No. Most rear-facing car seats are not designed to be tethered. The top of the seat will be able to twist and rotate toward the back of the vehicle. This is normal. If the carseat rotates DOWNWARD into the seat cushion significantly, you may try to put your weight on it and install it a bit tighter.

Generally, NO, unless it is specifically mentioned in your manual. In the USA, older Safeline Sit-n-Stroll models and some Britax models may use a tether when rear-facing. You can find some instructions for tethering the Britax models in the Britax Online Instructions. Some additional information on the use of the rear-facing Britax Versa-Tether can be found at this site.

Please consult the owner's manual of your carseat. For most carseats, this is not a problem and may actually improve safety. At least one carseat, the Century Smart Move, does require the seat to be able to rotate freely toward the back of the vehicle in a crash. Best practice from the NHTSA training manual states, "A rear-facing seat can be installed so it rests against the back of the vehicle seat ahead if not counter to manufacturers instructions...

Your child should be rear facing until they are at least 1 year old AND 20 pounds. This is the recommendation put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Keep in mind that this is the minimum requirement. The longer you can keep your child rear facing, the better. Most convertible seats will go rear facing up to 30 pounds, some even up to 35 pounds.

Generally, yes. Though there appears to be no evidence that this is unsafe, at least one company, Evenflo, used to recommend that you do NOT install many of their carseat models in front of a fold-down armrest. Ford has a similar recommendation for some of its vehicles. Please consult the owner's manual of your vehicle and carseat before making this decision.

Rear-facing IS safest. It is best to remain rear-facing to the weight and height limits of the carseat. Some convertible carseats have 30 or 35 pound rear-facing limits. In all cases, infants should be rear-facing until they are BOTH one year AND twenty pounds at the very minimum. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies be kept in rear-facing seats for as long as possible. See these links for more details:

Infants do not have the muscle and bone strength in their necks and chests to withstand a forward facing collision. Their heads are large and heavy compared to the rest of their body, and when the head moves forward during a collision it can cause damage to the spinal cord. This does not happen when the child is rear facing as the force of the crash is absorbed into the seat.

In most cases people use the term, facing or tip opening to mean the same thing, although facing technically has another meaning. Facing, applies to the way the mouthpiece curves away from the table of the mouthpiece where the reed sits. Facing Length is the distance, measured in millimeters, from the tip of the mouthpiece to where the mouthpiece first begins to curve away from the reed.

Some older convertible safety seat instructions said that a child should face forward when her feet touch the vehicle seatback or if the legs must be bent. However, there is no evidence that longer legs are at risk of injury in a crash, and these instructions have now been revised. Most children learn to fold up their legs for comfort when their feet touch the back of the vehicle seat. The only physical limit on rear-facing use is when the child's head comes near the top of the safety seat.

Rear-facing is the safest way to travel in a vehicle. In a crash, the child moves as one unit with the car seat. The head, neck, and spine are held in the car seat and move with the force of the crash, not against it. In a forward facing seat, the torso is kept in the seat, but the head isn't and is violently thrown forward. A baby's head is very heavy and the neck is fragile. The neck cannot withstand the violent force of being thrown forward.

This depends on the state you live in. Generally, we like to recommend a rear-facing infant seat until 12-15 months of age, and then a rear-facing seat until 3 or 4 years of age, depending on your child's height and weight. After that, you can move to a front-facing seat or a booster until at least 7 years of age. Check your state's seatbelt laws here for more detailed information.

BTW, here are some Canadian prices. I don't believe we are receiving a stripped down version of the 850 (yet). They all seem to be fully equipped. My first thought was that it looks small. Not to say this is bad, but it is a compact looking package. They have changed the front end appearance in some subtle ways, which surprised me as this is only the second year of the model and Volvo's usually don't change like this for YEARS.

Yes. Rear-facing infant-only child safety seats are required to have lower LATCH attachments. Forward-facing only and convertible child safety seats are required to have lower LATCH attachments and most will also have a top tether strap. If your child safety seat is a convertible seat, the LATCH system is designed to work in both rear- and forward-facing positions.

