Your Basic Child Seat Installation Guide: Common mistakes and getting it right
I am not a licensed nor accredited child restraint installer and the following advice in this article is general in nature. Always have your restraint fitted by an expert by using the Australian Child Restraint Resource Initiative website.
Choose the right child seat
It’s very easy to buy the wrong child seat and instal it all wrong.
You’re either trying to get the best value, the most multi-purpose seat possible, without spending too much. Or it’s the opposite, you want the best-of-the-best that money can buy because safety is worth every cent. Right?
And then you get it home, in the car it's bigger than it looked in the shop or online, there are belts and clips and warning labels all over it. And you’re instantly horrified at the thought of getting it wrong.
Self-confidence goes out the window, your back is killing you, the house is a pigsty and your friends are equally as clueless as you — or they're worryingly over confident.
You’re probably ready to give up completely and pay someone at Baby Bunting (which isn’t necessarily a bad idea; it’s probably a good one if you’re quivering at the knees on all of this).
Problem is, the Baby Bunting people are experts and have fitted a child seat thousands of times: they could do it blindfolded. In the dark.
And they’re not a teacher. They can do it so quickly you won’t get it all first time (despite nodding furiously, yepping him). And when you need to fit the seat into mum and dad’s car on a stressful Friday afternoon six months down the track, you'll have no idea how to do it.
So here’s how you get the best child seat for you and yours, and do it right.
This image is not an accurate representation of how to install such capsules; top tether here should feed through the carry handle, not over the top, technically.
NEWBORNS AND CAPSULES
Don’t listen to any other opinions on whether you should get a capsule or something else - Capsules are utterly brilliant.
This is the hardest time in your life, so make it significantly less shit by getting a fricken capsule. Why? Because they click into a fixed base in the car, and you simply disconnect it when you get to your destination and either carry bub inside like I did, desperate to get that first glass of shiraz under way. Or if you’re going for a walk or will need the kid mobile, you slot it into the respective compatible stroller or pram.
Like, it couldn’t be simpler. You don’t have to wake the baby trying to transfer them into a harness in the car, or if they’ve fallen asleep en route, you don’t have to do infant oragami to pull them out. And I guarantee you’ll wake them up because Murphy’s Law.
Get a rearward-facing capsule with an inbuilt harness. Just do it. Don’t argue. Your capsule can be used from newborn up until 12 months, depending on rapidly they grow. And if you’re having more than one, store it away until then and get as much use as possible from it.
CONVERTABLE CAR SEAT
If you're not able to afford the extra needed for a capsule and pram, plus an eventual full-size child restraint seat, then you’re going to have to consider the convertible design.
Convertibles accommodate infants with additional padding and an adjustable harness to suit their tiny frames, but can be expanded (or removed in the case of the extra padding).
Convertible car seats allow children to be rear-facing up to about 12 months, while there are some which offer use up to two or three years of age - but you must monitor this. It can be easy for two years to go by and your seat becomes redundant or they’re too big.
Convertible child seats can be fitted to forward-facing while still using the inbuilt harness until roughly six years of age; height/weight spending of course.
HOWEVER - I do not recommend any convertible child seat which is not ISOFIX compatible. They are often priced very sharply, some below $200 retail, but it’s not until you get into the detailed specs of the child seat you find it’s not ISOFIX compatible.
For example, the ‘Babylove Ezy Switch EP’ is just $159 - very tempting. But in the description is doesn’t tell you it’s not-compatible for ISOFIX; you have to find the specifications before it says ‘no’ to ISOFIX.
Same goes for the ‘Infasecure Rover Convertible Booster Car Seat’ which is also $169 - a bargain, right? No. No ISOFIX means you should strike it off your list.
ISOFIX is the standard level of safety now and you absolutely should not accept anything else. In the context of what your child will cost you, spend an extra $50-100 and get ISOFIX.
SIZE MATTERS - NOT AGE
Do not buy a child seat based on their age. Get one based on their height and weight. Prematurely progressing to the next type of car seat based on age rather than height is a potentially fatal mistake.
See, during a crash, the amount of force applied to the body is extreme - watch any ANCAP crash test video and see how the child dummy reacts during a crash event. It’s horrific.
Child seats are designed to prolong that duration of force imposed on the body to reduce the damage done to internal organs, tissue and blood vessels.
