The arrival of a newborn is a momentous occasion, and ensuring their safety is a top priority for every parent. One of the most critical decisions new parents face is choosing the right car seat to protect their little one during travel.
Convertible car seats have gained popularity because of it’s versatility and the potential to accommodate children as they grow, from infancy to toddlerhood and beyond. But when it comes to the youngest passengers, are they a safe and suitable option?
Yes! Definitely, convertible car seats are designed in such ways that the right height and weight infants can accommodate safely. But it has to be ensured that the convertible car seats are installed rear-facing properly otherwise it may turn into a serious safety issue for infants.
In this article, we will try to give you the right insight into why are convertible car seats safe for newborns. Let’s see the key aspects of convertible car seats safe for newborns in details .
Key Takeaways:
- Importance of understanding convertible car seats with key aspects of convertible car seats
- Car seat safety for newborns is a major concern
- Different features for enhancing newborn car seat safety
- Different Tips for Using Convertible Car Seats with Newborns
Importance of Understanding Convertible Car Seat:
Before we start discussing and going into details on whether convertible car safety seats are safe or not, let us first talk about what are convertible car safety seats in general. To start off with, a convertible car safety seat for the newborn child is a specific type of car seat that is designed to hold a newborn baby in a perfect manner to make sure that he/she doesn’t roll off or isn’t rocking in their seat. Apart from that, their main purpose is to protect the baby at times from every single angle whilst making sure that the baby is comfortable at all times.
A convertible car safety seat has several reclining options which makes it very easy for the parent to adjust a position that is both the same and comfortable for the baby without causing any kind of back or neck pain for the newborn baby. Aside from that, a convertible car safety seat comes with both rear-facing and forward-facing positions allowing the parent to use whichever position feels comfortable for them to look after the child.
Now, you might think that you will need to buy a new convertible car safety seat every single year as your child keeps on growing in size. However, that is totally wrong as convertible car safety seats come with a special feature that makes sure that your child can use a convertible car safety seat for several years before outgrowing it and needing replacement.
Safety Considerations for Newborns:
First of all, let us talk about the safety provided by convertible car safety seats. They are extremely safe and are meant to protect your child from all kinds of dangers and harm in case your car comes into contact with another car or some large object and crashes. It has been tested a lot of times by different scientists all over the world and they can guarantee its safety for your child. Therefore, there is no need to be worried about getting a convertible car safety seat and placing your newborn child in it.
One of the safest and easiest positions is the rear-facing position since it allows the mother or the father to easily look after and take care of the newborn child without any hassle. The reason it is safe is that when a car crashes into another car or a large object, the rear-facing convertible car safety seat will absorb almost all of the crash force and will support the newborn child’s neck, spine, and head, keeping your baby completely safe and sound from all kinds of harm and danger.
However, sometimes when the car gets into an accident and the convertible car safety seat is set up in a forward-facing position, a toddler’s head is thrown forward due to impulse, and when it gets thrown forward, it could lead to both neck and spine injuries which could be fatal for the toddler. This happens rarely due to toddlers having a large head.
Therefore, when you are strapping your child in his/her convertible car safety seat, you need to make sure and double-check that your newborn baby’s head, neck, and spine are in a good position that won’t end up affecting the baby in any way.
Related Post: When to switch baby to a convertible car seat: Age and safety guidelines
Manufacturer Guidelines:
Before we place our newborn child onto a convertible car safety seat, we need to make sure that we have adjusted the car safety seat properly. So, how do we do that? Well, the only answer would be to read the guidance manual over and over again until every single part is crystal clear.
If you set up your newborn’s car safety seat with proper guidelines and understanding, you will end up making a lot of mistakes and errors, which could be fatal later on for your newborn child when the car safety seat fails to protect him/her during an accident. Therefore, you need to pay close attention to the guidance manual and make sure that you follow every single step precisely and to the point.
Following all the steps to set up your newborn’s convertible car safety seat isn’t enough, as you need to pay close attention to all the details including the height and the weight details. You need to know the minimum and the maximum height and weight capacity as a newborn baby exceeding the maximum height and weight limit might not be suitable for that specific type of convertible car safety seat, and you will need to get another one which is a bit bigger in size to make it work.
