fabric and that puffiness

whatever is going to compress and so now it's going to create extra room between your child and their harness which means there's extra room for them to be able to move and not be like fully protected by their car seat. And I understand parents are concerned about like you know keeping their child warm in the car and stuff and so you know for small babies we recommend after you have them harness properly that you can you know drape a blanket over their harness for older

kids and I do this with my own right you can put their coat on backwards over their harness so it's like a blanket kind of and so that can just kind of help with keeping them warm in the car as well. So take away for here. There are a lot of ways to incorrectly install your car seat. We only need in the top few here. So read your manual keep it with your car seat and refer back to it as often as he need. Check that your child is safely secured for every ride and be sure to check the

“integrity of your installation every so often because another thing to remember is that even a”

perfect professional install can loosen over time and gross spurts can hit quick.

Emily says that shelf life ensures that all the components of your seat are still up to current safety standards which is another reason by the way she suggests buying a new car seat and using your own whenever possible. Rather than say renting one from a rental car company because you just can't know for sure about the crash history of a stranger's car seat.

Okay speaking of car crashes do you always need to replace your car seat when you get into a crash?

“Every car seat manufacturer has slightly different guidelines. You should always check what”

your manufacturer specifies. There's many that say that if it's been in any type of crash that you should replace the car seats because you can't always see the damage that's been done to the seat. Other manufacturers follow the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's recommendation for a vehicle has been in a moderate to severe crash. But to be clear, the enter isn't a hard and fast yes you must replace every car seat for every crash,

which was new to me and could save you a nice chunk of change. One more helpful tip for you. Which people consider about their cars before choosing a car seat? Are there certain seats that are more or less compatible with certain cars? So it's challenging because there's so many options and vehicle seat geometries can vary so widely. But also what I tell people is if you have kids and you're shopping for a car, take your car seats to the dealership.

Whatever car you are considering buying, take your car seats with you and when you go for your test drive, install your car seats, make sure that you can actually get them securely installed with the vehicle belt, with the lower anchors. Especially if your kids are rear facing, make sure you can get that rear facing car seat to fit in that rear cabin space and you are still able to comfortably sit in front of them, whether as the driver or the front passenger, right?

“Those are all important things that you need to know before making that vehicle decision.”

And that's in keeping with our last takeaway, number five. Always choose safety over convenience

or what other people think you should be doing. Set the same standard no matter where you are or who you're driving with. Just having that consistency in the safety messaging for your child is also really key, right? So even if they're just doing a short car ride down the road to grandma's house or whatever, like it's still the same rules. Everybody buckles up. Everybody is, you know, properly restrained. Final thoughts, words of advice, words of comfort for all the very tired parents out

there on their car seat journeys. Ultimately, parents have a lot going on. This is something that is super important. So take the time, educate yourself. I know it's inconvenient. I know it's hard. You're doing great. And what you didn't know before, that's okay. Emily, thank you for that. I needed that today. Emily, eight Thomas is such a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me. All right, let's throw it in a verse and go back

through what we learned. Take away one. Make sure you have the appropriate chair for your child. Every stage up means a little less protection. So if your kid is in between stages up for the lower one. Take away two. You don't have to break the bank to find a safe car seat for your child. If you're looking for special features to separate one car seat from another, here are Emily's fix. A load leg, a no-rethread harness, and seats with a belt lock or belt tensioning.

I second that last recommendation, I like infinity, by the way. Take away three. Most people

are using their car seats incorrectly. So please, do yourself and your family a favor. Put on your seat belt, and then go and get that chair checked by an expert. Take away four. Know the common seat installation mistakes and keep your kid as safe as possible. Raise your manual. Keep it with your car seat. Check your kids' fit every time and take the time to make adjustments before you get moving. And finally, take away five. Choose safety over convenience.

That means maintaining a safety standard that applies no matter where you are, who your kid is driving with, or how short the ride. We'll all be safer for that in the long run. That was a reporter Andy Tagle. By the way, I know you're listening to an episode about car seat safety, but did you know life kit covers so much more money, mental health, cooking,

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This episode of LifeKit was produced by Clearmarish Nighter. Our digital editor is Maulika Greeb, and Meghan Kane is our senior supervising editor. Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Margaret Serino, Sylvie Douglas, and Mika Ellison. Engineering support comes from Damian Herring,

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