Putting an Infant Car Seat in Shouldn't Require a PhD

With all due respect to my writing partner, Alejandra's dad, who has an engineering degree,  it doesn't take an engineering degree to install a baby car seat.

People make it out to be more complicated than it needs to be.  If you place the infant car seat in the center of the back seat of your car, installation is not much different than fastening your seat belt on an airplane.  Thread the "center" lap belt through the base of the car seat.  Then tighten as much as possible. Ta Da!   Otherwise place the seat on the left or right side of the back seat.  Thread the shoulder-lap belt through the base of the car seat.  Pull the belt to its furthest extent and then tighten.  You are done!  Place baby seat on base and you can go about your parental business.

The guy from the "Baby Store" who helped us wheel the box with our travel system that included our car-seat, said he had purchased the same model and his wife had the same car model as my wife.  He mentioned that in order for this brand-new car seat to function properly he had to weld a hook onto the back seat.  Um ... Why?

The instructor of our baby-care class told the class a story in which a father who went to pick up his wife and new baby from the hospital was told that his car seat was improperly installed and incompatible with his car.  He purchased two more car seats that day until he found one that worked and was able to get his baby released from the hospital holding cell.  That story can't be true, because I'm pretty sure 98% or more * of all cars are compatible with nearly every car seat installation by following the super easy instruction mentioned above without any deviations or welding classes required.

Here's an installation video from one of the leading child car seat makers:

Was that so hard?

     - Clark's Dad


Update:  there may be confusion between installation of the car seat with the base and the car seat without base.  Installation without the base may have a higher margin of error, but is still relatively simple and straight forward.



*Disclaimer:  admittedly my experience is limited to the Graco line of infant car seats. Other brands may vary.