The Different Types of Child Car Seats for Proper Safety

Safety of your kids every time they ride with you on your car is of paramount importance to all parents. For this reason, product developers never fail to work hard to further improve child safety measures for car tips, coming up with different types of child car seats, boosters and cushions to ensure protection, comfort and ultimate peace of mind for the parents.

When it comes to designing and developing child car seats, the products are divided into and tailored towards four different categories based on children’s weight and ages.

These groups are the following:

• Group 0 – This includes infants weighing 10 kilograms or 22 pounds with an age ranging from birth to about 6 to 9 months.
• Group 0+ - It is a similar group meant for babies who are 13 kilograms or 29 pounds in weight, aging from birth up to 12 to 15 months.
• Group 1 – It is a group which includes kids who weigh around 9 to 18 kilograms or 20 to 40 pounds of 9 months to 4 years of age.
• Group 2 – This has been designed for children who weigh around 15 to 25 kilograms or 33 to 55 pounds and of around 4 to 6 years old.
• Group 3 - The group includes those types of child car seats tailored for older children, specifically those of 22 to 36 kilograms of aged 6 to 11.
  

Based on these groups, there are three primary types of seats available for every stage of the development of a child. But, some seats can be converted or adapted to continue to fit kids as they grow older, which makes it possible for some seats to still suit 1 to 2 age or weight groups.

The primary types of child car seats that you can find in the market today include the following

# Forward-facing child seats –

These seats are meant for kids of group 1 age/weight specifications. These seats have large centralized harness which crisscrosses over and secures your kid in place, with the harness found at the seat’s base to ensure that your child will not slide out from under the restraints. This is also designed and raised for comfort.

# Rearward-facing baby seats –

These are meant for groups 0 or 0+ or babies of ages which range from birth to 6 to 9 months or 12 to 15 months. Such seats are meant for travel in the rear and front of a vehicle even though these seats must not be placed in a car’s front passenger seat which contains airbags. These seats provide ideal protection for kids, so it is advised to use them until the child physically outgrows it.

# Booster-seats plus cushions –

These are the types of child car seats meant for older kids and can offer comfort and safety for children who fit into groups 2 and 3, with several cushions or seats tailored mainly for the age scale’s higher end. However, majority of these seats are designed to adapt to wider range of older kids.