Tethering Success!

[jymarino]

O.K., I’ve finally tethered the seat in my car, and I can see why doing it is so highly recommended. The seat didn’t move much before, but now it doesn’t budge but maybe 1/8” in any direction! I’ve tightened the tether harness so it is not loose, but it is also not extremely tight because to make it so would cause the seat to be at a 90 degree angle, which is obviously not an option, and the instructions say to not tighten it so the seat goes beyond a 45 degree angle. Is it o.k. to have it just to this level of tightness?

[tobymc]

It is fine not to tighten the heck out of the tether. But if you have a noodle or towel under the seat (which helped get the 45 degree angle without the tether), then I'd recommending removing it and pulling the tether tight to see if you can get the 45 degree angle with just the tether. And if your child is not a newborn, a more upright angle is actually safer.

[jymarino]

My daughter is almost 8 months old, so how much of an incline do we actually need? I think the tech who helped us, just assumed the child is a newborn, and put it in to accomodate one. Also, he didn't recline the seat before installing it, which I recall was in the instructions. How important is it to recline the seat before the install? My husband is going to help me "fix" what the other tech did, but we can't do it until the weekend when we have someone to watch the baby. I assume it will be o.k. as it is right now since she has about the same amount of recline as she did in her infant seat last week, would that be a correct assumption?

[tobymc]

Sounds like you are OK now, though I'd fix it soon.

Yes, the seat should be reclined.

To get a 45 degree angle with the seat in the upright position without using the tether, you must have a pile of noodles! It will be good to get rid of most or all of them.

The full recline is needed to preserve the airway of a newborn. Upright is safer from a crash perspective, but we want to be SURE the little ones keep breathing until then! So use your daughter as an indicator. If she seems comfortable more upright, go with that. If she needs the full recline or her head flops (she is highly unlikely to have the airway problem at 8 months) when more upright, go with it.

But putting the seat in the reclined position plus adding the tether should give you much more control over the recline, and give a better install too.

[jymarino]

Thanks for the suggestions, we will try them this weekend. We have one of those seat levelers, that the tech said we would need to use, so that could be why we have such a significant recline already. We'll try it without and see how it goes. Otherwise I will be back on the board with more questions, let's hope I don't have to!