One of the most frequently-asked questions I receive related to car seat installations comes from parents wondering whether to use the LATCH system or the seat belts that come with their vehicles. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of confusion about these two systems and a lot of misconceptions about the safety of one vs. the other. Today we’ll take a look at some of the more common questions I’ve received regarding these systems to help you make the safest decisions for your children.

Which is safer for installing car seats: seat belts or LATCH?

The truth is that neither is more safe than the other when used properly. According to government testing standards, there aren’t any safety-related advantages to using seat belts over LATCH lower anchors, or LATCH lower anchors over seat belts, provided that the seats are installed correctly.

The LATCH system is simply designed to be an easier method for parents to use when installing car seats. It was designed to make the process more fool-proof, particularly in light of how most car seats aren’t installed correctly, with  one of the most common errors being that the seats aren’t installed tightly enough. Per the NHTSA, 3 of every 4 seats are installed incorrectly, and LATCH is simply one of many efforts to reduce the rate of incorrectly installed seats. If you or someone helps you achieve a correct install, both systems are equally safe. Conversely, an incorrect installation through either method is unsafe.

However, if a properly-used LATCH system is as safe as a seat belt when it comes to installing a car seat, that begs another question…

Why use seat belts when I can use LATCH? Isn’t LATCH easier?

Many parents wonder why they’d bother with seat belts at all if they have LATCH lower anchors available on their vehicles, which is typically the case for almost all vehicles manufactured after 2001. LATCH, after all, is usually easier to use with car seats than the seat belt. I personally find it faster and also enjoy how it requires less effort to get a solid install (remember, 1″ or less movement at the base of the seat). So why should parents even consider using seat belts with their kids’ car seats?

The big reason is that you can use seat belts all the time, with virtually no exceptions. LATCH systems, however, always have weight limits, and the LATCH system is not rated as safe if those limits are exceeded. The limits vary from one car seat to the next and from one vehicle to the next, and you have to obey both the limits on the car seat and the limits on the vehicle for a LATCH installation to “count” as safe.

These weight limits may state, for example, that the LATCH system cannot be used once a child weighs more than 40 pounds, or once the child and car seat weigh more than a certain amount. It varies, and you need to be in compliance with both the seat and the vehicle’s limits. In contrast, when you’ve got a seat belt, you simply install your seat with it and that’s it. There’s no need to look up anything related to weight, as seat belts are designed to hold adults–in many cases, very heavy adults–safely.

2014 Update: As of February 27th, 2014, seats made from this date onward (check the label on the seat) in the US will typically have a 65 pound combined LATCH weight limit (i.e., that of the child and the seat together) for rear-facing and a 69 pound combined LATCH weight limit for forward-facing. This means you shouldn’t need to check vehicle weight limits anymore. However, you still need to check the label on the seat or in the manual, as a few manufacturers are more conservative and won’t allow you to go up to 65 / 69 pounds combined.

So we’ve established that under the right conditions there’s no safety difference between seat belts and LATCH, but that you don’t need to worry about weight limits when using seat belts. However, there’s another big, big reason to consider using seat belts over LATCH lower anchors when you can choose between the two of them…

Should I use seat belts or LATCH when installing multiple car seats? (e.g., 3 across)

Whenever I write one of the hundreds of 3 across car seat guides I’ve put together, I almost always advocate for using seat belts for 3 across installations instead of LATCH whenever possible. But why? After all, if seat belts and LATCH systems offer the same amount of safety when used correctly, does it matter which you use when installing multiple car seats?

Well, no and yes. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a lot of room for your installations, but it does matter if you don’t. And unless you’re driving a full-size pickup truck (and even then, it’s not necessarily a given), there’s a good chance that you’re not going to have nearly as much flexibility in a given amount of space to install 3 car seats if you use LATCH instead of if you use seat belts. But why?

The trick is in the spacing. With few exceptions, LATCH anchors tend to be located more toward the center of the seats in which they’re installed. On top of that, most vehicles only include two sets of LATCH lower anchors, which are typically built into the outboard seats. This means you’re going to need to use the seat belt in the center seat for a 3 across installation regardless of whether you prioritize LATCH or not. And if you do use LATCH, your outboard seats are going to be installed more toward the center, leaving less room for your center seat, reducing the odds of a successful 3 across installation, and requiring you to use narrower seats in each position. And this presumes the LATCH anchors are evenly spaced, which also isn’t always the case.

