Your baby demands special treatment. You can't just scrimp and treat your baby as if she were grown up enough for certain things, for these may prove not only unhealthy but disastrous for your baby. For this reason, you invest in special baby stuff - like formulas, baby clothes, baby-safe toys... and infant car seats.

Almost all the states have laws on the proper installment of infant car seats, and now many states are adopting booster seat laws as well. The importance of these laws is comparable to the importance of making seatbelt laws - local governments are carrying out their responsibility of taking care of their citizens, on the road and out of it. It may not be well known, but it's still a fact that traffic accidents are the number one killer of children all over the United States!

Child safety seats come in different sizes, and babies under the age of 1 and/or weighing less than 20 lbs need to stay confined to infant size seats - rear-facing seats, in particular. This is important because front-facing seats - especially when installed in the passenger side of a car that has an airbag function - would not provide optimum protection for your baby, while he is at this tender stage of his life. But once your baby hits the age of 1-4, or 20-40 lbs, you will want to place him in a front-facing seat. But your baby still needs special protection at this stage, so consider installing your new front-facing seat at the back. It's common knowledge that the passenger side seat is the most dangerous part of the car!

When your child grows up to be 4-8 years old and/or under 4 feet 9 inches, he will have outgrown his infant car seats. It's time for him to "graduate" into booster seats, which are the middle ground between adult seats and infant seats. Many children who are this age, or this height, are still too small for seatbelts. But did you know, there's a special classification for children who are too large for booster seats, but still too small for adult seatbelts? These children are called "tweens" at this stage of their growing-up years. But we should be thankful that this stage doesn't last long!

Worried about the time and money you'll spend changing car seats so many times over the years? Consider investing in a convertible car seat. These are seats that expand according to your child's age, which would allow them to virtually "grow" with your baby. Convertible seats are basically infant car seats, booster seats and tweenie seats all in one!