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Car Seat Conundrum
Keeping Toddlers Safe on the Road
By Teri Brown
If you think child safety seats are easy to install, it may be because you've never installed one, or, if you have, chances are you got it wrong. Studies show that more than 80 percent of child safety seats are improperly 
installed. Factor in different laws for different states and varying weights and ages for switching your child from a car seat to a booster seat, and you have a real car seat conundrum.
Brandy Brow, a mother of six from Brattleboro, Vt., remembers her own conundrum. When the state of Vermont passed a law requiring all children age 8 and under to ride in safety seats or booster seats, Brow wondered how she was going to get them all latched in correctly in her car.
"We have four children that need some form of car seat," Brow says. "Currently, that makes one infant seat, two convertible seats [standard car seat] and one booster seat. It's literally a knuckle-busting experience trying to reinstall them so they are snug like they are supposed to be for optimum safety. But their incompatibility with each other makes it difficult because their sides hit each other at awkward angles. And the seats don't fit side-by-side in certain cars – at least with doors properly latched!"
