Hi,
Am about to be a new parent and in one of the antinatal classes I attended it was mentioned that for insurance purposes all baby seats need to be professionally installed and certified. Is this true?
I can imagine this being incredibly inconvenient especially if you want to move the seat around or take it in and out for whatever reason e.g. cleaning etc.
Am in NSW if that makes a difference
Thank you.
I've always been confused by people feeling the need to get someone "professionally" install a car seat. You're an adult, with a child to care for, figure it out?
Confused by a new parent wanting to be extra sure that their new born is going to be as safe as possible? I get more confused by judgemental comments like yours. Not all seats are so simple to install and professionals can give you extra safety tips ect. Sign of a soon to be parent who cares if you ask me.
Confused by an adult not being able to follow 1 page of illustrated instructions
There is for sure nobody more interested in the safety of a child than a parent (or should be like that).
I always do it my self as I am sure.i will do the best posible to install the seat in the best possible way. I will not cut corners to install. i am not sure what are the qualifications of such professional child seat installers, and also it is not really that hard.
Give it a go first and then if youcan get it right ask for help.
I paid for it as a first time parent because I had never done one before and was nervous that if I didn't do it correctly it could have the potential to be VERY bad. After seeing them install the seat and using it I was much more comfortable to do so moving forward as I knew what to expect. For me the initial $30 to install it was worth the peace of mind.
Exactly the same for me.
Took them out and put them back so many times, could almost do it in my sleep.
you don't want to know number of baby seat install into beside drive seat of car get there baby killed in car crash.
Red nose say that about 95% of the installs they see aren't fitted correctly. It's probably just small things but sometimes it might compromise the security of your most valuable and fragile possession.
Don't judge people for paying $30 for this.
Agreed johnno07 - a strange place this one.
Not true
Read the installation instructions. Read them twice. Install and let junior have a snooze
This! The "professional install" advice is because many people cannot follow simple instructions.
If you are one of the intellectually gifted minority who can assemble an Ikea product successfully, you can easily install a baby seat.
Once you have three baby seats in the back of a dual cab, you have reached grand master.
Or one in the front seat of your ferrari so you can flex to all the single mums at school drop off.
Follow the wrong video and junior will have the long snooze.
Who mentioned a video?
The guy you replied to.
@oscargamer: Anyway, it's still true that following the wrong advice can kill your kid. OP really wants to know how can he be sure he's doing it right. He probably should have told us which model he bought. When he was told it must be professionally installed perhaps he or the person who told him misspoke or misremembered, and the seat just actually needs to be compliant with laws and installed correctly. And the insurance talked about may have been for an organisation and not applicable to your own kids in your own car.
Yeah not true, this is very simple to do yourself.
It doesn't need to be professionally installed, but it's cheap and pretty straight forward. Between two kids I think we ended up using an installation service maybe three times.
I recommend getting at least the first one done as they will do it properly and identify all the correct attachment points and how the seat belt is correctly threaded, after which you can copy if you absolutely need to fiddle with it, which for the most part you shouldn't need to.
But hey, it's your kid. Worst case you can always make another.
But hey, it's your kid. Worst case you can always make another.
Thanks for the morning lols. Ready to start my day now!
But hey, it's your kid.
Exactly, so any 'professional' install would have to be double checked by me anyway. I might as well just do it myself and know it was done properly.
But hey, it's your kid. Worst case you can always make another.
And you can get professional help for that too!
Worst case you can always make another.
Username doesn't check out. Angora fish are endangered I think.
Worst case you can always make another. - easy said than done.
Best case is one less to feed?
No, it's fairly straightforward to do, I did my first when I was 38 weeks along. Now it just takes me a few minutes, the most annoying part is having to climb into the boot to attach the tether.
If your car doesn't have the locking seat belts (pull all the way out then slowly feed in), you will need to get a locking clip of some sort. If your car does have it, then a bulldog clip to stop the seatbelt from rolling back in will help a lot.
Isofix install (from 0-4) is very easy, just have to attach tether then clip them in and pull. But those seats are more expensive than the manual thread options
Are they really more expensive? I thought 95% of seats were iso fix these days
Isofix will only be for 0-4 seats. I don't recall seeing one for under $300. If the listing doesn't specify isofix then it usually doesn't have it, as it's a positive feature. But then again, some people do prefer manual seatbelt install as they feel it's more secure
Yep, we used an installer a couple of times and she preferred manual to isofix.
@uncompressed: She claimed she could get a tighter fit on the base using the seat belt.
