Newborn Car Sear Safety: Our Tips for Baby's First Ride
As we wrap up Baby Safety Month, we'd like to send you on your way with some advice from our Child Passenger Safety Technician on your newborn baby's first ride(s) in their car seat.
There are so many elements that can make you nervous when taking you're tiny passenger home from the hospital or to their first dr. appointment or to meet their grammy and gramps but there are ways to prepare so you have some peace-of-mind. Pro-tip, the prep work starts before your baby is born!
GET FAMILIAR WITH YOUR SEAT
Our Child Passenger Safety Technician highly recommends that you get familiar with your infant car seat at least a whole month before your due date.
What does this look like? Well, we recommend that you start by taking the car seat out of the box and reading the instruction manual.
Read all the labels, watch videos on the manufacturer’s site, or contact their technician if they have one.
Don’t wait until the last minute or until baby arrives. You don’t want to feel stressed or rushed if baby decides to surprise you early and you haven’t even taken your car seat out of the box!
GET YOUR INSTALLATION CHECKED
Our next tip is to find a certified child passenger safety technician to help with your installation! You can find them both virtually and in-person across the nation via safekids.org.
Sometimes local police departments and fire departments have technicians. Lastly, like Orbit Baby, some manufacturers have their own Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician.
Insiders tip! Some places have a month-long wait list to meet with a technician so we can stress enough that you should not wait until the last minute before your baby is set to arrive.
NO ACCESSORIES (WE KNOW, NOT WHAT YOU WANTED TO HEAR.)
When registering for your baby shower, don’t order any accessories for the car seat.
We don’t recommend additional head supports, hanging toys, carseat covers, vehicle seat protectors, or anything that wasn’t made by the car seat manufacturer.
We want to keep the infant car seat just as the manufacturer made the car seat and tested the car seat because we know that’s how it will be safe for your baby when riding home from the hospital and beyond.
CHECK WITH YOUR HOSPITAL
Some hospitals do a car seat check before you leave, some DO NOT. To be clear, this is not checking to make sure that the car seat is installed correctly.
This is just to make sure that your baby is safe in the car seat with breathing and other difficulties in mind.
Some hospitals don’t offer ANY services that pertain to car seat safety. If you're planning on delivering in a hospital or clinic, contact them to see if and what they require to be discharged and if they offer any resources from a Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician.
PRACTICE HARNESSING
This is better learned through visuals, click here or here or here to learn how to harness your baby in safely and securely.
REGISTER YOUR PRODUCT
Lastly, make sure you register your product! This will help the car seat manufacturer to stay in touch if we need to contact you with important safety information regarding your car seat model.
Orbit Baby specifically has great resources for new parents, including a series of videos about infant car seats, car seat safety, and bringing baby home from the hospital. These can all be viewed on our YouTube channel. We also have a Certified Child Passenger Safety technician.
He’s available to Orbit Baby customers to schedule free 1:1 video calls to help with your installation and harnessing. You can find more information on our virtual car seat tech’s services here.