In contrast, when you use seat belts, you have more flexibility with where you place a car seat relative to the vehicle seat. This means you can push the outboard seats closer to the doors before installing them, which allows you to install wider seats in a given vehicle or the same-sized seats in a narrower vehicle. In other words, you get more options.

So in review, not only are seat belts as safe as the LATCH system, they also don’t have weight limits and make it easier to install multiple car seats at a time. It sounds like there just aren’t that many advantages to LATCH! This leads to another question…

If seat belts can be used all the time and LATCH can’t, why use LATCH at all?

The main reason to use LATCH, in my opinion, is because it’s both faster than a seat belt installation and takes less effort, even when you’re accomplished at both. It’s faster because you can typically do it one-handed, and you don’t need to figure out whether your seat belt locks or how to lock it or where to thread it through your car seat. You simply clip in your lower tether to the anchor and pull it taut on one side of the seat, and then do the same with the corresponding tether and anchor on the other side. That’s it.

It takes less effort because you don’t need to weigh down the car seat to make sure there’s enough tension in the seat belt. This often entails pushing down with one or both arms into the seat or even sitting inside it briefly when you’re using a seat belt, which is, frankly, a lot of work. You don’t need to do this with LATCH anchors, so LATCH is an easier system for people who can’t or don’t want to put a lot of force into the installation.

With both systems, naturally, you still need to make sure that there’s less than an inch of movement at the installation path, whether that installation is done with a seat belt or with LATCH anchors.

At this point, we’ve covered situations where using LATCH or seat belts are fully up to parents. However, there are a few situations involving tethering that do require LATCH systems if you choose to use them: forward- and rear-facing tethering.

What about forward-facing tethering? Do I need to do this?

Forward-facing tethering involves using the upper LATCH anchor system to tether the back of a forward-facing seat to an anchor somewhere behind the vehicle seat. There’s no option for a seat belt here; you have to use the LATCH system. Fortunately, it’s a simple procedure and there are a number of advantages to forward-facing tethering. In fact, while it’s not yet the law in the United States, it’s required in Canada. You can learn more about forward-facing tethering and why it’s a good idea here.

Besides forward-facing, it’s actually possible to tether car seats while they’re rear-facing. Let’s look at that briefly…

What about rear-facing tethering? Does anyone do this?

As with forward-facing tethering, your only options here are the LATCH system. However, unlike with forward-facing tethering, in the United States, rear-facing tethering is so rare that almost no one does it, even though rear-facing tethering does offer several advantages. You can read more about those here and decide if you’re willing to purchase car seats that make it possible.

Finally, parents occasionally ask about booster seats on the market (e.g., the Clek Oobr) that include LATCH restraints, so let’s take a quick look at why you might want to consider seats that include this feature.

What about using LATCH with booster seats? Is this even possible?

Booster seats are the last step in car seats before the adult seat belt and vehicle seat. I’ve written before about the 5-step test for exiting booster seats, and you’ll see seat belts referenced over and over again in such guides. So why would LATCH be mentioned here?

The reason LATCH can sometimes come into play with booster seats is because many parents forget that booster seats aren’t restrained to the vehicle’s seats except for when they’re buckled. Naturally, your child uses the seat belt to buckle himself or herself in while sitting in the seat, but kids often forget to buckle in the seats when they aren’t using them. And a 10-to 20-pound booster seat can easily become a fatal flying projectile in a collision if it’s not restrained. LATCH systems allow you to have seats permanently anchored to the vehicle, regardless of whether they’re being used or not. They don’t directly make your child safer, but they do make everyone in the vehicle safer if they reduce your odds of being hit by a flying booster seat in a collision.

I hope this has cleared up a number of questions you might have had regarding using LATCH vs. using seat belts, when to choose one system over the other, and certain advantages and disadvantages to keep in mind. You can learn about some of my favorite car seats (convertibles, infant seats, combination seats, and booster seats) here, as well as which ones are likely to fit into a vehicle you drive through my 3 across car seat guides here.