The top needs a bit of wiggle apparently, shouldn’t be pulled 100% tight to the tether - just a few cm of give.
Did they then proceed to upsell their own professional installation service?
Oh, i went for the Executive Professional installation package which was only $159. The installer wore white gloves! /joke
lol that is not true at all. Makes you question the accuracy of information they give you at those classes ey.
some local councils offer it for free
as a new parent i did get it professionally installled the first time and they could show me tricks and how to ensure its fitted perfectly ( it should be so tight that if you move the car seat u move the car)
for 50 bucks it was peace of minf ( first kid) and i knew what i was doing. now i move it around all the time
"it should be so tight that if you move the car seat u move the car"
Flat out incorrect. It's possible for it to fit like that for some cars, but not all depending on angle of seat. Follow the instruction manual and you cant go wrong.
Follow the instruction manual and you cant go wrong
The problem is that people can follow the instructions but not tighten the straps tightly enough that the seat isn’t useful in a crash. It is this subjectively of tightly enough that will determine the safety of the child.
And the quote made is a little exaggerated, but it’s conceptual the idea of how car seats save life’s.
This is just untrue. How hard is it to understand: tighten the straps tight enough to the point where the base of the child seat is not off the car seat.
@dassaur: 9/10 seats installed isn’t correctly done, so I think it’s untrue to convey it’s easy or simple 30 second job.
@cloudy: Where did you get this figure from? I've not seen any reputable published figures, so your sample size is either very small and full of idiots or your figure was totally made up to justify your opinion.
@banana365: https://www.transurban.com/news/car-seat-blitz-reveals-commo…
You should look harder instead of making up sht about me you banana.
@cloudy: Lol aren’t they the same guys selling the “training”? So hard to pull a strap until a button turns green.
@CommuterPolluter: urr… those guys make toll roads. They dont do any baby seat training or fitting selling.
again, research is your friend people
@CommuterPolluter: Oh sorry I didn’t realise you were having a go at the organisation aiming to keep kids safe.
Good man, keep throwing those stones at these horrid organisations! /s
That for insurance purposes all baby seats need to be professionally installed and certified. Is this true
Sounds like someone who gets a referral kick back for an installation service
Of all the things you'll go through over the first 5 years of your kid life, fitting a baby/child seat will be one of the easiest :)
Some councils have free professional baby seat fitting. Check with your maternal child health nurse
There is no such thing as professionally fitted as there is no such profession as 'baby seat fitter'
It's a 5 minute job the first time and 30 seconds every time after that.
as there is no such profession as 'baby seat fitter'
Yes there is.
What body accredits them? Professional doesn't mean mere existence.
Professional doesn't mean mere existence.
Computer programmers do not need to be accredited, yet they are still a profession.
A profession is a field of work that has been successfully professionalized. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, professionals, who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in a widely recognised body of learning derived from research, education and training at a high level, and who are prepared to apply this knowledge and exercise these skills in the interest of others
What specialised knowledge, skills and training are required to install a baby seat?
Is this true?
The first time will take a while. The second time will be quicker. Subsequent times are easy. The hardest part is vacuuming all the food crumbs and sticks, rocks, sand left on the seat behind after removing the child's seat!
Haha, not wrong there!
I swear the sand shows up even if we don't go to the beach.
Sand is the herpes of the monogamous family life.
The first time will take a while. The second time will be quicker. Subsequent times are easy.
😲
We got the RAA to install ours, it was loose as F. had to take it back to get them to do it again.
It's easy enough to install a seat that uses ISOFIX. Running the seatbelt through a non-isofix seat or for 4 years+ is much more of a pain.
Also, never trust mechanics. I've heard this is a common complaint. As for a friend, who is a mechanic, he had his seat's top tether incorrectly installed with the top tether running to cargo anchor.
As many new scared parents, I got it "professionally" done at Baby Bunting 1st time out. After noticing it was a 20yr old female uni student doing it, I figured it probably isn't too tricky/doesn't require that much physical strength haha. So i watched how they did it, and it was a piece of cake
Now, because i buy a lot of Marketplace furniture and also do a lot of DIY, i''m constantly taking the seats in and out of both cars. Can do the isofix car in about 4min, but the non-isofix car is still a pain in the butt. You need 3 hands to be able to do it
So i watched how they did it, and it was a piece of cake.
I'd trust the actual instruction booklet over some random 20yr kid showing me.
You need 3 hands to be able to do it
I usually just hold the seat belt in my teeth while feeding it through and plugging it in, but I thought they wouldn't appreciate me tasting the seat belts as part of the inspection when shopping for a family car, so I did it sans teeth.