According to Britax Australia, age should only be used as a guide to how much they weigh. My son was relatively big; he grew hard and fast, so he was able to be turned around from rear-facing to front-facing reasonably early, because he had strong muscles and could hold himself up very well. The heavier the kid, the more energy required to move them a certain distance. Smaller, lighter kids will be more easily thrown around.
Britax Australia advises:
Children under the age of six months must use a rear facing car seat
Children aged six months to four years can use either a rear facing car seat or a forward facing car seat.
(So don’t let other parents make you feel bad leaving yours facing rearwards, or turning them around ‘too early’. Do what you know is safe.)
Children aged four years to seven years (approx.) must travel in a forward facing car seat or booster seat. Although staying in a harnessed seat is the safest option.
I strongly encourage all parents, soon-to-be or seasoned breeders, to regularly familiarise themselves with their in-vehicle child restraints.
A very useful resource is https://www.childcarseats.com.au/
DO YOUR RESEARCH EARLY
Do it before the baby comes. Have the seat/s installed long before the baby/babies arrive. And when/if you do have them installed by a licenced professional: ask questions. Study what they’re doing, take notes, take photos. Watch and learn. Get them to teach you step-by-step. Then do it yourself, several times, on the same day.
If you have to remove your child seat for whatever reason - folding the second row seats to bring home gardening supplies, moving house, picking up bikes through Gumtree, buying nappies in bulk, whatever - you need to know how they go back in.
You can avoid this either, it’s critical because someone is gonna ask you for help, or you’ll find yourself in a situation where you need to do it yourself.
Having said all this, there are lots of different types of capsules and child seats to be aware of. For example, Britax has a “Unity Isofix Capsule” which specifically designed for infants with low birthweights or those born premature (or both). It’s designed, according to Britax, with very high sidewalls, multiple shoulder harness positions and crotch strap.
Here’s a good instructional video to guide you through_ Although, keep in mind this is a general guide and there may be different situations for you.
SAGE ADVICE
Do not learn how to install your child seat the day you leave hospital, or the week after you get home. And don’t do it the week you’re expecting: you’re going to be anxious and nervous.
Then after that big moment, you’re going to be sleep deprived, stressed, distracted and have a million other priorities.
Your cup will runneth over. This is not the state you want to be in for beta testing such a critical piece of vehicle safety equipment.
This is first-hand advice. I was ready to go weeks before we were due, for exactly this reason. It was the right move.
ISOFIX OR NOTHING
Before Australia legalised ISOFIX in September 2014, the Monash University Accident Research Center found 88 per cent of forward-facing child seats were incorrectly installed.
The same study found two-thirds of infant and booster seats were also wrongly fitted.
The most frequent mistakes parents made installing their child seat included twisted seat belts, twisted and/or poorly positioned straps, or straps not even routed properly, or missing/incorrectly fitted buckles and clips, and using the completely wrong-sized restraint device.
ISOFIX effectively solves the majority of these problems. Because it’s so bloody simple. ISOFIX also means nanna and grandpa can fit the child restraint in their cars with relative ease - presuming their vehicle has ISOFIX points, of course.
A warning however, again, do not be swayed by awards and fancy or clever marketing labels or names. This is a serious piece of safety equipment that is literally a life or death tool to get the single most precious thing in your life to the shops and home again.
As I write this, CANSTAR has awarded the ‘Mothers Choice Prime AP Convertible Booster’ seat, except it isn’t ISOFIX compatible. Which is a fail in my book.
According to the Baby Bunting website there are 4 capsules and 24 convertible child restraints, (and 17 harnessed booster seats) which are not ISOFIX compatible.
And there are 7 capsules and 23 convertibles that are ISOFIX compatible.
Also, keep in mind Australian Design Rules require by law that ISOFIX points on a child restraint must also be backed up by a top tether.
So, you have to know how to do both. Legally.
INSTALLING
Firstly, take an old towel and fold it lengthways so it sits on the seatbase and hangs over the top of the seatback. This will help protect your leather once you pull everything tight. And make sure the seatback is upright, not reclined as is sometimes a feature of new cars.
