CARES harness for flying

seansgirl2006 · December 2011

I just got a good deal on one on eBay and decided to try it out. Who has used it? Did you like it? It looks easy to install online so I hope it is. I am looking forward to not lugging his carseat on the plane, especially since I am flying with DS by myself. I saw those carseat bags to check it on Amazon. Do I really need one of those? The one I saw was only $10 and I wondered how much that would really protect it for that cheap. Any suggestions welcome. TIA

slwprincess · December 2011

I've seen it before and think it's a great idea. Gavin just needs a 5 pt harness sometimes- lol! Last night was our last trip with Sophie's infant seat. I am so sad that she's outgrown it- it really makes life so much easier. Anyway, going forward, I think we will finally invest in one of those GoGo carseat carriers. We borrowed myralls last year and I really loved it except that Gavin wanted to pull it instead of riding which kind of slowed us down. Now he's a little more coordinated so it might actually be helpful :-) Plus, I really like having them in their carseat on the plane if the flight is over 2 hours. I find they are more likely to sleep if they feel like they are in the car. And even if I wasn't planning on taking the carseat on board, I definitely prefer to gate check it- I've heard horror stories about checking the carseats with luggage and I would never check one of our good Britax seats. So for us, I think the Gogo is our best option. Gavin is pretty good about sitting still now so its just Sophie that we have to contain!

keg · December 2011

We used them when we flew in October and it was much easier than lugging their car seats. Plus, with the CARES harness, they can't kick the seat in front of them quite as easily. :-) I think they work well for the 2.5ish + group. I had a friend borrow it with her 18 month olds and it was a no go. (Based on my experience I would have predicted that, but she still wanted to try.) They are super-easy to install.

I did get a carseat bag when we traveled, but I found a nice one for $10 at a consignment store. The kids consignment store in Avondale Estates had several carseat bags when I was there a couple months ago. I liked it because I was able to stack both carseats and fit them in one bag. Granted, we travel with Cosco Sceneras so they are somewhat small seats, but it was much easeier to deal with one big bag than two seperate carseats. They seemed to protect the seats okay.

decaturbride · December 2011

I see people use them every so often on the planes. I haven't tried it personally, but it seems like a good idea. The people that use them seem happy on the plane. I haven't ever checked our car seat so I don't have any advice on that except I would get a really good bag or gate check it. We always travel with our Evenflo instead of the Britax. The evenflo is lighter so that's the main reason, but I wouldn't be nearly as upset if something happened to it either.

slwprincess · December 2011

Oh and if you are renting a car at your destination, don't bother bringing a carseat and just rent one instead. I'm surprised that more people don't know they can do this. If you have AAA, Hertz lets you rent them for free. Budget was $39 which is pretty steep IMO, but still worth skipping the hassle of hauling your own to the airport. The only problem is that we inevitbly get one that was previously used by a carseat moron and the straps are twisted or whatever. If you're renting some place warm- it's no big deal to fix it. But we were in WI and it was flippin freezing and I was definitely cursing that cheap Eddie Bauer carseat and whichever dumbass had used it last.

myrall · December 2011

We checked G's Britax Marathon for our Hawaii trip. Bought a $25 carseat bag. It made it to Hawaii in one piece. But when we picked it up back in Atlanta, Delta had ripped a massive tear in it and busted the zipper. Glad I only paid $25 for it. The carseat was fine, though.

Geneva was 2.5 when we made that trip. I debated one of those harnesses, but she did just fine in her seatbelt with her DVD player. She STILL talks about flying on the plane with her headphones and movies.

I do have the GoGoKidz travel thingy if you'd like to take it for a test run. Hit me up on FB. It was super nice when we would gate check her carseat. We could just check our stroller with our luggage. Bought a MacLaren stroller bag that we could cram all other kinds of things in. VERY handy.

We put Geneva in her carseat on the plane exactly once. She spent the entire time nailing the seat of the poor dude in front of us. Fortunately, he was super cool and didn't even take us up on our offer of a free drink.

frlcb · December 2011

We fly pretty often with ds, and always use the CARES. We love it, he sits well in it, and it is super easy to use. We always check our car seats with luggage, in car seat bags (Britax actually makes one that we just got and used on this trip to the UK) and have never had a problem.

seansgirl2006 · December 2011

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate all of the helpful tips and info. I didn't think about this helping the seat kicking situation. That is definitely an added bonus. I think for longer trips that the carseat would be better for sleeping but this will be short. We really only ever fly to Miami. It is short but still wears me out trying to make sure he stays entertained and quiet, mostly just during take off and landing when we have to turn the DVD player off.

frlcb · December 2011

seansgirl2006:
Thanks everyone. Really appreciate all of the helpful tips and info. I didn't think about this helping the seat kicking situation. That is definitely an added bonus. I think for longer trips that the carseat would be better for sleeping but this will be short. We really only ever fly to Miami. It is short but still wears me out trying to make sure he stays entertained and quiet, mostly just during take off and landing when we have to turn the DVD player off.

For longer trips it is even worse to have them at a level where they can kick the seat in front of them, trust me. We dealt with it on a flight between London and Atlanta when ds was 18 months and that was the last time we ever flew with a car seat!

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