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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

If there’s one thing I’m passionate about when it comes to car seats, it’s about the benefits of extended rear-facing. I’ve written about how it’s the standard in Sweden to rear-face until 4, about affordable seats like the Extend2Fit that can keep kids rear-facing until 5 or beyond, about how to keep toddlers rear-facing, and sadly, about how children can be saved from unimaginably horrible collisions simply by being kept rear-facing.

To put it simply, rear-facing children as much as current car seat designs will safely allow is something I believe in. That’s why when I read the results of polls such as that conducted by C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital about parents rear-facing too early, it spurns me on to keep writing about the need to rear-face. Let’s dig into the details together and see what we can learn from the study.

In 2011, 33% of parents of 1-to 4-year-old children who had been turned to face forward had done so at or before 12 months. Just 16% reported turning their child’s seat at 2 years or older.

But in 2013, 24% of parents of 1- to 4-year-old children who had been turned to face forward made the switch at or before 12 months. Only 23% reported waiting to turn until the child was 2 years old or older.

To put the findings into context, the AAP updated their recommendations for how long children should remain rear-facing in 2011, moving the recommendation from 1 until 2 , or until children had outgrown the height and weight limits of their rear-facing car seat. I wrote about how these recommendations were better, but still far away from best practice. Shortly after the guidelines were released, the hospital polled parents to learn about how long they were actually rear-facing.

Too many parents are still rear-facing for one year or less.

In 2011, 1 out of every 3 parents turned their children forward-facing either at 12 months or before 12 months. This improved to 1 out of 4 parents in 2014. However, that still means a significant number of children were and are placed needlessly at risk by being forward-faced exceptionally early. It’s worth keeping in mind that forward-facing before 1 is against the law in all states.

The majority of parents turn their children forward between 1 and 2.

In 2011, 1 out of every 2 parents turned their children forward between 1 and 2 years. This remained consistent (1 out of 2 parents) in 2014. This was completely legal, as no state required rear-facing past 1 until New Jersey in late 2015, but not everything legal is good. You can buy an amazingly sophisticated radar detector online to reduce your odds of getting caught speeding, but that doesn’t make speeding good for your health.

Too few parents are rear-facing until 2 or later.

In 2011, around 1 out of 6 parents waited until 2 or later to forward-face their children. This improved to 1 out of 4 parents in 2014. Even though the report didn’t specify whether parents stopped rear-facing at 2, 3, or 4, at least making it to 2 is great progress in this country.

Now that we’ve looked at when parents are turning their infants and toddlers forward-facing, let’s look at some of the reasons why they’re doing this.

Why are parents forward-facing too early, despite medical recommendations?

“There are lots of reasons why parents are eager to change from the rear-facing to forward-facing seat: the perception their children are too large, the desire to see their children when driving, and a greater ease of removing their children from a forward facing seat,” says Macy… “But delaying the switch can make a big difference. In Sweden it is culturally accepted that children up to age 4 are in rear-facing seats and child traffic fatalities are among the lowest in the world.”

There they are again, those rear-facing Swedes! I want to shout this from the rooftops at everyone who will listen. The safest thing we can do for our little ones whenever they’re in a car, SUV, minivan, or pickup truck is ensure they’re strapped into a well-fitting and well-installed rear-facing car seat from age zero to age 4.

Beyond that, the reasons Macy lists about why parents want to forward-face early are ones we’ve discussed before here, and ones you’ve likely heard among parents in your circles. Perhaps you’ve even shared these reasons with your spouse or with other parents. But when we know better, we’ve got to do better.

Let’s debunk bad reasons to forward-face early

If you want to see your child, get a mirror. The So Peep an excellent one that we use in both of our vehicles. If you’re worried your kids are too large, don’t! As long as they’re within the height and weight limits, they’re fine; crossed-legs don’t bother kids and rear-facing kids are actually less likely to suffer leg injuries in collisions than forward-facing ones. I won’t deny that it’s sometimes easier to remove a child from a forward-facing seat, but the slight increase in time it might take is worth it, and we might all do well to slow ourselves down by a few seconds now and then. Here’s a book about slower, more peaceful parenting I’ve been enjoying lately.

Mike, I’d like to rear-face past 2 on a small / large budget. What do you recommend?