Now, Britax Australia advises that “no more than a couple of centimeters movement from back to front or side to side” should occur when you’ve clicked everything in. This means everything needs to be tight. And if you’re regimented about this from the beginning, including with kiddo’s harness being tight, they’ll get used to it feeling secure. If you start the early months and eventually the first year with the belts too loose, that will become their normal level of comfort, and tightening the belts from there might become stressful because they feel like they can’t breathe or it feels weird and they panic. Anyway, we’ll talk more about this later. Point is: Tight belts are safe.
So start with your ISOFIX points. They’re the easiest, typically, and it is the most modern child restraint device design, superseding the old top tether style (we’ll get to that). Most ISOFIX points are easy to find, hidden behind fabric or leather flaps, tucked between the fold of the backseat’s base and the backrest. It’s a hard black-painted metal hoop bolted directly into the hardest structure of the vehicle. Simply push the restraints ISOFIX clip onto the point and you’re done; repeat on both sides - note: there are always two per seat (and I’m not trying to insult your intelligence; this may be your first time).
Plus, there's typically a small 'window’ which turns green when the ISOFIX point is correctly tensioned. So once you’ve clipped the tethers in, it’s best to stand in the car leaning on the restraint as you pull tight on each strap. Pull one at a time as you push the restraint gently into the car's seatbase.
Ensure the top tether straps are flat going over the top of the seatback.
Now give yourself plenty of slack to slide a towel underneath the straps to save the leather stretching and wrinkling.
QUICK TIP: If you folded that towel lengthways before putting the seat in place, like I suggested, you’ll be ready for this step ahead of time.
Clip the latch into the anchor point behind the seat, with the gated side of the latch facing toward the seat as you clip it in by pushing it against the anchor bar. This ensures the strap will not be twisted when you draw in the slack.
So now you have the V formation with the straps and the latch. One side has the buckle for tensioning.
Make sure you feed and pull all the slack from the non-buckle-side of the top tether strap through the V of the latch, and now pull tight on the buckle strap to tension it. Double check all the slack is out of the V by pulling on the buckle-side of the V strap, and pull again on the slack end of the strap to add more tension.
Great work. You’ve now fitted your child restraint as is legally required in Australia - both top tether and ISOFIX must be used together.
Now, for one additional layer of safety - because again, you don’t get to choose when or how severe the crash might be in your future - I want you to take the car’s regular three-point seatbelt and feed it through whatever designated channel might be design for your child restraint.
I don’t believe this is a legal requirement, and it’s largely redundant thanks to ISOFIX being a hard-mounted point on the vehicle, but that’s how safety systems are built into aviation and industry. You have redundancies so that if your primary or even secondary safety system fails, there’s a lifeline.
If for some inexplicable reason the child restraint or the ISOFIX latch or the top tether fails, or if it’s a medium-size truck that hits you at 110km/h instead of a hatchback doing 40, put the bloody seatbelt in place as a destitute last-resort to keeping that child restraint from flying across the car. It takes 10 seconds and does no harm.
Twisted belts
Once you’ve become a child-seat installing ninja, it’s important to now learn to develop OCD because you don’t get to choose when you have an accident.
And the roads can be a malicious, negligent place. It’s your responsibility to insulate your kids from that risk.
A twisted seatbelt can be deadly. And there are two sets of belts on a child seat. There’s the top tether restraint, which is the traditional anchorage device that clips into a designated anchor point in the vehicle, and then there’s the child’s restraint itself, which clips in using a five- or six-point harness-type arrangement.
The five/six-point harness is designed to hold your child into the seat by evenly distributing the loads placed on them by the belts. A normal lap-sash seatbelt which grown-ups use has two restraining faces of the belt holding you in place. This means that in a crash, there’s a greater amount of load concentrated on those two body areas (the lap and the torso-over-shoulder sash). So there’s more pressure exerted on the body in those areas. But that’s okay for grown-ups whose bodies are much better at coping with higher loads.
For a child, which isn’t as strong as an adult, the load required to hold that kid in the seat during the violence of a crash needs to be more evenly distributed on their body to minimise injury. Twisted belts will compromise how those belts distribute that load during a crash. The load will be concentrated on the twisted section of the belt, meaning a more severe injury.
Twisted belts can cause more harm than the crash itself because the belt cuts into the child, rather than hold them in place.
You also need to be fanatical about the top tether, ensuring it sits flat over the top of the seatback, through the latch and at the tensioner buckle.
