The First Time I Put My Son in His Car Seat (And Why His Chin-to-Chest Moment Changed Everything)
I can still picture it perfectly.
It was two days after giving birth.
We were leaving the hospital. Getting ready for that emotional, slightly surreal walk where the world feels too bright and too loud and you suddenly realise you’re responsible for keeping an entire tiny person alive.
The mid afternoon sun was coming through the window.
I placed my son into the infant carrier that came with our travel system. The one we bought while pregnant, thinking I was as prepared as I could be.
I skimmed the manual at the time, “how difficult can it be”, I thought. So I just placed him in the seat and adjusted the harness.
Then I saw it.
His chin fell straight down onto his chest.
The feeling in my body was instant. A quiet but very clear alarm. The kind of instinct you cannot explain but absolutely trust.
He looked far too small for the seat.
There was so much space around him.
His head looked… wrong.
I didn’t have the language for any of this yet, but I knew something wasn’t right and I knew he didn’t look safe.
There was no one there to tell me what I was seeing, and why it was ‘wrong’.
Google made everything more confusing
Naturally, I Googled. Of course.
Because that is what every new parent does when they feel something is wrong and they do not know why.
The results were a mess.
US forums said to use rolled up muslins.
UK guidance said never add anything unapproved.
Some people said it was normal.
Others said it was dangerous.
No one explained it clearly.
I remember feeling genuinely overwhelmed.
How could something so important be this contradictory?
The part that shocked me: my seat did have a newborn insert, but it had to be bought separately
And I didn’t find that out for months.
Another parent wrote a completely unrelated post online and mentioned the insert in passing. If I had not scrolled by at the right moment, I would never have known.
My “from birth” seat was not actually suitable from birth without that insert.
It didn’t come in the box.
No one in the shop mentioned it.
If it was in the manual, it certainly was not clear enough for an exhausted pregnant woman to notice.
By the time I discovered it existed, my son had outgrown the stage where he would have needed it.
I still think about that, because there are so many parents in the exact same situation. They assume the seat included with their travel system is complete, but sometimes it’s not.
Chin to chest is not just awkward positioning. It’s an airway issue.
Here is what I understand now, and what I wish I had known then:
Newborns cannot correct their own head position.
When the chin rests on the chest, the airway can partially close.
Proper spinal and head alignment is essential for safe breathing.
A newborn insert is not extra padding. It is an essential support structure for positioning.
In the UK, we only use inserts approved by the seat manufacturer because those are the only ones that have been crash tested with the seat.
In the UK, if it is not part of the approved setup, we do not add it. Simple, but not something anyone tells you when you buy a pram system at 20 weeks pregnant.
This moment is the reason SeatSmarts exists
That day, leaving the hospital with my newborn looking unsafe in his seat and my instincts screaming at me, is the foundation of this entire brand.
Parents deserve clear information.
They deserve UK specific guidance.
They deserve answers that do not require joining forums at 2am.
And they deserve to feel confident, not frightened or confused.
This is why I created the Quick Safety Scan graphic. These are the essential checks I wish I had known on that first day.
These five checks would have changed everything for me
They take seconds, but they highlight the most commonly missed issues:
Harness slack
Incorrect harness height
Bulky layers
Insert use
Head position
If I had known these five steps, I would have understood exactly what my instincts were trying to tell me.
If you have had your own chin to chest moment, you are not failing
You didn’t do anything wrong.
You aren’t careless.
You aren’t supposed to magically know this.
None of us are taught it.
The fact that you are learning now means you care deeply about your child’s safety.
SeatSmarts exists to give you the clarity you should have been given from the start.
You are doing better than you think. 🤎