I’ve had the privilege of reviewing dozens of ERF-capable seats here, but these are my absolute favorite seats right now:

Under $200, I’d strongly recommend the Graco Extend2Fit, Safety 1st Grow and Go EX Air, and Safety 1st Advance EX 65+ Air+. The three seats are very similar, and each is designed to be used from the day your child leaves the hospital until the day s/he weighs 50 pounds. Their height limits mean nearly all kids will make it to 5 rear-facing with them, and lighter children may even make it past 6 or 7!

Under $300, my most-recommended seat is the Diono Rainier. If you can find it, the Diono Pacifica is equally safe despite having been discontinued. Again, both seats are almost identical; the main difference lies in the head wings present in the Rainier, which are designed to offer additional side impact protection.

However, the most important part of both seats involves the rear-facing capabilities. Both seats let you rear-face from birth until 50 pounds and have the height limits to make that feasible. They can then be used for quite a while as forward-facing seats, and then, depending on your child, used for some amount of time as booster seats.

If money’s no object, go with the Clek Fllo or Clek Foonf. Yet again, both seats are very similar, but my top recommendation between the two is the cheaper seat, the Fllo. Combine either seat with the Clek Infant Insert and you can start out rear-facing from birth and keep it up until 50 pounds.

Between these and the Dionos above, I prefer the Fllos and Foonfs for smaller or narrower vehicles and the Dionos if you want to hold on to a seat in forward-facing mode for a longer amount of time before needing a new one.

The point here isn’t to choose one particular seat over another nearly as much as it is to keep rear-facing as long as possible, and ideally until 4 or even beyond that if you can find a seat that will allow you to. Your child will continue to reap the benefits for years.

If you find my information on best practices in car and car seat safety helpful, you can do your shopping through this Amazon link. Canadians can  shop here for Canadian purchases. Have a question or want to discuss best practices? Join us in the forums!

If you’re like most parents of an 8-10 year old, you’re probably close to the age–or already at the age–where your kids have started asking you to skip the booster seat and use the adult seat belt, just like Mom or Dad. Or perhaps you’re already letting them. Or if you’re not, they’re sure to tell you that their friends’ parents are letting their friends use seat belts without car seats. And if their friends can do it, surely your kids are ready too, right?

Not necessarily.

The truth of the matter is that your child isn’t the one who can tell you when s/he’s physically and psychologically ready to use an adult seat belt. You’ve got to make that call. And unfortunately, plenty of parents make the wrong call all over the country every day for a range of reasons. Some do it because their parents did when they were young, and they survived, so it can’t be that bad, right? Other parents might do it because their kids seem mature, or because they’re simply tired of hearing their kids ask. But none of these are the kinds of reasons that keep our kids safe. And this blog is all about keeping kids safe.

So how do you know if your kids are ready to ditch the car seats and use the adult seat belts?

Why don’t we look at the question from the other direction? Here are 5 signs that your child simply isn’t ready to use the adult seat belt, and that s/he should really still be in a child seat, whether that’s a forward-facing convertible or combination seat or a booster seat.

5 signs your child still needs a booster seat

1. The shoulder belt doesn’t sit in the middle of your child’s shoulder. 

When sitting in a vehicle’s seat, does the shoulder belt (the top part of the seat belt) sit in the center of your child’s shoulder (e.g., halfway between your child’s neck and the top of your child’s arm)? If it doesn’t, your child’s not ready for the seat belt alone. Why? Because the belt can’t protect your child well if it’s not positioned over the shoulder. If the belt runs high, which it usually does when a child’s not big enough to use it, it could instead dig into your child’s neck in a crash, causing serious injuries.

2. The lap belt doesn’t sit low on your child’s thighs.

When sitting in a vehicle’s seat, does the lap belt (the lower part of the seat belt) sit on your child’s thighs (about where the pants pockets would be)? If it doesn’t, that’s another sign you should bring back the booster. Why? Because again, the belt won’t protect your child well if it’s not low on the thighs. If the belt runs high, which it tends to do again when a child’s too small to use it, it can sit on the stomach and cause devastating internal injuries in a collision. Children are also liable to slide right under the lap belt (called “submarining”) and fly unrestrained through the vehicle in a collision.

