I bought a convertible car seat today for my 18 month old and need to install it. The last time I bought a convertible seat, I had my old car and just used the seatbelt. Our new van has the latch anchors and tether anchor and I've read the van's owner manual and seat manual, but I wanted to ask you if I've read it correctly. The van's manual says that the seatbelt is not used when using the latch and the carseat manual makes no mention of the seatbelt, so I only use the tether and latch when installing the seat forward-facing? I hope you don't think this is too silly a question, but this is my first experience with the latch system!
Thanks!

By Sunny on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 03:56 pm:

Found the answer doing a search. I guess I'm so used to using the seatbelt that I thought for sure I read the instructions wrong!

By Trina~moderator on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 04:31 pm:

LOL, Sunny! Not a silly question at all. In fact, this question pops up often on the Car Seat board. Use one or the other, but not both.

LATCH info here:
Car-Safety.Org

Car Seats Board

BTW, how are you liking your new van?! I'm so envious!

By Sunny on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 11:32 am:

Thanks for the links and I'm glad I'm not the only one! LOL I can still remember the first convertible carseat we had. It was a Fisher Price and it had the T-shield. I know you've posted before about how unsafe they are/were, so I'm thankful we never had to put it to the test!

I am loving our van! It's funny because I never before wanted a van, but it became a necessity and I love it more than I did any car we've ever had. I could bend your ear for hours talking about it, but I'll spare you. LOL I will say, though that I love the passenger-side power sliding door. It comes in handy on cold winter mornings when I drop the kids at school!