Car seats are designed to keep your child safe during a crash. The problem is that what is best, safest and affordable is not always clear.
So, what do you do?
You let the car seat talk to you. The car seat has an “ID” attached to it in the form of an orange sticker. On this sticker will be all the information you require to assist in choosing the correct seat and it must be on the seat for it to be considered legal and certified.
It is VERY IMPORTANT to use your car seat until your child reaches the upper weight, height or age limit for that seat. Car seats are designed to keep your child safe during a specific developmental stage and moving up to the next seat too early will compromise their safety.
By law, all car seats must have installation guides on them as well.
Blue always indicates rear facing installation and will tell you how long you can rear face in that specific seat. This might be up to 9, 13, 18 or even 25kg. That car seat has been designed and tested safe for that weight range. Use the seat in the rear-facing position up to the upper limit and only then do you switch to forward facing.
Red indicates the forward facing guidelines for the seat. The minimum weight given is to accommodate our tall skinny kids that have outgrown the previous group seat in length but not weight. Again, use the car seat up to the upper limits that it is designed for.
Source: Peggie Mars, Founder of Wheel Well, peggie@wheelwell.co.za, 072 385 7121.