installing a tether questions

[zeo2ski]

My little guy is not so little anymore! He's nearing height and weight Rfing in his MA (31.5 lbs, 75-90% height and a big head). So we've ordered a few seats (RN, signo, truefit) to get a couple more lbs and inches RFing, but the reality is...it's only a matter of time before he'll have to FF and I'm nervous.

Anyway, I have a 98 suburban with no tethers. I saw that GM will install one for free. My owners manual also says that your GM dealer can tell you how to install one if you want to do it yourself. That doesn't sound like the best idea to me, but DH knows he can do it himself, and would probably trust his own work over someone elses, but I'm not crazy about the idea. I know I can talk him out of it if it worries me that much, but SHOULD I be worried about him doing the work? Also, it's an old manual, is it even legal, or allowed to do that anymore?

And what happens if I need to put a seat FFing and have no tether points in the car, but the carseat does have a tether?

My real question though is about where to put the tether. I don't know how many years the car will last, so it may not be worth getting tether points for too many locations. But here is my scenario: I have a 2 year old who will be turning ffing within a year (I HOPE longer!). He currently sits Rfing drivers side outboard and my 5 mos old is in the center seat, both in the second row of the suburban. When the 2 year old turns ffing, he'll have to move to the middle seat being the least protected. But I'm thinking about just putting him in the third row middle seat, and I may even do that now. I had kept him in the middle row for the ease of getting him in and out, but...he's very interested in sitting back there these days since I let him play there while trying to install a new seat, plus he is now able to climb in almost all by himself, and since winter's coming up, I'll be climing in and out of the car to take off jackets with the door closed anyway. Okay I'm rambling, back to the question. Where should I get the tether point installed. I think I'll get a couple done at once to save the hassle later on. The baby will eventually need one, but also, we plan to begin fostering soon--for babies younger than ours, but still, you never know what size they'll be.

So--given a mix of Rfing and FFing, several babies and toddlers/preschoolers, where would you put tethers? I'm thinking 3 would be a good number. The two center seats and an outboard seat?

[crunchierthanthou]

You can see pictures of the GM tether retrofit for the Suburban in this post (http://www.car-seat.org/showpost.php?p=535715&postcount=6). It's definitely a do it yourself job. :) Unfortunately, you can only install them for the second row and it takes away one third row seating position for every TA you add.

[Jeanum]

Top tethering is optional for most forward facing carseats unless you're in Canada where tethering is mandatory. Only a few seats, such as the Britax Regent or Britax Frontier, require tethering beyond a certain weight or for specific installation methods. That said, it's definitely recommended to top tether a forward facing harnessed seat when possible to an appropriate tether anchor in the vehicle due to the safety benefit of reducing head excursion in a crash, and it's good that you're planning ahead for this in your car. :thumbsup:

[zeo2ski]

Hmm that's interesting, that it takes away seating and you can only do it in the second row. So that means, in my situation, if I put a FFing in the middle center seat and top tethered it, another child would would have to be outboard instead of the middle in the third row. So...which is better--two children in center seating positions (one RF and one FF with out a tether), or one child FFing in the center, tethered, and the other child RFing outboard?

Now, personally, I prefer the middle, but decided to put my toddler outboard rather than move him back to the third row when the new baby was born. But now, I wanted to move hiim back to the third row but can't get a great install in the center seat (the RFing lock off on his MA must have gotten stretched by having the lap/shoulder belt in it, because now it is not tight on the lap only--one layer of belt--and the seat slides around on it!) so I decided to keep him second row outboard until his new seat arrives, and try that one RFing in the third row center. Then I had planned to turn him FFing when the time comes in that same seating position. But I didn't realize you can't put a tether back there...

Suggestions?

[zeo2ski]

After reading the post but not clicking on the picture, I had a feeling that's what it was going to be! So there's no option for actually installing something for the third row? I was hoping those cargo anchors might be a possibilty or at least something installed on the floor like that.