Using LATCH and Lap Belt together???

[tmckee70]

Hi:

My name is Tom and my wife Cari and I have a question:

We have a rear facing Britax Marathon seat and a 2003 SAAB 9-5 wagon. The Britax is in the center of the back seat, and we are wondering if you can use the lap belt and LATCH together for more security?

I looked in the car owners manual as well as the seat manual, and I see nothing that says you can't use them both.

We don't have center seat LATCH anchors, but the two side seats have them so after I attached the seat with the lap belt, I hooked the LATCH hooks into the anchors closest to the seat. The base of the car seat is pretty wide, so the latch anchors are fairly close to the seat.

The chair was very tight with just the lap belt, but now it is super tight, and I can't move it at all using all my weight.

Has anyone tried this, or heard that it is not advisable? Our baby is 6 mos. old and about 20 lbs.

Thanks.

Tom & Cari.

[Joolsplus2]

Welcome! It's generally not recommended to use BOTH, either because it's not been tested by the manufacturer or it was tested that way and failed. And there are some rules regarding using inboard LATCH anchors in the center (Britax allows it, as long as the anchors are not more than 20 inches apart or closer than 11 inches), but you'll have to check your SAAB manual, and maybe even contact SAAB to find out if using LATCH in the center is OK.
Here's a great page with lots of LATCH information that should answer the question better than I can
http://www.car-safety.org/latch.html

Hope that helps!
Edited to say...NO, that won't help at all! Sorry about that wrong link!
This one is much better ;)

[JP4]

My car seat instructions say not to use both the seat belt and LATCH.