Understanding Child Seats

Safety must be kept in mind always in any activity, especially when your infant or toddler is involved. As such, when you have to constantly travel on the road with your child, you will have to consider having the appropriate baby car seat installed in your vehicle. In fact, you should utilise a car seat even for short-distance driving. The fact is, although airbags can save our lives during road accidents, they are not actually designed for children's safety. With child car seats, your baby or toddler is protected in case of a crash.

In the United Kingdom, the law requires all children below 135 centimetres in height or below 12 years old to wear the proper child restraint when travelling in cars. Afterwards, they are then required to use the adult seat belt.

For babies six months to 15 months old, the rearward-facing baby seats are the appropriate car restraint. They are ideally placed at the back seat of the car. However, they can be placed on the passenger seat if there is no airbag or the airbag mechanism is turned off. Once your child has weighed more than 29 pounds (lbs) or when the top of his head is higher than the top of the baby seat though, it is time to let him start using a forward-facing child seat. Similarly, the forward-facing seats for your toddlers are ideally placed in the backseat of your car, especially when there is an airbag on the passenger seat. Over all, child car seats are important and must be used.