NatesMamma
New member
Twice now, I've been in a situation where someone has asked me to help install a child restraint. Occasion #1 was when I noticed a horribly installed Scenera while leaving a playdate and kindly pointed out the obvious problems to the parent. The other time was when I was approached by a frazzled new dad outside of a hospital. His newborn had just been released, and he had no idea how to install his Snugride base for the drive home. Neither of these parents had the CR manual or their car's manual, and I hadn't had any experience with either seat up to that point.
In each instance, I installed the CR to the best of my ability, going off my knowledge from hanging out here and the stickers on the carseat. I made it clear that I was not completely sure what I was doing and gave the parents the number for a local tech, whose number I keep in my phone. And I stressed the importance of reading the car's manual and the entire CR manual.
So my question is, am I correct in assuming pretty much all harnessed CR install more or less the same way? As long as the seat is installed tightly, I use the lockoffs or locking clip or ALR, the angle is correct, the correct belt path is used, LATCH is used properly when applicable, FF seat is tethered, etc is it likely that I've gotten a safe install? Obviously, I won't nail down the details specific to the car without having the manual, but I at least want the family to travel safely as possible until they can get home or to the tech and have everything completely sorted out. And is there anything that I need to watch out for with specific seats or cars? I'm really not comfortable with helping strangers install seats this way, but unfortunately, in a given group of my friends it's likely that I'm the most carseat safety conscious person there. :thumbsdown:
In each instance, I installed the CR to the best of my ability, going off my knowledge from hanging out here and the stickers on the carseat. I made it clear that I was not completely sure what I was doing and gave the parents the number for a local tech, whose number I keep in my phone. And I stressed the importance of reading the car's manual and the entire CR manual.
So my question is, am I correct in assuming pretty much all harnessed CR install more or less the same way? As long as the seat is installed tightly, I use the lockoffs or locking clip or ALR, the angle is correct, the correct belt path is used, LATCH is used properly when applicable, FF seat is tethered, etc is it likely that I've gotten a safe install? Obviously, I won't nail down the details specific to the car without having the manual, but I at least want the family to travel safely as possible until they can get home or to the tech and have everything completely sorted out. And is there anything that I need to watch out for with specific seats or cars? I'm really not comfortable with helping strangers install seats this way, but unfortunately, in a given group of my friends it's likely that I'm the most carseat safety conscious person there. :thumbsdown: