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Transporting Toddlers
Why It's Important to Buckle Up Little Ones the Right Way
By Brenda Ruggiero
Colella noted that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children remain rear-facing as long as their child safety seat will allow them to, but the child should be a minimum of 12 months old and 20 pounds before they are placed forward-facing.
Installing the Seat
Another area where parents need to be very cautious is in installing the seat in the vehicle. "A correctly installed child safety seat does not move more than about an inch from side to side and does not move more than an inch forward when you pull on it," says Colella. "So if it moves more than that, there may be a problem with your installation or there may be a problem with compatibility, and the instructions should be consulted."
Michelle Ice, a former Georgia firefighter, notes that when she moved her 10-month-old daughter, Brooke, from an infant carrier to a rear-facing convertible seat with a 5-point harness, she thought it was installed correctly. But she had just begun volunteering with the SAFE KIDS Coalition, so she had the seat checked by a technician. "I thought I put in it right, but it was way wrong! It took them 45 minutes to have the seat installed properly," says Ice. "The recline angle wasn't right, and it could move more than an inch."
Three weeks later, on April 1, 1999, Ice was driving to her sister's house in a two-door Chevrolet Cavalier Z-24 with Brooke riding in the now properly installed seat. "Someone ran a stop sign and hit me in thedriver's door, causing a nine-inch intrusion," she says. "I was knocked unconscious immediately. I wasn't breathing, and I had nine fractures to my pelvis and broke my left hip. My daughter wasn't hurt at all. All the glass had been broken and all the air bags deployed, but none of the glass had come into her car seat at all. The technicians call that a 'cocoon effect.'"