How To Choose An Infant Car Seat For Your New Born Baby

How to choose and use an infant car seat for your new born

Infant car seats are specially designed for new born babies to make it easy for parents to move around with small babies on long and short drives in car. Infant car seats are lightweight and made from plush material so your child can travel without getting tired or uncomfortable. Like all other baby car seats, infant car seats are also adjustable and come with extra accessories such as a padded head and body rest to allow you to carry small babies easily. Here are some tips which will help you choose the best infant car seat for your baby:

Choosing the right car seat
A good quality dependable infant car seat which fits in your vehicle is essential as it will give you peace of mind and make your baby comfortable in it. A poor quality car seat which is difficult to install will most likely be installed incorrectly in place, increasing the chances of your baby’s injury.

Car seat manufacturers like Graco, Britax, Peg Perego and others produce high quality infant car seats which can be used for new born babies to infants weighing up to 20 or 30 pounds. This weight limit differs from car seat to car seat, and you should read the recommended weight and height limits for a car seat before buying it. Once your baby car seat grows out of the infant car seat, parents can shift to convertible car seats, which can be installed in both rear facing and forward facing positions.

Good quality infant car seats come with 5-point harness system and use EPS energy absorbing foam lining to reduce shocks from reaching the baby in case of an accident or side impact. The seats also meet and exceed US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and are tested for side impact protection. This gives peace of mind to parents and ensures your childs safety. Car seat makes like Recaro test their seats for some of the most rigorous accidents to provide maximum safety and protection to your infant.

Installing an infant car seat
All infant car seats are installed in rear facing position and should always be placed on the back seat. They should never be installed on the front passenger seat, especially if the vehicle has side air bags on the passenger seat side. In case of an accident, if the air bags get inflated, the baby will not be able to tolerate the sudden pressure caused from the air bags. New born babies can suffer from neck injuries which can be fatal in extreme cases for the small child.

The stay-in-car base of the infant car seat has to be installed in place only once. Most infant car seats available in the market are LATCH equipped to use the vehicles LATCH system, also known as Universal Anchorage System, to install them in place. When using the vehicles seat belts to secure the seat in place, always use your body weight to tighten the seat belts as far as possible. Once installed, the seat should not move more than an inch from side to side or forward. Parents should use a belt locking clip to tighten any lose seat belt. Another good safety tip for parents is to tug the seat each time before or after placing the baby in the car seat to make sure that the car seat is still tightly in place.

Using the harness system properly
All new infant car seats now come with 5-point harness system, unlike the older car seats which used 3-point harness. Baby car seats with five-point harness strap the baby in place much better, by going over the baby’s shoulders and hips. The extra harness straps protect the baby in side-impact crashes by restricting the baby’s side to side movement.

Parents should make sure that the harness straps lie flat and are not folded or twisted. The harness straps should be straight and secured in place snugly around the baby, leaving only room for a single finger width between the strap and the child’s body.

Ensuring your child’s safety is important for every parent, which is why you should make an effort to install the infant car seat in place properly every time, and also use it by following the manufacturers recommended guidelines for your child’s safety.