Car Seat INSTALLED

Yes, our car seat is now "properly" installed. Ok, it actually is not installed according to our car's owner manual (gasp!), but it was the way the officer (and we) decided was the best. Here's the 2 key things we learned:

• Our car has one of those shoulder/lap belts in the middle seat that locks when pulled out completely (and retracts with the clicking noise), but because of that feature it pulled one side of the carseat up if we really made the seatbelt "as tight as it could go" around the carseat base. So, the officer showed us how to use the locking clip (a little metal clip that comes with the carseat) to actually "lock" the seatbelt into the correct position on the lap portion of the belt. This means you actually leave the shoulder part "unlocked". In the case of an accident, the shoulder will lock anyways (just as it does when an adult sits in the space)... BUT the bottom lap portion won't "give" any AND won't become a flying projectile if the shoulder strap section snaps.
• We undid our first installation and strapped the seat in and made it tight. But the seat still slid side to side a bit because of the distance between where the seatbelt comes out of the seat and the buckle in comparison to our carseat width. So, the officer recommended looking up in our owner manual about whether or not we could use the LATCH (Lower Anchor Tether for CHildren) system with the carseat in the middle. While Ian found the spot in the manual, the officer and I attached the carseat with the LATCH system. It was quite easy and it was tighter than we could get it with the seatbelt! Of course, when we got to the section in the manual, it only mentioned the LATCH system being for the outer seats. So, technically the manual does not explicitly prohibit the use of the LATCH for the middle seat, but it also does not mention using the LATCH for the middle seat in any way, shape or form.

So... our final decision... We'll keep the carseat in the middle seat attached by the LATCH system, and we won't remove the base ever. Ok, sometime we might, but the way it is now, the carseat really doesn't budge at all side to side AND it also subsequently solved most of the upward tilting issues that we had previously. Oh, and I did find out online that carseats are not tested for that upward tilt... it's called a "cocooning" effect and to a certain degree (not 3 or 4 inches though, which is what we were having) it allows the baby's head to move with the car in a collisions and not snap forward or back. To paraphrase the officer on our final decision, "I normally would not recommend installing a carseat in a way contrary to your car's owner manual, but I think this is going to be the best fit for you. Usually the LATCH system is usually too loose of a fit for the middle seat because the anchors are too far apart, but on yours it looks perfect."