How do you keep your child from undoing their seatbelt?

BubblyToes

Will undid his seatbelt for the second time this morning.  He thinks it's hilarious.  I've tried making it tighter, but he can get his arms out still or he starts crying that it hurts.

What do I do?

SaraSmile

The carseat seatbelt or the regular lap belt?

vtgirl

Do you mean the buckles in his seat or the actual car seatbelt?

elm1032004

DD did this a couple of times, I pulled over and buckled her back up right away and she went strait to a time out when we got home.  We had a talk about how it's not safe to rid without your buckles and that if mommy's car got hit by another car she could get hurt very badly if she wasn't in her buckles.  That worked for her.......our next step was to have DH's cousin (who is a police officer) talk to her in his uniform.  He can be quite.......we'll go with convincing.

knmommy

We have to ductape Allison's car seat buckle.  We've, yelled, told her why she and unbuckle, we've had to pull over.  Finally, we just decided to ductape it!

BubblyToes

The carseat buckle

DandR

I think I scared my girls to death about car seat safety.....

They now buckle themselves in, and one day, I guess I got a little in a hurry and started backing out before they were buckled and Audrey burst into tears...."NOoOOOOOOoooo...I'm not buckled!!!!"  I felt bad, but they are concerned about their safety now.....

vtgirl

These worked for my niece and nephews, they just put them right on the seat buckle- I haven't tried them yet though.

https://www.mountainbaby.com/item.php/hands_off_seat_belt_buckle_reminder.html

kittycarr

E&B have done that repeatedly so I smacked fear into them after timeouts, etc didn't phase them.  I smacked their hands and when the hands didn't phase them, I spanked their bottoms and very firmly told them they cannot do that and why.

So far, so good.  I'd rather smack the crap out of them rather than one of them fly through the windshield should I not notice before a crash that they are out of their seats.

Flame away!!

if.u.seek.amy

kittycarr:

E&B have done that repeatedly so I smacked fear into them after timeouts, etc didn't phase them.  I smacked their hands and when the hands didn't phase them, I spanked their bottoms and very firmly told them they cannot do that and why.

So far, so good.  I'd rather smack the crap out of them rather than one of them fly through the windshield should I not notice before a crash that they are out of their seats.

Flame away!!

i wont flame you! You know the old ways of spanking a child "i do it because I love you."

DandR

fyi---not to be snarky towards kitty, but I put the fear in my kids without smacking them.  I think we drove by a few accidents and I mentioned that it was an accident and hopefully everyone was wearing their seatbelts because otherwise they would be hurt (I know you can get hurt even with your seatbelt on...but not as bad).....it worked.

It also "helped" i suppose that my SIL really was in an accident and when she was telling us about it, she said "luckily we all had our seatbelts on" or something of the sort, and my kids were listening....

kittycarr

No snark taken but I wasn't so lucky.  I pointed out every accident on the road and had many discussions on the topic.  No luck for me.  Spanking them was a last resort.  We spank the kids but not often and it's a last resort.  This happened to be the only thing that worked in this situation.  

kittycarr

Ethan is a little easier to reason with than Brooke though.  But still can be quite stubborn and in "i will do what i want" mode regardless.

debbiej

That's a hard one!  We've just told DS from day one that the rule in the car is that we always wear our seat belt and we do not unbuckle it until the key is out of the car.  He's very much into rules right now (including making his own) and we just repeat it whenever he gives us problems.

He has unbuckled it while I was driving and I pulled into the next parking lot I came to and scared the crap out of him by getting out and going around and buckeling him back in.  I don't think I've ever been so mad at him or yelled so loud!  It kind of made the point and he hasn't done it since.  In fact, the other day, I had pulled into the garage and turned off the car but didn't take the keys out and he said "Mommy, please take the keys out so I can unbuckle my seat!".

Repition and stearness are key.

KoriBrett

I talk to her about it and if I see her so much as THINKING about going for the buckle, I pull over.  She unbuckled herself twice while I was driving, I yelled at her to sit down, pulled over, told her she scared me adn that it's not safe, if the buckle isn't done the car does not move, etc.  I scared her enough that she cried rather a lot.  Which, I feel bad about, but hell it worked.  She hasn't done it since.  She doesn't like to see me panicked, it scares her.

omurray

Oh man, saving this in case I need it later.