Tethering Question

longstocking · Apr 28, 2011

I can never keep all the terms straight.
The anchors in the seat is...latch?
The anchors in the back cargo area is...?
And if I anchor a RF to the seat in front that's called...?
I anchored my Evenflo Maestro in the back and I also have a RF Roundabout 50 that I anchored to the front seat.
Here's my question...Do I need to pull the anchor straps as tight as I can or leave them with a little give?
I got the Maestro at the end of December and I could never get a good tight install with the seat belt. Just today I realized...uh, forget the seat belt, use the anchors. Now I think it's all good. Duh, took me 4 months to figure that one out.
My car is a demon car and doesn't like car seats very much (02 Suzuki Grand Vitara) Ketchupqueen has done a lot of cursing on my cars behalf. I really miss her making my car cooperate.

Baylor · Apr 28, 2011

The strap that goes over the back of the seat is the tether.. LATCH is the 2 hooks on the vehicle seat itself that the LATCH strap attaches to through the belt path of the car seat.

The TETHER should just have the slack pulled out of it not overly tight and also it should not be tightened until the seat is installed correctly using the LATCH or Seatbelt.

LISmama810 · Apr 28, 2011

The things in the vehicle seat are lower anchors. The thing in the cargo area/back of the seat/in the ceiling (depending on vehicle) is a top tether. Technically LATCH refers to the whole system (it stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for CHildren) but often it's used to refer to the lower anchors alone.

You want to pull the lower anchor straps as tight as you can, until you have less than an inch of movement.

The top tether should be pulled tight, but you don't need to put all your weight into it or anything.

If you rear-tether a seat that allows it, you usually just want to get the slack out but not pull it too tightly.

tarabelle · Apr 28, 2011

longstocking said:
I can never keep all the terms straight.
The anchors in the seat is...latch? The anchors in the seat bight (the fold) are the Lower Anchors (the LA of LATCh)

The anchors in the back cargo area is...?
The anchor in the cargo area is a Tether anchor (T of LATCh)
And if I anchor a RF to the seat in front that's called...?
Swedish Tethering

I anchored my Evenflo Maestro in the back and I also have a RF Roundabout 50 that I anchored to the front seat.
Here's my question...Do I need to pull the anchor straps as tight as I can or leave them with a little give?
I got the Maestro at the end of December and I could never get a good tight install with the seat belt. Just today I realized...uh, forget the seat belt, use the anchors. Now I think it's all good. Duh, took me 4 months to figure that one out.
My car is a demon car and doesn't like car seats very much (02 Suzuki Grand Vitara) Ketchupqueen has done a lot of cursing on my cars behalf. I really miss her making my car cooperate.

LATCh = Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children

LATCh has weight limits which if KQ helped you, may be why it was suggested or shown you the seat belt install on the Maestro . In most cars it is either 40 or 48 lbs, and the seat has limits on it as well. One may tell you to defer to the other (someone else here probably knows the limits off the top of their head for your seat/vehicle). If your child is below the weight limits for LATCh then yes, use whichever method you get the better install on.

In FF the tether anchor should be tight, on the RA it should be taught but not so tight that it reclines the seat further.

The lower latch straps should always be tight so that the seat doesn't move more than 1" back to front/side to side at the belt path.

Hope that helps.

longstocking · Apr 28, 2011

Thanks - we'll see how long I can remember all that
I anchored the Maestro super snug and tight. Figure that one out since it's in place of the seat belt (and does a better job I might add)
But my DH pulled the tether so tight it pulled the seat back a little bit - yeah, I'll go fix that.
Got it, snug, no slack, not overly tight.
Thanks!

Pixels · Apr 28, 2011

The anchors in the seat are technically called lower anchors, but LATCH is a term used interchangably. The anchor in the back cargo area is the top tether anchor. Tethering RF to the seat in front is called Swedish tethering.

The slack should be removed from the top tether straps. You can, but don't have to, really tighten the tether on the forward facing seat. Don't tighten the tether on the rear facing seat, just take the slack out.

Holly · Apr 28, 2011

Pixels said:
.Tethering RF to the seat in front is called Swedish tethering.

I thought swedish tethering is when you have the tether hooked to that same vehicle seat's tether spot (The same anchor you would hook the tether to if the seat was FF in the same spot)?

I'm pretty sure she is just asking about when you use a tether rearfacing on a britax or sunshine kids seat and you hook it to the leg of one of the front seats. Isn't that just called rear face tethering?

tarabelle · Apr 28, 2011

Holly said:
I thought swedish tethering is when you have the tether hooked to that same vehicle seat's tether spot (The same anchor you would hook the tether to if the seat was FF in the same spot)?

I'm pretty sure she is just asking about when you use a tether rearfacing on a britax or sunshine kids seat and you hook it to the leg of one of the front seats. Isn't that just called rear face tethering?

There's 2 types of tethering for rear facing

The australian method, which is when you tether the RF seat to the same anchor you would forward facing.

Swedish tethering is when you tether a RF seat to the seat in front of it.

ETA to fix to different image.

Holly · Apr 28, 2011

tarabelle said:
There's 2 types of tethering for rear facing

The australian method, which is when you tether the RF seat to the same anchor you would forward facing.

Swedish tethering is when you tether a RF seat to the seat in front of it.

Thanks, the australian method is what I was thinking of.

Mae · Apr 28, 2011

tarabelle said:
There's 2 types of tethering for rear facing

The australian method, which is when you tether the RF seat to the same anchor you would forward facing.

Swedish tethering is when you tether a RF seat to the seat in front of it.

Would you mind perhaps mentioning that you borrowed that picture from somebody's photobucket (Ahem, mine?

) before posting it? I don't mind if people use my pictures (heck, that's a screen shot of the online manual, but I still credit the Britax manual), but I'd appreciate it if it's at least mentioned where you got it.

tarabelle · Apr 28, 2011

Mae said:
Would you mind perhaps mentioning that you borrowed that picture from somebody's photobucket (Ahem, mine? ) before posting it? I don't mind if people use my pictures (heck, that's a screen shot of the online manual, but I still credit the Britax manual), but I'd appreciate it if it's at least mentioned where you got it.

Got the image from google, knew it was from the manual and didn't look at the source. I corrected it to my own screen shot, sorry

longstocking · Apr 28, 2011

tarabelle said:
LATCh = Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children

LATCh has weight limits which if KQ helped you, may be why it was suggested or shown you the seat belt install on the Maestro .

Sadly I moved so I didn't have KQ to help me with these installs. Just tried really hard to remember everything she patiently taught me.

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