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From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.kids,net.consumers
Subject: Re: Recommendations on Infant Car Seat
Message-ID: <698@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-Jan-85 02:18:38 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.698
Posted: Sun Jan 13 02:18:38 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jan-85 01:50:20 EST
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The most important thing is to get one that is convenient to use.
If it's a pain, you won't bother and none of the safety it provides
will do you or your child any good.

Some car seats have a bar that hangs loose somewhere, and after the
baby climbs in, you have to run the seat belt across.  Others have
two or more fasteners to snap shut, or loops the seat belt must go
through.

The ideal car seat will be one you can fasten or open with ONE HAND.
It will have a single point that is fastened, and no floppy parts
to hold up while you fasten it.  This ideal car seat isn't available,
as far as I know.

We bought the Kantwet One-Step.  It has a padded bar which swings up
to let the baby out, or down in front of the baby.  There is a single
seat-belt-like fastener which holds the bar down and also serves as
a crotch strap.  It's been two years since, but I would still buy
this one again.  The major disadvantage is that it's a bit hard to
fasten, especially with one hand.  You must hold the bar down with
one hand (eventually you can teach your baby to hold it down, but
by this time the child will have outgrown it) and pick up the seat
belt with the other hand.  The metal gizmo that you clip the seat
belt to isn't solidly fastened to the bar (there's a half inch of
seat belt fabric loosely holding it on) so it requires either a
third hand or a bit of contortion to make it hold still while you
clip it on.  The difficulty of the fastener close makes this a bit
harder.  However, if you take some 3-in-1 oil you can loosen the
fastener up, and you do learn how to clip it on after a short time.

Another important advantage to the One-Step is that the fastener
is behind the bar, between the baby's legs, where s/he cannot see
it, and cannot see you open or close it.  Babies are not stupid,
and will figure out how to get out of this thing after a while.
In fact, even if your child knew how to unfasten the One-Step,
their arms cannot reach it because the bar is in the way.

Your child will spend time sleeping in the car seat, especially if
you drive anywhere more than half an hour.  It's nice if the child
can sleep comfortably.  A padded bar to lay his/her head on helps,
although this twists their neck at a weird angle and they wake up
with a stiff neck.  An assortment of straps doesn't help the child nap.

There are various cloth covers available (most car seats are made
with a plastic surface, which can get hot in the summer.)  We got
one for the One-Step.  It only fastens at the top, and the baby
usually moves the bottom off-center in the process of getting in.
As long as the child is wearing long pants, this doesn't seem to matter.

It's a big plus if your car has four doors.  This makes it much easier
to get the child into and out of the seat.

Bear in mind that you'll probably put the car seat in many different
cars over the lifetime of the seat.  Your second car, the grandparents
car, a friends car, and so on.  (Especially if you own a small car,
sometimes you want to go somewhere and there isn't room in your car
for everybody.)  It's a plus if the seat is easy to move to another car.
If the seat requires that a hold be drilled in the rear dash for a rear
mounting strap, you'll never be able to move the seat.  The One-Step
is reasonably easy to move, although it's bulky enough that you can't
get it out of the rear seat of our 2-door Accord without moving the
seat up a bit.

Here's an obscure property that new parents should be aware of.  You
will get lots of pressure to have a car seat in your car immediately,
so that even for the trip home from the hospital, the baby is safe.
However, there's a logistical problem.  When you bring your baby out
from the hospital (especially in winter), s/he may be wrapped up in
receiving blankets and won't have separate legs.  When you go to put
the child in the car seat, it will probably not work unless you can
put the crotch strap between the child's legs.  The moral is that when
you bring the child out, be sure to dress it in something with legs.

A problem we haven't solved is the toddler booster-seat.  These are
intended for children 2-4 years old.  They provide some elevation,
and strap the child in, but have no back, so larger children can
fit in them.  We got the Co-Pilot, and there is a serious logistical
problem.  It has a bottom that the child sits on, and a bar.  These
two pieces are connected only by a crotch strap.  You run the car's
seat belt over it, holding the bar down on the bottom.  The problem
is that when you unfasten the seat belt, there is no place to put
the bar while the child climbs in or out of the car.  His/her legs
get tangled up trying to get them past the strap and bar.  We've gone
back to the One-Step, since Matt still fits in it.

	Mark