I think my best time was three car seats in, secured, checked, out, and back in our car in less than 10 minutes. The salesman was impressed!
Bulldog clip on the seatbelt, clip it so it's slack enough for you to adjust the bottom belt, once you get the bottom belt tight enough, let loose
Exactly the same experience here. Paid for it the first time, at Baby Bunting. Saw the uni kid do it and figured I was paying for nothing much and did it myself from then on.
How hard is it? Get an ISOFIX seat and be done with it.
That’s for baby seats right? Not for when they forward face
it's for all harnessed seats whether forward or rear facing.
Not all harnessed seats. Only those accomodating kids from birth to 4yo. Some harnessed seats (able to fit kids until 8yo) will be seatbelt / clicktight installation only
Even if it were only for baby seats, by the time it came for a forward facing seat most first time parents are past the "aargh! What do I do? I've never done this before!" stage and are a lot more relaxed. They could take their time working out how to fit a forward facing booster with far less urgency.
it was mentioned that for insurance purposes
Exactly which Insurance policy are they talking about?
baby seats need to be professionally installed and certified
So if you do this, how does this help if you swap seats around to partners and then grandparents and then back again?
Whilst it is very important that it is done correctly, I would question the advice.
Thank you all. Confirmed what I suspected. Instructor was either super uninformed or making things up as she went along…
Nah some hospitals make similar claims (e.g. it’s illegal to leave without a professionally fitted carseat). There’s just a tendency amongst some people to assume parents are idiots and everything needs to be done by an expert.
In most cars it's one bolt.
Its more than 1 bolt and can vary from vehicle to vehicle.
I said most.
Every car has an anchor point for the top and then the belts (ISO Fix or Non-ISO Fix). So its more than just 1 bolt and you are done.
Parent of 3 here. It would be impractical to get it professionally installed each time as you need to remove the seats from time to time to fold seats down/carry large items etc.
As a new parent, if you are not confident, get it fitted by someone "professional" once to understand how it is done/anchored properly. Cars obviously differ depending on mounting positions. Depending on the age of your car, I think Isofix was meant to make it easier. But if you have older cars or baby seats (like mine without Isofix), then learn how to do it properly. Some car seat belts also need a 3 bar gated buckle, which I something I learnt, whereas some cars have automatically locking lapsash seatbelts and do not need a gated buckle - again good to get it fitted the first time if you are unsure (one of my cars needs a gated buckle whereas the other didn't).
what a load of crap.
Pretty easy to do it yourself.
Did it myself,
Wife didn't trust me. So we went to baby bunting to have some high school drop out yank at it and tell me it was perfect, and charge me 75$ or whatever it was.
Wife didn't trust me.
She probably has good reasons…
Similar here, but we went with a free service offered by the maternity hospital. Looks like they charge $45 for it now though. The irritating thing is that I'd already fitted it and had to remove it for them to re-fit it. They did nothing different.
There's an excellent fb page, where you can post your fit out.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/childrestraints/
It's excellent and people in the group are generally kind and knowledgeable.
Although a seat does not need professional installation, an anchoring point does. Thankfully these are provided in all cars sold in Australia since 1976 which have been required to have them - some grey imports do not, even though it is a condition of registration that the importer fit them.
Thankfully these are provided in all cars sold in Australia since 1976
Tesla think they don't have to follow our laws though….
https://www.drive.com.au/news/tesla-model-3-possible-complia…
BYD aren't much better….
https://www.drive.com.au/news/byd-atto-3-safety-score-pendin…
The Tesla was for the middle seat only, and it was still fitted it was just covered.
This has already been fixed to meet the requirements.
for insurance purposes
such as?
professionally installed
Does this professional installer need to pass an certification???
May as well get your stroller and cot professionally installed while the seat is being done.
Don't; learn to install it yourself. This is important if you have more than one car. You won't have to go back to wherever the installer is and pay $$ every time you change cars.
It will take 15 - 30 minutes the first time. And only about 3 minutes everytime after that.
the hardest part is shifting the seat around when you need to move it.
what others said is true, a lot of people doesn't install it tight enough if the seats moves ( where the seat belt is attached tied), your bub will absorb all that movement energy. ISOFIX reduce the chances of that by showing you when you tighen the straps enough.
other point to remember is that the overhead strap is to prevent forward movement, not side to side ( the seatbelt take care of that part).
pfft. 100% not true
watch a bunch of YouTube videos and install it yourself