Update:Car-Seat Safety.

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SAFETY

These days, new parents can't leave the hospital with their newborns before an employee checks their car seat's installation. Good thing, too: Keeping babies and children safe in cars is of paramount importance.

From birth to age 1, buckle your baby into a rear-facing car seat. If he reaches 20 pounds before age 1, you can switch to a convertible car seat; these work as rear-facing seats for larger infants and later for older babies in a front-facing position. When your baby is both 1-year-old and 20 pounds, he is ready to face front. He can be buckled into either a convertible car seat or a toddler car seat, both of which are acceptable until a child weighs 40 pounds.

At 40 pounds, he is ready for a booster seat, which lifts him up high enough to use the car's regular lap belts. The latest recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics is that children should use a booster seat in the backseat of a car until they are eight years old.

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