When to Switch a Car Seat | Parents

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More...-Hi. I'm Jessica Hartshorn from American Baby Magazine, and I'm here with Adam Cohen of DaDaRocks.com, and a certified passenger safety technician. And he's gonna give us some tips that you can use to know when your baby has outgrown his or her car seat. So we'll start with the infant seat. -So, infant car seats are really recommended between 20 and 35 pounds. Not only is weight gonna be important but also height is gonna be important in this equation. You're gonna make sure that the head is never closer than an inch to the top, and you right now look at the weight. The other thing that you're gonna notice as parents, you're gonna notice how comfortable your child is in the seat. If you wanna make sure that the test plate is always in the right position, that they're not losing circulation from having their straps too tight, and then you're gonna start moving them over and transitioning them to a convertible car seat. -Usually somewhere between like 1 and 2, but you have to watch the weight and height mostly. -Absolutely. -Yeah. -The car seat manufacturers recommend one year to start really going to the four-facing mode but just recently in our pediatric association started recommending in to have them rear-facing until two and then start turning them around. -Okay. And how long can they stay in a convertible car seat? -Convertible car seats are really based on height and weight requirements of the baby. Most convertibles, the upper limit starts, you know, at 40 pounds and goes all the way up to 80 pounds depending on the manufacturer and the model that you're looking at. And then, well, you're looking at a 4 or 5 years old, and then once you hit 4 or 5, you then may start looking at the booster seat model to take them all the way through until 8, when they can start sitting in a regular seat. -All right, great. 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