can't get child car seat right enough

We just switched my daughter's car seat over from the Latch system to the seat belt, since she's too heavy now for the Latch system. The problem is we can't get out right enough with the belt. It seems like the problem is that the seat belt stalk has a lot of wiggle room in it, so no matter how tight we get the belt itself, the seat will be able to move back and forth more than our should because the stalk the belt goes into moves.

Has anyone else dealt with this before?

Thanks!

msbriggs said:

We just switched my daughter's car seat over from the Latch system to the seat belt, since she's too heavy now for the Latch system. The problem is we can't get out right enough with the belt. It seems like the problem is that the seat belt stalk has a lot of wiggle room in it, so no matter how tight we get the belt itself, the seat will be able to move back and forth more than our should because the stalk the belt goes into moves.

Has anyone else dealt with this before?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

When I first got my car seats (pre birth) the wife and I went to a car seat clinic at the fire department. My optima at the time didn't have the right angle with the latch system and my seat so we went with the belt. The police officer there (ran by both fire and police volunteers) was telling me a crucial mistake people make is having it too loose because they pull it tight or they do it by them selves. He told me that to get it right for most seats you should have two people, one to put their knee in on the seat and put their full weight down on it. We both broke a sweat putting it in and he said that's the way it should be for all cars but most people aren't willing to try that hard. I've since done it several times by myself in a similar fashion, being 6'4" and 230lbs I can get my knee in on the seat and my shoulder up against the headliner and push the seat down as hard as I can at that point I can line the belt up in the holder. I tighten the belt to the point that it's just about an inch shorter than it needs to be at that time and add the clip to lock the belt. Then I hold it with both hands, it's still won't go in enough to latch (this is where the second person comes in handy to hold that together and apply pressure). Then I bounce until it clicks in.

After that it's in very tight and not going anywhere then I do the rear centre latch.

One thing I had to do when I got my LEAF was to put sections of pool noodle under the floating area of the seat (rear-facing) in order to get the proper angle. I don't think it's so much of a limitation of the LEAF, as that some baby seats expect a certain degree of give in the car's seats, and if it's different, it won't stay put properly.
(By the way, before you call me crazy for the pool noodle idea -- it was actually called out in the manual for the car seat as the recommended method for cars that have rear bench seats without much shape to them, like the LEAF's. Dollar Tree to the rescue!)

ishiyakazuo said:

One thing I had to do when I got my LEAF was to put sections of pool noodle under the floating area of the seat (rear-facing) in order to get the proper angle. I don't think it's so much of a limitation of the LEAF, as that some baby seats expect a certain degree of give in the car's seats, and if it's different, it won't stay put properly.
(By the way, before you call me crazy for the pool noodle idea -- it was actually called out in the manual for the car seat as the recommended method for cars that have rear bench seats without much shape to them, like the LEAF's. Dollar Tree to the rescue!)

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Ya they were giving out free pool noodles at the clinic I went to, we used both of them for our car but only in rear facing. We also still compressed them a lot, when I switched from rear to front they had almost no shape left after being there for almost 2 years.