tsk tsk, Magic Beans!!

I rceived an email from Magic Beans and they had this article on car seats:

Getting to know
your car seat.

By Eli Gurock

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been significant hubbub about car seat safety, thanks to a widely publicized and then retracted Consumer Reports article about infant car seats. The safety of many popular and highly respected car seats has come into question, resulting in many concerns about keeping kids safe in car seats.

Car seats are intimidating, and while I always recommend getting your installation inspected by a certified installer, it's also important to feel comfortable around your car seat. Here are some tips to help you get started.

1.Study the instructions.
Granted, it's obvious, but the manuals can contain so much legal mumbo jumbo that your eyes will glaze over. Pretend you're back in school and get a highlighter. Go through the manual and highlight the most important parts, and then go back and reread what you've highlighted. You should also read the manual in your car to see if your car manufacturer has installation tips.

2. Make friends with your car seat.
Bring the seat into the house and spend 10-20 minutes just exploring the parts of the seat. Play with the LATCH connectors, adjust the straps, remove and replace the harness straps, take off the seat fabric, turn the car seat upside down. Go slowly and make sure you will be able to restore everything to its original configuration. The more you understand the mechanics of a car seat, the easier it will be to do the installation yourself.

3. Put your knee into it.
In general, there should be no more than an inch or two of wiggle at the base of a car seat when it is properly installed. Most of the time, pulling hard on the seat belt or the LATCH (Lower Anchor and Tethers) strap doesn't do the trick. Climb into the car, put your knee into the center of the car seat, and bear down. Pull tight again - it should make a big difference.

Click here to see why no knee is required if you buy the Orbit infant system. (http://orbitbaby.com/why/install.html)

4. Seatbelts 101.
If you have a car that was manufactured in the past 10 years you probably have seatbelts known as "switchable retractors". That means when you click in your seatbelt, and you drop something or have to bend forward, you can still move around easily. But if your car stops short, or you get into a crash, the seatbelt should lock and keep you in place.

When you install a carseat, you want the seatbelt to always be in that automatically locked position. To make that happen, pull on the seatbelt until it can't come out any further. Once you do that, your seatbelt should switch to that automatic locking position. If you listen, you will hear the seatbelt ratchet as it retracts. Once you've engaged the seatbelt, your installation will be that much more secure.

5. Compatibility.
Not every car seat will fit into every car. The seat fabric may be too slippery, the angle of the seat may be too extreme, or the seatbelts may be in weird places. Sometimes, with a little bit of corrective gear, you can get a safe installation, or sometimes you'll need to make an exchange for a new seat. If you aren't having an easy time, get professional help. Certified installers are trained to deal with all sorts of unusual situations.

For a more extensive FAQ about car seats go to http://www.car-safety.org.

Car seat safety is serious business, but it is something that you should get used to doing. It's convenient to rely on a certified installation technician, but chances are someday you'll need to go it alone. So don't get caught off guard. Get to know your car seat, and spend some quality time with a technician learning firsthand techniques for your seat and your car. That way, you'll have the confidence you need to keep your kids safe in their car seats.


It's great that they're addressing the topic and offering tips but some of their advice is just wrong.
A car seat should NOT have 1-2" of wiggle, I don't think it's a good idea to tell parents to remove the harness....that could lead to all sorts of problems,
and I can also see many people misinterpreting "corrective gear" and assuming that means all sorts of aftermarket nonsense.

I thought MB had a tech on staff.......I wish they would have done a bit more research on that article....perhaps they need an email or two .

super_grape said:

3. Put your knee into it.
In general, there should be no more than an inch or two of wiggle at the base of a car seat when it is properly installed.


5. Compatibility.
Not every car seat will fit into every car. The seat fabric may be too slippery, the angle of the seat may be too extreme, or the seatbelts may be in weird places. Sometimes, with a little bit of corrective gear, you can get a safe installation

Click to expand...

ouch! they didnt do much reading of our board before recommending it obviously...thats cause for concern...

The corrective gear part is really scary.....can you imagine what someone might do?!?!

I don't have to....2x4s, bungee cords, quilts.......

super_grape said:

4. Seatbelts 101.
If you have a car that was manufactured in the past 10 years you probably have seatbelts known as "switchable retractors". That means when you click in your seatbelt, and you drop something or have to bend forward, you can still move around easily. But if your car stops short, or you get into a crash, the seatbelt should lock and keep you in place.

