Car Seat Inspections

gabester

Are they really necessary? It seems so simple to put our Chicco car seat in that I don't know why we would need to get it inspected.

Are you ladies getting yours inspected?

mommy411

Well you would be surprised how many people think they put it in right....and its soooo not tight enough....I figured if this is my child her saftey is so worth a simple free inspection

CadencenBraedynsMommy

I'm not only because I know that the hospital does it before we leave. And this is our second, so I'm hoping DH has it down packed by now.

sls2063

Yes.  Our local police dept will do it and we would just feel better knowing its done right.

Ktindall

I plan on having the fires tation or police station just take a look at both of our cars to be on the safe side. It's free so it seems stupid not too

Mrs.Kent

If this is your first baby, yes I recommend it.  We had it done once with the infant seat, then once when he switched to a convertible seat, then once more when we switched to forward facing.  It's good to make sure it's installed correctly.  Now DH has pulled it out and put it back in so many times, he could almost be the person doing the inspection

jtimestwo

I felt like it was very straightforward with the latch system. I only questioned it because of all of the stats re: how many people do it wrong. But in my city, the police and fire dept do not offer free inspections, so you have to get a (IMO) overpriced one from the hospital.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my baby's safetly isn't worth $75... it's just that I think with latch (and like PP said, if it's tight), there's a lot less variability than when you have to use seatbelts and those tightener things, etc. Maybe I'll have it checked out the first time I visit my parents? They're in a small town, so I'm thinking their police/fire would do the check.

miemie20

yes, we are going to go to the fire department and have them check to make sure we put it in right. i don't want to take any chances, this is my 1st and i have no idea how to properly install a car seat.

gabester

Thank you all for replying! Maybe I will run by a fire station just to be on the safe side.

IU_baby

We're going to get ours inspected.  What's the harm in making sure it's in the car properly?

love22

jtimestwo:

But in my city, the police and fire dept do not offer free inspections, so you have to get a (IMO) overpriced one from the hospital.

Have you checked out other places to get it checked.  There are many options in my area of places where to get it checked - including the highway patrol, AAA, fire stations, police stations, etc.

Check out https://www.seatcheck.org/ and maybe you can find somewhere for free

And for what its worth it is the tightness that people have the most issues with it is the angle in which the seat is positioned - often times car seats require a towel or something to make it level.

Ash07

I am glad we had ours installed, they have to be so tight its crazy!

CubbyMama

We had to move our DD's car seat to the side and then install the infant seat on the other side, when we've always had the one car seat in the middle, so we definitely want to get them both inspected and make sure they're secure.

There's an article in the latest Parents magazine and they quoted a guy who's done car seat inspections for years--inspected thousands of seats--and said he has found THIRTEEN installed correctly during that time.  That convinced me that we might as well get ours checked out again!

The info on seatcheck.org was very outdated for us and every number we called said that person no longer worked there, but someone on Parenting gave me this link: https://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cps/cpsfitting/FindFitting.cfm

LauranBilly

I dont even have a carseat yet!! Im 30 weeks monday!! I hope that i get one for my shower. If not then i will go get one myself. Ill ask the Hospital if they will check it out when we are leaving the hospital. But other than that i have no idea where to go to get it checked out. Maybe Babies R Us?

sbankson07

Our local EMS does it for free so we are going to get ours inspected next week.  The instructor of our childbirth class told us that 80% are installed wrong, which freaked us out enough to make an appointment for ours.

njkitty

I just got inspected yesterday.  DH thought he had done it right, but it didn't seem tight enough.  Well, not only was it not tight enough, the seatbelt was all twisted, the base wasn't properly leveled, etc... Free inspection is def worth it!