5 Point Harness Car Seats
 

My three-year-old wants you to know that she is plenty mature to sit properly in her booster seat.

She also says you're a big doodie head for suggesting she isn't.

Different strokes.

I was going to say that generally 4 year olds aren't mature enough (because I don't think that they are) but the video was about a 3 year old. For longer trips, I don't feel confident that the average 3-4 year old can sit up straight properly for the entire trip or that if they were to drop something, not lean forward to pick it up, which could introduce slack in the seatbelt, or not slouch when sleeping, etc. But that is a vast geralization, and JMHO.

4 years and 40 pounds is generally considered the bare minimum for booster seats per the NTHSA and others. What really sucks is that there aren't more options for harnessed seats for bigger kids in the US. Everyone on this board can probably afford a Britax for each car, but a lot of people can't. The other problem is that the vast majority of kids outgrow seats by height well before they hit the weight limits. In Sweden they keep kids rearfacing until they're like 5 and their crash injury statistics are so much better than ours.


ETA: Some of the rules are obviously stupid, though, since I don't meet all of the requirements for using a seatbelt without a booster (all seatbelts hit me in the neck no matter what I do, and 5' 3" isn't all that short). And in some cars, your Cadillacs and such, my knees don't bend properly at the seat edge when I'm sitting allt he way back.

How do they do this? Given that a rear-facing seat barely fits in most cars with the passenger seats all the way up, and by "most cars" I mean big, American, cars, not panty-waisted Swedish cars, knee surgery rates among Swedish parents must be quite high.

You know, every week I ponder whether the Roundabout is properly installed in my car. Neither the Britax's nor the car's manual gives me any confidence -- each one passes the buck and says to refer to the other -- and the local organization that checks seats only does so once every few months. I think I could drive out to some distant county to get a police check if I had the chance.

I don't even want to talk about the whole "in the middle, but insalled with the seatbelt, no tether" versus "on the outboard, latched and tethered, but more vulnerable in event of side impact" debate that we have every couple of weeks.

And is it me, or is it really, really hard to get the straps just the right tension so that the seat does not move more than an inch side to side or front to back?

At least my bra is the right size.

Solution to 1: Fatten up and then kneel on the seat while fastening it.

This creates a problem on no. 2.

Hmm, how do you kneel on a rear-facing Roundabout?

Maybe this question is better suited for the FB.

I exaggerated a little bit. It is more to like age 4. See

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.o...s/wmj/funk.pdf

At the bottom of the first page. Their stats were even better than I remembered. The Swedish research was what persuaded the AAP to change their recommendation. An excellent article about what happens to kids in accidents in various restraints.

In any case, it's not that bad. Most kids can rearface in a Britax until around age 3, and at that age the seat can be more upright than it is for newborns (no 45 degree angle requirement for older kids), thus giving the average parent more room. The thing is that most kids don't mind sitting in the seat with their legs crossed at the ankles/calves (reminiscent of indian style). In the US, the seat with the highest rearfacing limit is the Cosco Scenara at 35 lbs.

ET fix link

I wouldn't be too sure. The % of women wearing the wrong bra size is comparable to the % of improperly installed carseats.

I had my first real professional bra fitting for my nursing bra after the Chicklet. Holy Crap! I was actually had the right idea for my size, the problem being that there were only 3 companies that made something in it. So I had to purchase them from the fancy schmancy maternity/nursing specialty store.

Mount it. More on the FB . . .

I think the whole carseat debate is about as stupid as the whole bra debate.

You do what works. Period.

My bra size is one thing. But that size bra doesn't fit me. How stupid is that?

Every single bra-fitter I've ever encountered has been wrong, all the same way. They somehow think that someone who is (was - sniff) a full 32C on the smallest or medium hook should be fitting in a 34B bra. If your idea of "fitting" is tits squeezing out over the front and the band slipping down toward the waist, then yeah, perfect.

Not to sound callous about child safety in the carseat debate, but as with all the hyper "don't"s of pregnancy, I think it's possible to go overboard. Yes, I talked my ex- out of removing a perfectly good Britax out of the smaller car and replacing it with a backless booster, but in general, the idea of keeping kids rearfacing until upwards of 4 seems a bit extreme.

eta: On the other hand, I have some acquaintances who do not use childseats at all, and if there's a belt being used, it's strapping down 2 kids at once (3 and almost 5 yrs old). I took those kids with mine to an event a few weeks ago and wouldn't do it unless they provided me with seats and told the kids they had to stay in them.

That's the general problem--it's the argument that you should spend twice as much on the next bigger seat to reduce the risk of injury marginally, if at all. Multiplied across a few million kids, that's a lot of money not necessarily worth spending, depending on how much the risk of injury is decreased.

Helpful
 

[Extensive car seat safety debate]

People, this is why you should always have a spare child. Maybe even a spare to the spare child.

That was my point.

I am like bnb* in that the bra size that supposedly fits according to my measurements does not actually fit. I have gotten the right fit, although was surprised by the size, when measured at Nordstrom, but the lady did not rely on the measurements.

*Otherwise I am pretty sure that I am not like bnb in the boobies department.

How about LATCH'ed in the middle?