Putting away a car seat for future use?

Nedra

Car-Seat.org Ambassador
I am in the process of transitioning my baby from an infant seat to a convertible. Once it is time, we intend to store the infant seat and use it for a (fingers crossed) future baby. We are not planning to have another baby for about 2 years, though, and I have heard stories of people opening car seats out of storage and finding mold on them, etc.

So what is the best way (location, container, method of cleaning) to store a car seat? Do I need to remove and wash the cover? Should I seal the padding in a bag to prevent insects from getting to it?

The low maintenance solution would be to wash the infant insert and make sure it is really dry and put it in a plastic ziplock bag. Then vacuum the seat itself and put it in a box on a shelf in the basement. If i can get away with not removing and washing the cover, I'd like to, but I will do whatever is needed to keep this seat safe.

Do I need to do more to protect the cover itself? (Wash it as well? Store it separately from the seat shell?) anything I need to do to protect the EPS foam?

It is a Cybex Aton 2, if it makes a difference. Might give some context to why I am so worried! As much as I love car seats, this was an investment for us and I have no desire to drop a lot of cash on another one down the road. All tips are appreciated!
 
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agave

New member
I stored my infant seat in one of those giant Ziplock bags then stuck it in the convertible box.
 

Keeanh

Well-known member
I've been storing car seats for future use for 15 years. I've never had one single problem. Just don't seal anything in plastic. Get a giant box from the grocery store if you're worried about mice getting into it. Store it in a dry spot. Most of my seats have been stored as-is on basement or garage shelves, no box, no washing, nothing. They've all been in good-to-excellent condition even at expiry.

At the moment, my favourite storage for extra seats is the extra vehicle :p Right now I have something like 9 or 10 car seats in my 15p van :eek: Hahaha
 

Brigala

CPST Instructor
My first choice would be to store it indoors, such as in a closet.

If that's not possible, choose a dry location, such as a garage shelf. I would probably wrap it in a sheet or something to keep dust off. If you have a problem with critters in your garage, you might want to put it inside a plastic bin.

Make sure it's nice and clean before you store it. Food particles will attract rodents.

I've only ever had one problem with storing a seat in the garage, and that's because I left it on the floor of the garage and my dear husband had the bright idea of picking a bunch of fresh pears off our tree and setting them in the car seat. Then he left the garage door open. And rodents came in and ate the pears. Fortunately, the car seat was only covered with a bunch of shaved up pear peelings, and there was no actual damage; so I was able to wash the cover and it was OK. But it could have been a lot worse. It was just inconvenient because I was about to loan the seat to a friend for a road trip. Oh well.

There's always a risk of something sustaining damage when you store it, no matter what it is. But most of the time as long as you store it clean, bugs and rodents won't be attracted to car seats, and as long as it's nice and dry it shouldn't mold.
 

YinzerMama

New member
Our house has 3 storage rooms in the basement, off of the finished living area - there is a coal room and a boiler room, both very dry where you can store anything, and then there is a long, damp, scary room under the front entry room (which is porch sized but has never been a porch, always been an enclosed room, but the foundation is different than the rest of the basement)

I have never had an issue storing car seats in either of the dry rooms (and will in fact be putting my fr85s down there in the next month or so), no special precautions needed. If you have a room where you can safely store things, there's no reason a car seat should be any different than anything else.

I have friends with an old house like mine that has a scary room under the porch and they did have a marathon mold terribly in storage and ended up throwing it out.

At the other end of the spectrum I would avoid anything too hot/dry, such as many attics, since you could possibly dry rot the straps that way - but I am not how big a risk that really is. But if you have somewhere cooler, I'd go that way.
 

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