Manufacturers make several versions of car safety seats with different age, height, and weight ranges so that a newborn child accommodated properly into one instead of either being squeezed into it or having a lot of empty space around for him/her to roll left and right.
Features that Enhance Newborn Safety
Let us now take a look at some detail safety features that are often present in convertible car seats.
Newborn Inserts:
A convertible car safety seat insert is one of the crucial parts of the car safety seat as it is created and modified to provide your newborn child with extra support and safety while they are placed in the car safety seat during the car ride. This kind of extra support is very important for your child, especially during the early days as newborn children are usually softer and have brittle bone and body structure, which means that they need to be treated with a lot of care.
Harness Adjustability:
Harness adjustability is the most important part when it comes to convertible car seats, as they are the medium that is used to strap newborn children in tightly and carefully inside the convertible car safety seat so that they are in one place and don’t move left and right, which is dangerous for children inside a moving vehicle. If you do not strap your newborn baby in properly using all the harnesses present, then he/she might get thrown off their seat during an accident and be heavily injured which could be fatal.
These harnesses’ have several options and lengths so you do not need to worry about your child growing up and not being able to strap him/her. Therefore, when your child grows up, you can just extend the straps out and easily strap your child in their seat without making it too tight or uncomfortable for them.
Side-impact protection:
Convertible car safety seats come with a lot of soft bases almost everywhere on the inside to provide maximum comfort to the child while he or she is using the car safety seat. Not only do they provide a lot of comfort, but they also act as a protective base so that during an accident, the baby will come in contact with those soft bases and won’t get hurt or feel any pain at all since they are meant to protect and comfort the newborn baby at all times. You will find the soft bases on the left, right, top, and bottom and almost around all the corners of the car safety seat.
Tips for Using Convertible Car Seats with Newborns
Since we managed to cover some features of the convertible car safety seat, let us now talk about some tips that might come in handy in the future.
Proper:
We all know how it feels when the headpiece of our favorite chair isn’t properly angled or when the lumbar support isn’t properly adjusted which leads to uncomfortability and back pain. Similar to that situation, when we are adjusting the convertible car safety seat, we need to make sure that the reclining positions aren’t in a random pattern but rather in a perfect order that will make sure that the newborn child is comfortable during the whole ride and does not develop any kind of neck or back pain from sitting inside the convertible car safety seat.
Harness:
Another aspect that we need to keep our eye on is the harness adjustment. There are several harnesses that are used to strap in the convertible car safety seat onto your own car seats to make sure that it stays in one position and does not fall off or get thrown off its position. We need to read the manual guidelines several times so that we don’t miss any spots while strapping in the convertible car safety seats. If we miss even just one single spot, then the convertible car safety seat will be unstable, and during an accident, it won’t be able to protect the newborn baby, which could be fatal.
Eliminating aftermarket products
Finally, the last thing that we need to keep in mind is to make sure not to get any knock-offs or bootleg products as they could cause trouble in the future. Whilst their covers and packaging might look convincing and appealing, their sole purpose is sale and not safety, which makes them very unsafe. For example, you might think it’s better to have a lot of harnesses so you get some off-brand harnesses from the market and set them up inside your car.
Now, you will see that they will only work for a short period of time and then break down which will lead to both a waste of money and a safety hazard for your newborn child. Therefore, you need to refrain from getting any kind of aftermarket products and only stick to the ones that came with your convertible car safety seats or get the branded ones that have been deemed successful through multiple tests.
Conclusion:
Now that we have reached the end, we have managed to discuss everything related to whether convertible car safety seats are safe for newborn babies or not and we can come to a conclusion by saying that they are completely safe. You need to make sure that your child’s safety is the first and foremost priority since we adults can take care of ourselves but babies are completely helpless and defenseless, therefore needing our assistance.
However, installing a car safety seat isn’t the main point, as you need to go through the manual guidelines properly and make sure that you do not make any mistakes while setting up the convertible car safety seat. By using a convertible car safety seat, not only will you be providing your newborn child with an all-time protective seat, you will also be providing him/her with a very comfortable seat that will keep the newborn baby happy and quiet instead of fussy and uncomfortable.
We hope that this article was able to educate you on everything that you need to know about the safety of convertible car safety seats for newborn children. If you have any other questions about any other problems, then you can refer to our other articles, which might help you.
