Save Your Money and Avoid Knockoff Carseats How do you know you can use a carseat safely for your child? Cheap (and not-so-cheap) Chinese carseats sold in the U.S., and caregivers buying items not certified for use here, have created a market where unscrupulous sellers have swooped in with vastly inferior, and sometimes fake, products. Keep reading to find out how to identify a carseat that’s not certified for use in the U.S. or that’s potentially dangerous to use. How Do You Know If A Carseat Is Fake or Not Certified for Use in the U.S.? Let’s start at the ..read more

Welcome to our ongoing Mythbusting Series where we explore common myths regarding kids and carseats. Myth: My child’s legs will be injured in a crash if their feet are touching the back of the seat or if their legs are bent  This is a common and very persistent myth. Child Passenger Safety Technicians spend a lot of time talking to parents about this concern. In reality, during a frontal crash (the most common type of crash), the child’s legs will fly up and away from the back seat as the carseat rotates downward. It’s also much more important to protect ..read more

Welcome to our ongoing Mythbusting Series where we explore common myths regarding kids and car seats. Myth: Backseat baby mirrors present a life-threatening danger in a crash There are a lot of black and white things in child passenger safety. Always read the manual. Always follow the manual. Harness should always pass the pinch test. But when you get outside of those black and white things, you’ll find a lot of gray areas. And those gray areas can almost always be categorized as “parental discretion”. As CPS Technicians, we can give you suggestions about things that may or may not ..read more

Is a 5-point harness safer than a booster seat and seatbelt for an older child? It’s a question that has been asked ever since the introduction of car seats with a higher-weight harness in the early 2000’s. To this day, there still hasn’t been a consensus in the field either way, so we’ll take a look at the evidence and try to come to a conclusion. Myth: Even for School-Age Kids, a Car Seat with a 5-Point Harness Is Always Safer than a Booster Using a 3-Point Lap/Shoulder Seatbelt So right off the bat, I want to make a few ..read more

Myth: A rock-solid, shake-the-car installation is not ideal and you could break your carseat or damage the seatbelt Is it bad or wrong to install your car seat so tightly that you shake the whole car when you’re testing to make sure it’s tight? That question comes up frequently so we wanted to explore the issue – look at the facts, talk to car seat engineers, and set the record straight once and for all. First, a little background info – when child restraint systems are crash tested in a lab, the tension on the belt webbing has to measure ..read more

Myth: Your pediatrician is educated on child passenger safety and is a good source of information on the subject In the many years that I’ve been involved in the child passenger safety field, one of the most common reasons I’ve heard for turning children forward-facing early or moving them out of a booster seat too soon is “my pediatrician said it was fine.” So I thought it would be helpful to explore whether a pediatrician is generally a good source of car seat information and to try to to set the record straight. Now, let’s be clear, I love pediatricians ..read more

March has arrived with its promise of longer days and rainbows that lead to a pot o’ gold. What better way to celebrate than with a fine giveaway for one lucky wee lad or lass, thanks to our generous friends at Evenflo. Especially when that giveaway is a magical Evenflo Gold Revolve360 Extend All-in-One in the Emerald “Green & Gentle” fashion! That’s enough to lure a leprechaun! Evenflo Gold Revolve360 Extend Specs & Features Rear-facing: 4-50 lbs., 17-48″ tall Forward-facing: 22-65 lbs., 28-49″, at least 2 years old Booster mode: 40-120 lbs., 44-57″, at least 4 years old 360 ..read more

  Welcome to our ongoing Mythbusting Series where we explore common myths regarding kids and car seats. MYTH: It’s never safe to check a car seat when you fly The issue of how to best handle flying with kids and their car seats is something that comes up often. Many safety-conscious parents will bring the car seat with them knowing that their child will need to use it once they reach their destination. I applaud all those parents for doing the right thing! However, for a variety of reasons, most parents don’t actually bring the car seat onto the plane ..read more

The Chicco Fit360 ClearTex Rotating Convertible is the newest masterpiece from the talented car seat team at Chicco (pronounced Kee-Ko) and overall, it’s exceptional. As its name implies, Fit360 rotates a full 360° so you can take advantage of the swivel feature regardless of whether your child rides rear-facing or forward-facing. Equally important, the unique base design allows for a very simple and very secure installation. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how well a car seat rotates if you can’t achieve a secure installation. The Chicco Fit360 is one of the easiest car seats on the ..read more

Graco 4Ever DLX All-in-1 Car Seat Like the Fountain of Youth or the Holy Grail, a true “forever” car seat has been eluding desperate searchers for years. Yes, there already are seats that rear-face, forward-face, and turn into a booster, but they are often lacking in at least one function, and when that happens, what’s the point? So when Graco launched the 4Ever DLX 4-in-1, which rear-faces, forward-faces, and turns into both a highback and a backless booster, it was easy to get excited but also easy to have reservations. Will it really do what it claims, and do it ..read more