3. Your child slumps instead of sitting at the bight.

The bight of a vehicle’s seat is where the top and bottom cushions of the seat connect. It’s where your bottom touches if you’re big enough to use a seat. If your child’s not big enough to use an adult seat belt, or rather, the vehicle’s seat itself, your child will probably slouch and sit against the lower cushion with his or her back slumped against the back of the seat. This is dangerous for the reasons I wrote about above; it dramatically increases submarining odds, and the last thing you want your child to do in a collision is fly out of a seat belt.

4. Your child’s knees bend before the bend in the seat, or your child’s feet don’t touch the vehicle floor.

Either of these signs is another clear one that your child’s not big enough for the vehicle’s seat. If your child’s not big enough for the seat, s/he’s not big enough for the seat belt. Again, we don’t want submarining. We want surviving.

5. Your child can’t sit up straight, or plays with the seat belt, or is constantly moving from side to side, or is just really immature when out of a car seat.

This one’s perhaps the easiest factor to spot, but is the one most parents seem to overlook. If your child really seems to have trouble sitting safely in a vehicle seat, it doesn’t matter if s/he passes all of the other tests; s/he’s not ready to sit without a booster seat. The best safety systems do nothing if they aren’t used, and if your child won’t sit still and sit up, the seat belt won’t save him or her in a collision.

If all this advice looks familiar, it’s because it’s basically the 5-step test rewritten to show you what it looks like when a child isn’t passing it. Don’t rush to get your child out of a booster or combination seat and into the adult seat belt; some things are worth waiting for, and developmental readiness is one of them!

OK, you’ve convinced me Mike. What are some good booster seats?

Any of the booster seats I recommend here is a good one. However, my absolute favorites are seats that keep kids safely restrained for as long as possible, which is why my go-to recommendations are the Britax Frontier G1.1 (formerly called the Frontier 90) and Britax Pinnacle G1.1 (formerly called the Pinnacle 90).

These seats are great because they’re not only designed well enough to help your kids booster until they’re truly ready for the adult seat belt (which for most kids is around 10 to 12 years old), they’re also excellent forward-facing seats with 9-year lifespans, which means you can potentially use them from when a child’s 4 or 5 (which is when I recommend switching from rear-facing to forward-facing) until a child no longer needs a car seat at all! It doesn’t get any better than that, and it’s a huge money saver over the years.

If you find my information on best practices in car and car seat safety helpful, you can do your shopping through this Amazon link. Canadians can  shop here for Canadian purchases. Have a question or want to discuss best practices? Join us in the forums!

If you’ve got toddlers, you know convincing them to do just about anything (even things they want to do) can be a challenge. Scratch that; it can be impossible! However, if you read this blog, you also know that when it comes to car seat safety, we want to put our kids in the best possible positions to survive car collisions, and that means starting with rear-facing, and continuing to rear-face for as long as possible. So let’s talk about good ways to keep your toddlers rear-facing in safe car seats even when they make you want to do nothing more than forward-face (and perhaps run screaming from your vehicle now and then).

Wait – why should I be rear-facing my toddler anyway? Doesn’t forward-facing mean they’re more mature?

First of all, it’s worth remembering why rear-facing is a good idea. And not just a good one–it’s a great idea! Rear-facing is safer than forward-facing because it spreads the forces of a collision across a child’s back, which is a lot safer than concentrating them into a child’s neck. It’s kind of like how you can lift a heavy grocery bag with your hand that you couldn’t hope to lift with an individual finger.

The bones in a child’s body, such those encasing the spinal cord, take several years to fuse together after birth, and typically aren’t safely together until a child is around 4 or 5. This is why extended rear-facing is particularly important with younger children: it’s not so much about how much they weigh or how tall they are; the bones simply need time to mature.

You can read more about this here and here, but this is the basic idea. Rear-facing doesn’t mean your child isn’t mature; it just means you’re giving them the time they need to mature. Let’s go over some suggestions to make this possible.

How can I keep my toddler rear-facing? S/he cries, wants to see me, gets bored, or I get stressed and distracted. Help!

1. Buy a car seat mirror (and use it!)

If your toddler becomes fussy when rear-facing all of a sudden, it might very well be because she realizes that you’re somewhere very close by but she can’t see you, and that might upset her. It might sound rather obvious, but toddlers seemingly realize obvious things from one moment to the next.

My favorite solution here is to buy a good car seat mirror–and use it! The So Peep mirror is a fantastic one that we use with our kids, and which does a much better job than the Britax mirror we had before it. Set it up with your toddler and show her you can see her, and that she can see you through it. Your tantrums might disappear overnight.

