How to make your car baby-safe

That moment when you have to ditch your two-door, 2+2 coupe for something more practical and sensible is a landmark moment in the lives of many driving and car enthusiasts. Yet, for new and soon-to-be parents, driving a family-friendly car is only the start of the journey of discovery.

There’s a lot more to making a car baby and child safe than simply buying what common sense dictates as a vehicle that can accommodate children.

As you can already imagine, there are plenty of sports cars with huge horsepower like the BMW M3 and Mercedes-AMG CLS 53 that can classify as family sedans too, so there’s a lot more to making a car baby and child safe than simply buying what common sense dictates as a vehicle that can accommodate children.

You may also already own a car that can be very practical and has been serving you faithfully for years, so now what do you need to do to set it up to be safe for young children?

Enable child seats

For starters, you need to invest in a suitable child seat. We have the whole thing detailed out in our child seats for cars in Singapore guide. What’s important to remember here is that this is not just common safety sense, but is required by law. Having a child unrestrained in a moving car is an offence. 

Second-hand child seats are a good budget option but also note that the materials used to make them have fixed lifespans. Most expanded polystyrene and plastics used in their manufacture have an ‘expiry date’ of around six to eight years, where the material starts to break down and become more brittle. This date is always stamped on the seat, or on a prominent sticker on the shell. 

Remove and stash away loose items

Then there’s the matter of securing loose items in the cabin from curious hands. Very young babies may be less aware of their surroundings but toddlers will reach out to grab anything of interest within visual range. That’s not a problem in itself if the child is strapped securely in the seat, but the inevitable tantrum that follows from being unable to reach the item of interest will be the real issue. 

This means that your stash of easily-on-hand stuff on the centre console will need to be relocated and kept out of sight. It’s best to keep the car free of clutter, as loose items will launch around the cabin of the car in the event of an emergency braking situation. Flying powerbanks and pens are bad news if they hit babies in cars at speed. 

Fragrances in the car may smell nice to you, but they can cause irritation to babies with their new and sensitive airways, so it’s best to just keep the car clean and ventilated, rather than try to hide a stink under perfume. 

Lock the doors

Once a child is old enough to reach out to the door handles while still seated, it becomes a priority to keep the child locks on the doors engaged. In older cars this is a sliding switch that can be found at the edge of the door when it is opened. When engaged, it allows the door to be opened from the outside but pulling the door release inside the car will have no effect. 

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On newer cars the door locks are typically actuated by the central locking switch on the driver’s side.

Power windows should also be locked at all times when a toddler is in the car, at least until the child is sensible enough to not treat the window switch like a game, which can very quickly become dangerous in moving traffic. 

Young children move very quickly and are not hampered by the need to think, “should I or shouldn’t I?” It’s alway better to keep things secured and out of sight, and openable switches within a child’s reach locked off. 

Keep it bright

You may be tempted to cosy up the cabin with extra curtains and pillows and what-nots, but research and experience has shown that babies, even before they can tell you so, like the visual stimulation of being able to see what’s outside the window clearly when they are awake. Blocking the view of the window isn’t the best idea, though lightweight window shades are helpful to block out sun glare for a sleeping baby. 

The initial use of a rearward-facing child seat is really out of safety and practicality, and most researchers do recommend keeping babies in such seats for as long as it is safe and comfortable. 

Most parents will switch their children to front-facing seating configurations sometime after their 18th month. This is when babies become much more aware of their surroundings and many will loudly protest against being made to stare at the ceiling of the car while the world whizzes by. 

Make it fun

Teaching a child that the cabin of a car is no place for horseplay is a long, drawn-out process, but having an older child that already knows the rules can help the younger one acclimatise quicker. 

If you’re out shopping for a new car, it’s worth taking into consideration what active safety features come with it rather than how fast the car is. We’ve outlined a few that are very important in another guide here.

This article was first published CarBuyer.