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How To Anchor A Child Safety Seat

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In order to reduce on death caused by car-accidents amongst toddlers, cars manufactured after 2002 must be equipped with lower anchors and tethers for the children-latch. But still most people need to know how to anchor a child safety-seat in order to keep them safe while travelling. On the other hand, latch is a way of securing a child safety-seat to the vehicle using the straps from the child safety-seat that will connect to specific metal-anchors in the vehicle. Likewise, lower-anchors are just a pair of u-shaped metals/bars hidden in the vehicle’s seat-crack while a tether-anchor is a metallic ring or bar found behind the vehicle’s seat. All in all, I have listed for you some of the methods and ways on how to anchor a child safety-seat:

RELATED:- What Is The Best Convertible Car Seat 

 

METHOD-1: HOW TO ANCHOR A REAR-FACING INFANT SAFETY-SEAT:

  1. Locate the lower latch-anchors: Start by locating the lower latch-anchors near the seat-belt buckle or you may even find these anchors between the back and bottom of the seat. However, vehicles with a latch-system may not have a latch-anchor for every rear-seat. In fact, manufacturers tend to install latch-anchors for the window-seat in the 2nd or 3rd row seating so it is upon you to choose a rear-seat with a latch-anchor in order to ensure optimum safety.

 

  1. Place the infant car-seat into the vehicle-seat: after locating where to place the car-seat, get your infant safety-seat and place backwards in one of the vehicle’s rear-seats.

 

  1. Stabilize the safety-seat or base: after try stabilizing the safety-seat or base by ensuring that it lies at approximately a 45-degree angle to the bottom of the vehicle’s seat. In fact, some vehicles are equipped with an angle-adjuster in order to fill the gaps between a safety-seat and vehicle’s seat. However, if your vehicle does not have an angle adjuster then you may use something to help stabilize the infant safety-seat.

 

  1. Attach the hooks at the ends of the infant safety-seat’s latch connector-belts extending from the bottom of the safety-seat on both sides. Listen for a click when attaching these latch-connectors and also ensure that the belt-straps are very tight then place your weight into the child safety-seat and tightening any slack. You can actually do this by placing one-knee into the car-seat.

 

METHOD-2: HOW TO ANCHOR A FORWARD-FACING CHILD SAFETY-SEAT:

  1. Position the car-seat into the vehicle’s rear-seat: begin by positioning the convertible, toddler or booster safety-seat into one of the vehicle’s rear-seats. In fact, you choose a rear-seat with a latch-anchor in order to ensure optimum safety.

 

  1. Hook the safety-seat connectors onto the vehicles latch-anchors: after, hook the child safety-seat’s connecter-belt clips onto the vehicle’s latch-anchors. Place some weight over the safety-seat and then tighten the connector-belts in order to ensure maximum safety.

 

  1. Connect the safety-seat tether onto the anchor-tether on the vehicle: get the tether on the child safety-seat and connect it to the tether-anchor on the vehicle. In fact, the safety-seat tether should be the longest strap while the vehicle’s tether-anchor can be placed in any location depending on the car make and model. So, try checking behind or under the vehicle-seat, along the rear-window shelf, on the floor of the cargo-bay or on the ceiling of the vehicle for the tether-anchor.

 

  1. Pull and secure the tether-belt: after connecting the safety-seat tether onto the anchor-tether, pull the tether-belt tight in order to remove any slack in between the safety-seat and vehicle-seat. This will even help to firmly hold the safety-seat onto the vehicle’s seat hence ensuring optimum safety for your sitting little-child.

 

TIPS TO CONSIDER AS YOU ANCHOR A CHILD SAFETY-SEAT:

  • All child safety-seats that use the vehicle’s lower-anchors have a lower anchor-strap with a connector on the end. Additionally, some child safety-seats have 2 separate lower anchor-straps with each having a connector on one end. In fact, these all connectors must be attached to the vehicle’s lower-anchors. However, a few booster-seats have a rigid lower anchor-connector instead of a connector on the flexible-strap.

 

  • Rear-facing child car-seats just use the lower-anchors and only a few can use the top-tether. However, forward-facing infant car-seats use the lower-anchors and top-tether.

 

  • Thoroughly read the user-manual that comes with the child safety-seat because this manual contains specific safety-seat installation instructions for every vehicle model and make.

 

  • Forward-facing safety seats are designed for only children older than 1-year of age because these kids usually weigh more than 22-pounds (10kgs).

 

  • Try rocking your body-weight back and forth or up and down in order tightly secure the child safety-seat. In fact, in case you can move the safety-seat more than 1-inch (2.5cm) from side-to-side, then you actually need to find a way to tighten the child safety-seat straps.

 

  • Most infant car-seats don’t normally require the top-tether anchor but you should actually attach the top-tether to the car-seat in order to ensure optimum-safety for you little-child.

 

  • Lastly, try to schedule an appointment with the local-police department or government-body responsible for child-safety in order to confirm how to anchor a child safety-seat properly.

 

WARNINGS TO CONSIDER AS YOU ANCHOR A CHILD SAFETY-SEAT:

  • Never put a child safety-seat into the front-row seat that is equipped with passenger-side airbags. This mainly because a deployed airbag poses potentially-fatal harm to the child sitting in a safety-seat incase an accident occurs.

 

  • Secondly, it’s not safe to anchor multiple-tethers onto the same point because may place a lot of pressure on that anchor leading to breakage hence this may in turn cause a fatal-accident to your sitting little-child.

 

  • Lastly, always purchase a new safety-seat incase your child outgrows the old one in order to avoid causing any accidents while sitting.

Vanilla Farmer, Amazon Retailer & Tech Researcher. Yosaki is my personal blog but I'm working on some big tech project back doors. I will keep on posting various topics on things I have knowledge about.

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