Putting a rear facing seat in-front of an airbag places the baby in serious danger. An airbag explodes with a force up to 200 pounds. When the bag inflates, it strikes the back of the car seat hard enough to break the plastic shell. This is usually the fatal blow. The airbag then slams the car seat into the back of the seat of the vehicle. If a child managed to survive this blow, he would suffer permanent brain damage.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), babies should ride rear-facing to the maximum weight or height of the rear-facing convertible seat for the best protection. Look in your car seat’s owner’s manual or labels on the seat for this information. When your baby outgrows the infant-only seat, move him/her to a rear-facing convertible seat, which will allow you to keep baby backwards for a longer period of time.

Infants have large heavy heads, weak neck and shoulder muscles and soft, immature bones. Car seats are designed to safeguard these fragile parts and provide maximum protection during a crash. When a child is positioned rear-facing, the back of the car seat shell absorbs the energy from the crash, allowing the child’s head and neck to be protected against the seat back. This helps prevent brain and spinal cord injury.

Follow your car seat and vehicle manufacturer instruction manual. In addition, Partners for Child Passenger Safety has a Web site featuring video clips, highlighting rear-facing seats, forward-facing seats, booster seats and LATCH. Click here to visit their Web site. The safest place for your three-year old depends on the type of seat you have, the number and location of the seating positions in your car, as well as the type of seatbelts in your vehicle.

You can use a tether on a rear-facing seat only if the owner’s manual to your car seat manual permits it.

It is recommended that all children remain in the rear-facing position until they reach 20 pounds and 1 year. This is even incorporated into most state car seat use laws. However, it is safest for your child to stay rear-facing as long as a car seat will allow. Look for seats with higher rear-facing maximum weight limits.

Although they can be used to create neat effects, scripts that leak system information are to be avoided. For example, the "finger" command often prints out the physical path to the fingered user's home directory and scripts that invoke finger leak this information (you really should disable the finger daemon entirely, preferably by removing it). The w command gives information about what programs local users are using.

It is very important to have your rear-facing seat reclined to an angle of about 45 degrees. This will keep her head from rolling forward. A head that is rolled forward can restrict or cut off the airway causing suffocation. Also, if the head is forward and off the back of the car seat, in a crash the baby's delicate head will be slammed down against the seat.

There is no single safest child safety seat for all children and vehicles. The safest seat is one that fits your child, fits your vehicle and one you will use correctly each and every time. Please also see:

Many manufacturers now put "expiration" dates on their carseats. Six (6) years is the general recommendation. At most, 10 years is the accepted maximum lifetime of a carseat. The reasons for these limits involve possible degradation of the plastic shell and other parts, the possible loss/breakage of parts and the fact that older seats will often not meet current government safety standards.

The general recommendation is NO. You must replace it and destroy the old one so it can never be used again. Some insurance companies will re-imburse for carseats involved in a crash, and they are required by law to do so in some states. Please call the manufacturer of your carseat if you have any questions. You should also contact your car dealer after a crash, as it is very likely that the seatbelts, LATCH/Tether anchors and integrated child seats may also need to be replaced.

Grab your carseat at the base, where the seatbelt goes. The base should not move more than an inch (1") side-to-side or front-to-back. Some movement at the top of the seat is normal, though a tether will reduce this movement in forward-facing carseats. Ideally, you want the child coupled as tightly as possible to the harness system and carseat, and the carseat coupled as tightly as possible to the vehicle with the seatbelt or LATCH system.

The center of the rear seat is usually safest since it is farthest from a possible side impact, but only if your carseat fits well in that position. Any position in the rear seat is acceptable unless prohibited by the vehicle or child seat owner's manual.

Airbags can be deadly to infants in rear-facing carseats, and to children 12 and under using the seatbelts. The front seat is generally not recommended for children 12 and under. The airbag MUST be disabled if you must use a rear-facing child seat in the front. Some vehicles without a rear seat, especially pickup trucks, have an on/off switch for this purpose. If a child must ride in the front, you should also move the front seat as far back as it will go.