This week marks National Child Passenger Safety Week and Saturday is National Seat Check Day and there will be many Seat Check events across the country. I’m very passionate about keeping kids safe in and around cars – that’s why I become Certified as a CPST. In honor of this week, I’ll be sharing some information that I personally feel is important for parents to know or information that doesn’t seem to get out there as much as it should. Today, I want to talk about how to get the most out of a car seat inspection.
1. Make sure the person checking your seat is a certified CPST. They should have either a certificate or wallet card with them that lists their techinican # or you can search for one online. I hear many people talk about just stopping at a fire station. While I’m sure firefighters are happy to help, they are not necessarily qualified to give you advice on car seat safety. If you want to find check up events, go to SafeKids.org or SeatCheck.org
2. Have the manuals to both your vehicle and your child restraint. Every car and restraint has their own guidelines and as knowledgable as CPSTs are, we can’t know everything about every car & seat out there. Plus, a good CPST will want to show you where to look up info if you have questions later.
3. Make sure when you leave you feel confident that you can repeat the installation. Ideally, the CPST would have talked you through the install and possibly never even touch your car or child restraint. They are not there to install your child restraint but educate and inform parents of the best practices in using them. If you have questions, please ask!!
That is today’s tip. Tomorrow I’m going to talk about the benefits of Extending Rear Facing.
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