Kaboutjie SA Mommy Blogs by Lynne Huysamen
Using the correct car seat for your child is essential when driving. I constantly see parents driving with their kids either not strapped in at all, or using the incorrect car seats for their children. Please look after your children by following these guidelines.
***Disclosure -The links in this post may contain affiliate links and I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link.***
Birth To 9 months Or 9kg
Babies must be in a rear facing car seat until at least 9 months or 9kg. Some of the websites I looked at said to keep your child rear facing until 2 years old. The fact is the longer you can keep your children rear facing the better.
The best is to buy an all in one travel set since you will be needing a pram too!
1 – 4 Years Old
Toddlers must be in a car safety seat from 1 years old to 4 years old.
Does your toddler also pull his or her arms out of the safety belt? Both my kids did and it made me so nervous because they weren’t protected. A handy solution is to use seat strap clip.
4 – 6 Years Old
Children 4 – 6 years old must be in a booster seat. The safety belt cannot properly fit a small child and this seat will provide the extra safety needed.
6 – 13 Years Old
All children under 13 must sit in the back seat, buckled up. Only after 13 years of age should a child be allowed to sit in the front seat.
Make sure that the seat belt is sitting correctly over your child’s chest, if it doesn’t consider buying a kid belt positioner to ensure the seat belt is positioned correctly.
Buy A Secure A Kid Belt Positioner NOW
It is actually very important for toddlers to stay rear facing until at least 2 years. Our laws on car safety are pathetic when compared to the rest of the world, its no surprise that car accidents are the nr 1 child killer for kids under 5 years.
If you are ever looking at updating this information to current best practice, please feel free to reach out. For example, the minimum age a child should rear-face is until age 3 or 4, as rear-facing is 5 times safer than forward facing. Most infant seats go up to 13 kgs and you should never move them out of their current seat until they reach the maximum limit of the seat. Q child should be in a booster seat until at least 1.5m tall, which is between the ages of 10 and 12. Also, the seat belt positioner, while positioning the chest belt correctly, can cause critical abdominal damage.
Thanks Mandy! This post was written a few years back so thank you for updating the information.
See our FB page Doona South Africa for the car seat with wheels. Launched in SA in June last year
Hey Brendon 🙂 If you would like to advertise with Kaboutjie and get your products in front of over 100k South Africans then contact me for advertising 🙂
i bought my daughter seat booster since she is 4yrs old but she is refusing to use it.
Thanks for sharing this we had to walk around asking all the questions and which car seats we looked like to idiots that dont know what chairs to buy but thinking of safety and get the right one we suppose to have i use my cars seat that came as a set with the pram rare view facing and my boy is 8 months.
I haven’t bought it yet I think I need it for my son safety