2. Change the seat position

Sometimes toddlers become upset around this age because they simply become bored of being in the same place in the car all the time. Changing the installation of your seat (e.g., moving from the center to an outboard position, or from one outboard position to another) might be just what the doctor ordered for making your toddler view his rear-facing car seat in a whole new (and pleasant) light. If your toddler complains of having the sun in his or her eyes, a rear window sunshade kit might go a long way toward making the view more enjoyable, especially if your toddler won’t wear sun shades.

3. Try restricted toys

Toddlers are at an age where they enjoy new things, but they’re also at an age where they enjoy the comfort of familiar ones. Restricted toys are simply toys that your toddler enjoys but which she doesn’t get to use very often. We’ve found it helpful to have a book handy that’s only available in the car, such as the First 100 Words book. Our daughter spends a good amount of time studying each page and pointing to the objects she can name (and then naming them). It’s surprisingly engrossing.

4. Try familiar toys!

On the other end of the spectrum, some toddlers simply crave things that remind them of home, and if you can bring a treasured blanket, book, or trinket from home to the car seat, this might be enough to make your toddler start enjoying rear-facing car trips again. If you try this strategy, it’s a good idea to discuss which toy your toddler will bring before leaving for a trip, and make his choosing it a special affair. He’ll be more likely to remember its significance once a trip starts, and less likely to fuss.

5. Realize it’s just a phase, or this too shall pass.

This is perhaps the least exciting tip you can hear, but it’s also perhaps the most important. No one really understands what’s going on in a toddler’s mind–not completely, anyway. They’re at an age where they’re learning an awful lot about the world and about themselves, and for many toddlers at that age, they’re simply going to want to do things differently just to see if they can, and just to see what things feel like, and just to see what you do.

This might mean rejecting favorite foods or routines. It might mean saying “no” when they really mean “yes,” or the complete opposite. And sometimes it might simply mean they fuss a lot when rear-facing even though it never used to bother them before. Your job as a parent is to keep your toddler safe; this is a phase that s/he will get through, and that you will get through.

OK, You’ve convinced me. What’s a good convertible for keeping my toddler rear-facing until s/he’s 4 or 5 (e.g., the preschool years)?

There are a lot of great convertibles out there right now that will likely keep your toddler rear-facing until at least 4; I’ve reviewed and recommended many of them here. However, if you’re looking for my absolute favorites, here you go.

I’ve had the privilege of reviewing dozens of ERF-capable seats here, but these are my absolute favorite seats right now:

Under $200, I’d strongly recommend the Graco Extend2Fit, Safety 1st Grow and Go EX Air, and Safety 1st Advance EX 65+ Air+. The three seats are very similar, and each is designed to be used from the day your child leaves the hospital until the day s/he weighs 50 pounds. Their height limits mean nearly all kids will make it to 5 rear-facing with them, and lighter children may even make it past 6 or 7!

Under $300, my most-recommended seat is the Diono Rainier. If you can find it, the Diono Pacifica is equally safe despite having been discontinued. Again, both seats are almost identical; the main difference lies in the head wings present in the Rainier, which are designed to offer additional side impact protection.

However, the most important part of both seats involves the rear-facing capabilities. Both seats let you rear-face from birth until 50 pounds and have the height limits to make that feasible. They can then be used for quite a while as forward-facing seats, and then, depending on your child, used for some amount of time as booster seats.

If money’s no object, go with the Clek Fllo or Clek Foonf. Yet again, both seats are very similar, but my top recommendation between the two is the cheaper seat, the Fllo. Combine either seat with the Clek Infant Insert and you can start out rear-facing from birth and keep it up until 50 pounds.

The overall take home points are that young children can be perfectly happy while rear-facing, and that if they aren’t, there are a range of solutions to try. Ultimately, however, if they don’t work and our children are temporarily unhappy, it’s our job as parents to keep rear-facing anyway as long as our seats allow, because it’s by far the safer choice compared to forward-facing.

If you find my information on best practices in car and car seat safety helpful, you can do your shopping through this Amazon link. Canadians can  shop here for Canadian purchases. Have a question or want to discuss best practices? Join us in the forums!