Graco MyRide 65 PSA

PinkNoise123

Hi Ladies,

I mainly lurk here (haven't posted on the bump in forever!) but I wanted to let you know of an issue I'm having with the MyRide 65...

My 16 month old has figured out how to undo the chest clip, which is almost my worst nightmare!  It's very easy to undo, which I think is ridiculous.  My neighbor who is a car seat safety expert (she's an RN who specializes in child safety education) has looked at it, checked the Graco website, and contacted her colleagues in the industry, and is as stumped as I am as to why it's so easy for a young toddler to undo the chest clip.

We checked the Graco website and this is what we found in the FAQ's:

My child is able to undo the chest clip on the car seat. Do you make a different chest clip my child will not be able to open?

The chest clip (harness tie) needs to be both easy to open for caregivers with in an emergency and complex enough for a child to not easily open it. Our current chest clips have 2 buttons which takes both knowledge and dexterity for it to be opened. But there are some children who figure it out. And there are some adults who find it hard to open. The first thing to check is to make sure the harness is snug (where you can?t pinch it) on the child and make sure the harness clip is at arm pit level. Additional information regarding this issue is available at Carseat.org: https://www.carseat.org/Resources/635.pdf.

 

In my opinion, the link to additional information at carseat.org is pretty useless, too, as it deals with teaching habits and encouraging good behavior.  Yeah, works great on my 16 month old...

 

At any rate, I have contacted Graco about this, and my neighbor suggested turning the clip upside down so that her non-dominant hand is where the button is.  She will also be lodging a complaint with the NHTSB about this, as she feels this isn't an adequate response. 

 

I hope I haven't offended anyone, as I know how well-liked these car seats are.  Heck, I love it and hate the thought of having to buy another seat!  But my child's safety and well-being is the most important thing to me, and I'd hate to have something bad happen because of a design flaw that could easily be taken care of by Graco.

penguingrrl

That's frustrating but not uncommon. Many of my friends have had the exact same issue with Britax seats. I would recommend having your little one wear a button down shirt, unbutton to buckle then button it back up over the harness so LO can't access the clip. Also, I think I've heard of carseat manufacturers allowing people to switch out their chest clip for the one diono radian uses, which my 3.5 year old can't open yet (her 5 year old sister can just barely do it) because the chest clip isn't load bearing in an accident (it's actually designed as a pre-crash positioner and they often break on impact and that's not concerning).

PinkNoise123

penguingrrl:

That's frustrating but not uncommon. Many of my friends have had the exact same issue with Britax seats. I would recommend having your little one wear a button down shirt, unbutton to buckle then button it back up over the harness so LO can't access the clip. Also, I think I've heard of carseat manufacturers allowing people to switch out their chest clip for the one diono radian uses, which my 3.5 year old can't open yet (her 5 year old sister can just barely do it) because the chest clip isn't load bearing in an accident (it's actually designed as a pre-crash positioner and they often break on impact and that's not concerning).

Thanks for the info!

orinjuse

I have a hard time wrapping my head around how any car seat company can make a chest clip (or harness buckle or any other clip for that matter) that cannot be opened by ANY child at any given time. We're talking about an ideal clip here, which an intelligent child has a hard time accessing and an intelligent parent is able to unbuckle. Playing devil's advocate here, but I don't know if such a thing exists. I think I would try to keep my child from undoing a clip, but I wouldn't blame a manufacturer if my smart kiddie is in the minority that can figure it out.

Becid24

I've seen before where parents put the itchy side of Velcro on the chest clip so kids don't open it. Might be worth a try