When to install car seats?

Hi First year friends,

I am 28 weeks pregnant with boys and was wondering when all of you had your car seats installed in anticipation of labor? My husband and I don't want to have them installed frantically at the last minute but we don't want to do it too early either. I appreciate your feedback!

Thanks,
Jessica

 

I would install them around 35/36 weeks unless you have some reason to earlier... (PTL signs)

You could just put the base in and take the carriers out when you are closer...

 

34-35 weeks would be a good time. If you had the babies then, there is a chance that they could come home with you.

 

In our case, we had them installed about 2 weeks before I delivered, BUT had to take them completely out so that the hospital could do a carseat test at the hospital. They put each baby in their seat and monitor their oxygen levels for about 30-45 minutes. If they fail, you can't take them home in those seats. It's rare, but some babies need to have carbeds for a while.

 

We put the bases in around 35 but kept the seats in the house. Dh put the seats back in when he came to pick us up.

 

My guys came early....much earlier than expected. So therefore, we did not have anything prepared! We even did not have any carseats of baby furniture!! Talk about waiting until last min to do anything!! My guys had 9 weeks of NICU time, so we had plenty of time to get the seats installed. You can install the seats yourself, but we wanted to make sure that they were done properly. My DH is a deputy sheriff and he has a bunch of friends that are certified in installing car seats properly. So he was able to setup a personal training session with a friend of his. It might not hurt to go ahead and do it now so you will become accustomed to installing them. (We rode around for weeks with empty carriers in our backseat!!)

 

We didn't install ours until the day before our scheduled c-section!

 

We installed 2-3 weeks before delivery.

 

We did ours wayyyyy early. But I was relieved to have it done. We just had the bases installed (graco snugride base) and kept the seats in the house until I came home from the hospital with them (DH brought them in on one of his trips back and forth to the hospital).

Fire stations will do it for you for free, many communities have special carseat installment days where pros will do it for you (our childbirth education class had info for us on that), and I heard that participating Mercedes Benz dealerships will do it for you for free, EVEN if you don't drive a Mercedes.
We had it done by certified technicians at a Marine Corps base. If your car has LATCH, it is very easy to do yourself. I have an older car (97 Honda Accord) and it was a huge pain to install them (took 2 techs 2 hours to do both seats!), so it also depends on what kind of car you drive. My car doesn't have Latch, so they had to be installed with the seatbelts, and the back seat is at an angle, so they had to put a swim-noodle thingy under them to get them level.

And now we are ready for NEW car seats at 6 months!

 

Thank you so much for all the helpful responses to my question! DH and I have a better idea of what to anticipate.

 

I did mine at 35 weeks and had the boys at 36 weeks.

 

ours were in around 28 weeks. i made an apointment with our local police dept to have him put our seats in and sometime it can take a while for that to get scheduled. i did it early but wanted them put in correctly and once they were in i diddnot have to think about it again. One less thing to think about is always good.

 

We put ours in a week before my scheduled c-section. 37 weeks.