hi guys
need your help here. im planning to use the latches in our rdx. i have an infant car seat and have the ff questions after i tried to properly attach the car seat:

a) i read putting the infant car seat in the middle is best, is this correct? the missus wants it on rear passenger side for ease of entry/exit. i told her middle is safer, correct?

b) i have a hard time securing the seat so that it does not move >1 inch side to side. front to back is tight already. some of my friends indicated that it could be the leather seat is too firm. any way to solve this issue? (we compared it with his soft cushy cloth seat and his is indeed more secure when we attach it to his car)

c) any other tips?

fyi we have the britax chaperone car seat. expecting baby to come in next few wks. so not panicking (yet )

thanks

 

I drive around with 2 seats in the car. 1 in the middle and 1 behind the driver. The middle is the safest spot. Think about it, in a side collision it will take a heck of a lot to encroach into the middle.

There are some disadvantages to the middle.

- A passenger in the back will find a tight squeeze.
- You can't fold down the seats
- A little more difficult to get the baby seat into

IMO safety trumps convenience.

To get the seat tight, you need to get your knee in the seat (or in you case the base) so that you've got all of your weight on there. With your weight on it, it will get pushed down. Pull the straps tight while you are on it.
Use one of those seatsavers under it.

 

Although the middle is the safest, is not the most convenient or easy to use with the infant seat. I did the rear right for the infant seat and moved to the middle for the convertible one. Now that I have two kids, one convertible and one infant, I have them by the doors with a little space in between for emergencies and a little storage.
I have never had a problem with the seat moving side to side. If I were you I would bring it to a place where they do it for you (AAA, Fire Station, Police Station, etc) the first time around and they show you what to do.
If you think about the rear seat as a 2+1, installing the seat in the middle still allows you to fold the "1" part. I did it multiple times when traveling, the dog would use the backrest as a seat while the trunk was used as a trunk.

 

I've heard of studies that show behind the drivers seat is the safest...as the driver, you will tend to "save yourself" first.

I put ours behind the driver. It seemed to mount a little more firmer in the outboard seats than in the middle "lump".

 

unless you have kids and you clearly put them ahead of everything else....

 

Yep middle seat, climb into the baby seat and PULL WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT to tighten it down... my kids are old, so i never seen a "seat saver"... 10 years ago we called it a towel. haha...

 

thanks guys. ill do the middle seat then. given you guys all had the RDX experience, i presume it's do-able with my britax chaperone car seat. i have already the seat saver, next thing to do is to bulk up and push/knee the car seat base as much as i can barring that, i already have an apptment with the nearest fire dept for this but they're not available till early july (for car seat installation assist, not firefighting )

 

Call AAA if you are a member, they may have something sooner than that.
The trick is not only to pull on the strap really hard, you need to put some weight into the base and wiggle it left and right as you pull...
The middle is a bit hard to use with an infant seat, especially if your wife had a cesarean and she has no help from you...just my two cents.
Best of luck with the delivery, my wife had a baby 5 weeks ago too.

 

thanks for the tips, have managed to tighten it accdg to specs. the only thing now, and im sure a lot of you guys have had experience on this -- how do i get it to be 45 degree angle? trial and error? did you guys use noodles to achieve this? and how many? (noodles that is)

congrats wrestrepo!

 

I think that Infant seat bases come with a "level" built in to guide you....don't they? Anyhow, the concern for little ones if I recall correctly is to not have them too straight up since they cannot hold their heads. What I would do is to make sure that the car is on a flat surface when installing the seat base. When I get a chance I'll take some shots of my seat and send them to you. FWIW, I don't have any noddles in the RDX

 

Congrats on your new addition!

Regarding seats, the Britax Chaperone has an adjustment knob on the base to help achieve the proper 45 degree angle, so you shouldn't have to use a noodle. The Britax website has some good resources, including video-based install guides. If you go here:

http://www.britaxusa.com/support/user-guides

then select the Chaperone and enter the date of manufacturer (or provide a guess), you can pull up the video install guide. Pick the one for installing with the base, tab 5 shows the base install with LATCH, and about mid-way through it goes over adjusting the recline. You may have to uninstall, adjust recline, and then reinstall the base.

 

Depending on the car though, sometimes even with the knob you need to use noodles.
I need them for my Saab, but not for the Acura.