How to Correctly LATCH a Child Car Seat

So who remembers the day you took your new baby home? I still remember thinking to myself, "are they really going to let us take her home?" It seemed crazy to me that they were sending me home with a BABY even though I had no clue what I was doing!

Ahh, but I did have ONE thing done right...I had installed the child safety seat prior to the baby's coming home date. During the entire "pre-birth" period when we visited the hospital and took parenting classes and so forth, they made a point of telling us that the hospital would not let us take our baby home if there is not an infant car seat installed. So I made sure to get this done. In fact, I had even gone to a child car seat installation consultant to make sure it was correctly installed. But an interesting thing happened during my visit to the child seat installation consultant.

Here's a shocking statistic for you: I was told that in my county (Orange County, CA) about 95% of parents install their infant car seats incorrectly! Now of course, I wasn't one of those parents...right?. I had actually read the instruction manual. And give me a break...the LATCH system on my baby car seat is soooo easy to use. (Those of you who have recently purchased a child car seat should know what the LATCH system is) Basically, the LATCH system on a child car seat works together with brackets in the rear seats (available in most vehicles these days) for an easy-to-use system for installing a child safety seat.

Well, it turns out that I'm part of that 95% too. When I went to the child seat consultant, she told me that I had installed the seat incorrectly. I asked how that could be possible since there really is no way to screw it up when using the LATCH system. Here's what she said:

In MOST cars on the road today, the LATCH system is not intended to be used in the center position. Unfortunately, this is the position most parents tend to place the child seat because they feel it is the safest. For instance, if you get hit by another vehicle on the side of your car, it would be better for the child to be in the middle seat. The LATCH brackets on most cars however, are only available on the two outer seats. But sine the brackets appear to be usable in the middle position, it's is a very common mistake.

So here's your tip of the day...when using the LATCH system, make certain your vehicle has the LATCH brackets for the center seat if you are going to place your child there.