Melanie Raposo: Hi everybody, I am Melanie Raposo and welcome to Pregnancy Show. Did you know that more than 95% of car seats are installed incorrectly? Today I am at the Toronto Police Station and we are going to show you how to install your car seat properly, what to look for when buying one and some important things that you should know about your car seats.
Female Speaker: Well this is a second car seat, the first one was a lot easier but the second one was quite complicated and the instructions were not very clear. Knowing that this service exist right away I decided to come here even before fully trying to install it myself.
Melanie Raposo: At a car seat workshop such as this one, police officers like Stephen Burns are on hand to make sure your car seat is installed properly and give you tips on how to make installing your car seats simple.
Stephen Burns: She has done a very good job and the universal anchorage is these two 6mm bolts under the seat. They are for either outside position, so you have done very good there. A lot of mistakes people make is they put it in the center. It is an option you can take the base off. Okay, but a lot of cars like this has a nice flat seat, but a lot of cars have more of a -- seats are designed for adults and not designed to take car seats. So now what we are going to do is to fill this void underneath. You can use some rolled up towels or Samantha is going to go and measure it. We are going to put some poo noodles in there because the noodles of the foam compresses nicely and they will get nice and tight and fill that void under the seat. So you want to be at 45.
Melanie Raposo: Constable Stephen Burns says your car seat should sit on a 45 degree angle and strap should be at or below the baby shoulders.
Stephen Burns: So when your child is in here, one finger only and for this let's see this is really nice, I will fix it for you. There you go, so there is your tighten strap and it goes nice and tight and then the release button is right in here as well, push the metal button down, hold that out and then take care of that one out.
Melanie Raposo: Burns says the most common mistake people make is not taking the time to read their car seat manuals, but even still manuals can sometimes leave out some important information.
Stephen Burns: It doesn't explain thoroughly enough about putting your weight on the seat. It says, don't move it one inch side to side but people don't pull straight up, they are pulling on an angle and no where it says use two people, it doesn't say use poo noodles, it will say use a rolled up towel, but it is a large seat and people need to take the time to read their owners manual and the car seat manual and it can get quite technical when we are doing that.
Melanie Raposo: Awareness of car seat safety is growing rapidly among parents. With the expertise provided by dedicated local police officers through these types of workshops parents can rest assure their children are that much safer when on the roads. Be sure to visit thepregnancyshow.com for our extended coverage on what to look for when choosing a car seat and some crucial safety issues you may not know about.
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