Facing the wrong way
Yes, it’s very easy to scold or judge a parent for turning their kid around ‘too early’ but this is the misconception.
For the first six months, your child is going to put on weight - at least they’re supposed to. They need to grow to get stronger. And going on trips to the shops with you or to visit friends and relatives is unavoidable, right?
So they need to be rear-facing for this time, sometimes for as long as a year. But if you have a fast-growing kid like we did, you’re going to be subjecting them to great discomfort if their legs are up against the seatback for long periods. And they’ll eventually start telling you.
So yes, keep them rear-facing as long as you can. But when it’s time, it’s time.
Loose belts
A loose seatbelt explains a lot. You’re distracted, maybe you don't have the arm strength, whatever.
But a loose belt cannot save a life in a crash. And they need to be tight.
Don’t asphyxiate the kid, but they need to be snug. Wriggling hands, soft bones, and squirming legs can all alter how tight you can pull the belts.
David Copperfield used to escape from straight-jackets and being wrapped in chains by inflating his lungs to full capacity and exhaling when the clock started. This meant as he exhaled the restraint slackened off.
If your kid, particularly a toddler (who is forever testing the world they live in), slips an arm or two out of their belts, it’s terrifying.
So, for the same reason child locks exist on back doors, their belts need to be tight from the beginning. And they need to learn to accept them as being tight, no matter how much their protest - and they will.
A loose belt cannot hold your child in place in the event of a crash. Their body flies forward or sideways, and the collision their little organs have inside their body is even more severe.
Try to teach your little one, as you go through the motions of taking car trips, to understand the words ‘Sit back’, so they can push themselves back into their restraint as you pull the slack out of their harness. Also, try to push their bum back into the crux of the seat to prevent slouching or submarining.
Always keep their belts tight, and once you’ve pulled on the tensioning strap, make sure you give one little tug on the harness straps to make sure all the slack has been removed. Then add one little safety tug on the tensioner strap again.
Try to make getting into their car seat fun and a pleasant experience. Talk to them about what you’re doing, and while you’re at it, it’s a chance to teach left and right.
Shoulder adjustments
You need to regularly check the height of your child in their seat restraint.
More specifically, you need to monitor their height and adjust the seat’s belt-height relative to the child’s shoulders.
Belts must not sit below the shoulder line of the child, otherwise they risk pulling down on the shoulders during a crash, rather than holding them back into the seat.
Seat restrain belts which pull down on the child could cause a submarining effect where the child is forced downward during a crash, squashing them against the front buckle and its tether. The child needs to be held back during the crash.
Always raise the shoulder height adjustment as the child grows to ensure the belt sits level from the shoulder into the belt eyelet in the seatback.
Reclining and submarining
When you’re inserting your kid into the child seat, try to push their bum back into the crux of the seat to reduce their ability for slouching or submarining. It means when you tighten their belts, they’re sitting in an upright position.
This is another reason you need to ensure belts are tight. If your baby or toddler is slumped in their seat in the moments of impact in a crash, they can end up going arse-first into their crotch harness or the buckle and could cause spinal injuries.
Famous last words
I think about cars a lot. All day, every day. Cars dominate my life and have done since I was a teenager. But I have never thought about safety in cars more than the last three years having become a dad.
I have experience in the realm that could be invaluable to the mums and adds out there who are about to go through all of this but haven’t got a clue where to start.
If you take nothing else away from this report, please remember this: ISOFIX is the only way to go, and keep those belts tight and untwisted.
Child restraints in cars is a maze of technical safety stuff and a smattering of money-hungry marketing designed to suck as much cash out of you as possible with happy logos and ‘nice idea’ nick-nacks.
But when it comes to cars, safety is your top priority. Just like preventing SIDS we use sleepy-bags and learn to swaddle. We use fire-resistant clothing for obvious reasons and we try desperately to monitor what they’re putting in their mouths.
Take the research, the purchase, the installation and the ongoing use of your child seat seriously. Don’t do any of it half-arsed because getting it wrong couldn’t be more costly.
And nobody ever recovers from losing the most precious thing in their life.
I am not a licensed nor accredited child restraint installer and the advice in this article is general in nature. Always have your restraint fitted by an expert by using the Australian Child Restraint Resource Initiative website.