When you install a carseat, you want the seatbelt to always be in that automatically locked position. To make that happen, pull on the seatbelt until it can't come out any further. Once you do that, your seatbelt should switch to that automatic locking position. If you listen, you will hear the seatbelt ratchet as it retracts. Once you've engaged the seatbelt, your installation will be that much more secure.

Click to expand...

Hello? What about every dodge? Don't they all have lightweight locking latchplates? If they are going to do a seatbelt 101, they might want to mention that there are actually 2 (3 if you include lapbelts) ways to lock seatbelts available in the last 10 years.

Yep, and both Dodge and GM used locking latchplates.

Too bad they didn't do just a bit of research on some important details first because overall, I think it's a pretty good article!

I took "remove and replace harness straps" to mean "adjust the height". But I see where someone else could see "take the whole dang thing apart" Maybe that's the way they should have phrased it (adjust the height, I mean).

"Corrective gear" should have said "rolled towel or pool noodle, and maybe that thin waffle mat stuff", nothing else!

And no more than one inch of wiggle room, for sure!

Magic Beans attempting to start to make a difference

Hi Folks,

I didn't even know there was this great forum for parents who obviously know and care so much about keeping kids safe.

We sell hundreds of car seats at Magic Beans, and you would be shocked to see how many people are really afraid of their car seats. They want to be completely hands off in the process, and go to the Brookline police every time they need to do anything surrounding their seats. This was not a car seat installation 101. This was an article to encourage parents not to be afraid of their car seats.

I am a certified technician and the author of the article. I took the 40 hour tech class in May and all of the information - including the inch or 2 of wiggle room - was in the course. Obviously, we'd like to see every installation be solid as a rock, but this is the language used in the coursework, and that is what I am deferring to.

I suggest that parents take out the harness because many parents would prefer to keep the harness in the wrong position because they never took the time to learn how to move up their harness straps.

I also recommend more than once that parents get their seats inspected by a professional. Parents think that just because they have what they consider to be the safest car and the safest car seat that they are all set. No one is suggesting that parents buy bungee cords and 2x4s - perhaps a noodle and some shelf liner will do the trick, but I left that vague on purpose to encourage parents to seek professional help if the installation is anything but straightforward – I specifically didn’t want parents to try exploring options on their own.

And finally, I didn't say that all cars have switchable retractors, I said you probably have a switchable retractor – and that's true. This article was really meant to be an overview, and too many details on the different types of seatbelts would risk diluting my point for the majority of the readers.

Again, I’m so pleased to have discovered this great resource, and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify some of these points. Keep up the good work.

But you see, sometimes the worst thing to do is to not give enuf information.
Don't get me wrong, I do think it was a good article on the whole
it's just that with people who are afraid of their car seat (and even those who aren't but just don't educate themselves) you MUST give a certain amount of detail.

I'm a Canadian Tech so I do not know what the US CPS literature says
but in all the research I have done and in the literature that I was taught from the rule is no more than one inch as it states here on this website:

"Q33: Is my carseat tight enough?

Grab your carseat at the base, where the seatbelt goes. The base should not move more than an inch (1") side-to-side or front-to-back. Some movement at the top of the seat is normal, though a tether will reduce this movement in forward-facing carseats.

Ideally, you want the child coupled as tightly as possible to the harness system and carseat, and the carseat coupled as tightly as possible to the vehicle with the seatbelt or LATCH system. When you do this, the child gains all the benefit of "ride-down time" provided by the crushing frame of the vehicle in a crash. With a loose installation of any kind, the child gets less ride down time and suffers a more severe crash into the harness system. Also see this definition of ride-down time."

Most of us techs have witnessed some pretty crazy and downright dangerous
corrective gear in use so when Rebekah mentioned bungee cords and 2 x 4s
she was being serious...she has seen that, unfortunately. That's another area where not enuf detail is well, not enuf. That was my "beef" with the article having witnessed how things can be interpreted first hand.

It's GREAT that you tell parents to seek the help of a CPST and that you along with MB's are putting the info out there to help educate,.
As you said this website is a FANTASTIC resource that has educated and inspired many people (myself included). You'll find everything you could possibly ever need to know here!

And welcome, by the way !

I passed my CPST exam with a 100% yesterday. The coursework says NO MORE THAN an inch, not 1-2 inches. Otherwise I think it's a good article.

And other than a locking clip or pool noodle or tightly rolled towel, no corrective gear should be needed. The term could certainly spur creative parents to use random things to enhance the installation.