I learned an interesting thing recently that I bet most of you didn’t know either. My friend has a new grand-baby so I asked my yard-saler Mom to be on the lookout for a car seat for her.
She only needs one for the few times she has the baby and needs to go to the store or something so it doesn’t warrant the cost of a brand new seat. If you know about cars seats you also know they aren’t that easy to move between cars. Mom found a yard sale with five car seats for sale and called my friend who immediately went down and bought one that looked brand new.
When she got it home she decided it should be washed before baby uses it and in the process of doing this she discovered a tag on the seat that said it had expired. Yes, that’s what I said. The car seat had expired.
Did you know they had expiration dates? When she told me I questioned this since I had never heard of such a thing. Turns out she had gone onto the Internet and discovered that they do indeed have expiration dates.
Most car seats expire in five years. Some can go to eight years, but the experts say to retire the seat in six years even if the manufacturer says it can be used for eight years.
Why, you ask?
Car-seat technology is always evolving, changing their ability to secure seats properly and consistently. Materials wear out, plastic becomes stressed and warps, straps and fabrics fray all making the chances of failure high.
Seat belts only provide a limited and sometimes dangerous means to secure a car seat. The lower anchor and tethers (LATCH) program mandated by the federal government comes standard in cars made after 2002 when the LATCH program came into existence. LATCH systems have anchors usually attached to the sides of the back seats where the tops and bottoms of the seats meet and to a place above and behind the back seats for front facing car seats. Hardware to retrofit vehicles manufactured before 2002 is available.
Look for a label attached usually on the bottom of the seat telling you the expiration date. Be sure to read the instruction book that comes with the seat which will also state the expiration date.
Sometimes the date is stamped into the plastic on the bottom of the seat making it harder to see, but it is there somewhere on that seat so find it. Also make sure it has not been recalled. Some stores can’t or don’t keep up with all the recalls and you can think you are safe but you aren’t.
Another interesting tidbit I discovered while researching this is that emergency responders to accidents often have unresponsive parents and no information of the child in the car seat.
There is a program called WHALE which stands for "We Have A Little Emergency" that hands out cards which can be attached to the seats. These cards include the child’s name, address, phone number, guardian’s name, any possible medical conditions or medications the child takes regularly, and any other information you think pertinent in an emergency. Get one or make your own and be sure it is attached to the car seat where EMTs can see it readily.
Shortly after my relating the expiring car seat saga to Mom she saw that same person was having another yard sale. She stopped and informed her about car seat expirations, which of course this woman had also never heard of either. She told Mom to have my friend bring the car seat back for a refund and took the remaining ones out of her sale.
So, don’t rely on buying a car seat at a yard sale unless you know it still has time left on it. Always find the expiration date and abide by it, strap it into the car correctly, and keep your precious little one safe.