Booster Seat Poll

kittylove · March 2012

DH and I are trying to decide how long to keep DS in a 5point harness booster seat. Right now he is 3yr 3m and 34 lbs. In our state car seat laws require for him to be in a harness till 4yr and 40 pounds, but we think we are going to go longer than that since we don't trust he will keep a seatbelt on while the car is moving.

My question is how long all of you are using or used the 5 point harness for.

[Poll]

dirtbikemom · March 2012

I used the 5 pt harness until it no longer fit (with the belts as far as they could go it would no longer strap.) I have no idea how much she weighed but I think it was close to 60 lbs. She was around 4 1/2 almost 5.

babyike · March 2012

::lurking::

We are planning to move DD into the Britax Frontier 85, 5-point harness booster. It can be used forward-facing up to 85 lbs with the harness (up to 120 lbs with seat belt). She's around 30 lbs now and still in her Britax Marathon, but we'll move her when LO #3 arrives (as DS will be moving into the Marathon and baby #3 will go into DS's Evenflo Symphony).

::back to lurking::

julygal · March 2012

We just moved DD to the high back booster and seat belt at just shy of 5 yrs and I think she is about 43 lbs. Weight had nothing to do with our decision. She was close to outgrowing the harness on our frontier (top slot was right at her shoulders), so we had been practicing with the booster. Since she did well with not slouching and keeping seat belt in place we made the full transition. Therefore, our decision was equally made based on DD's maturity and outgrowing her 5 pt harness.

WestCoastMommy · March 2012

I got DS the Britax Frontier 85 when he was 2.5 years old. He will be 4 this June and I plan to use the harness for a long time. The manual says he can use it up to 85lbs and he's only 33 lbs now.

penguingrrl · March 2012

My daughter outgrew her harnessed seat for height at 4y 40 lbs, so we moved to a booster then. She is a very mature child, so I was okay with moving her right then. Her sister pushes boundaries and fights rules, so she won't move to a booster until she's older than her sister was, even if that means buying a seat after her radian to extend harnessing. I'm very happy to put a kid in a booster on the early side, but only if the kid is mature enough to use it correctly and be trusted.

Paigeo · March 2012

We got DD the Britax Frontier when she was 2.5. She is now almost 4 and only 35 lbs. We will definitely wait till she hits at least 40lbs. I figure at this point we will wait till she turns 5 to continue using the 5 point harness and then evaluate.

penguingrrl · March 2012

fredalina:
JennMM:
Well the law in our state is until a child turns 8 so we have quite a while!
In a 5 point harness? Are you sure that's not a booster?

I don't think the law anywhere is 8 for a harnessed seat. In fact, very few places have laws requiring 4y/40 lbs (I think that's only law in 3 states). Most recommend harnessing until "appropriate booster age" meaning that whatever guidelines the manufacturer set are acceptable minimums.

I can honestly say that by 8 many kids would be far far too tall to safely use a harnessed seat and there is no safety reason for an averagely developing 6 or 7 year old to ride in a harnessed seat instead of a booster.

bim38106 · March 2012

I don't want to vote by weight because my DD1 is really tall and super skinny.

She's been in the Frontier85 since she was about 2.5 and we love it! I got it because it has one of the highest height limits on the market, and because she's so tall.

The plan is to keep her in at 5-pt harness until around 1st or 2nd grade. Probably at that point we'll switch her to a regular booster (that I *think* is what the law is, regular booster until age 8 here).

Right now DD1 is 35 lbs at age 4. Maturity-wise, I think she'd almost be ready to switch to a booster, but not quite yet. Up until recently, she still threw some pretty good tantrums in the car and I could totally see her scootching down to the floor had she not been in a harness. Either way though, it'll be a while...

FWIW, I have a friend who has twin 1st graders who are still in the Frontier85, 5pt harness.

ToBeMrsT · March 2012

We plan to keep them in a 5 pt harness until they reach the limits. DS is 4 years and 41 pounds and he's in a 5 pt harness. I hope to keep him that way until at least 6 years old.

howleyshell · March 2012

My 5.5 yr old Is still in a 5 point. We may move Him to a belted booster this summer when he turns 6. I see no logic in moving him until he outgrows the 5 point.

CD+AL · March 2012

DS has a Britax Frontier, and he is currently ~50lbs. He's also pretty tall for his age, and this was the seat that had the highest limits in a 5pt harness that I could find. I plan to keep him in the harness for as long as possible, but my experience with carseats is that kids outgrow them by height before weight.

smokenbogey · March 2012

My 5.5 yr old is still in a 5 pt harness,he's in a graco nautilus.He weighs 56 lbs,I will keep him harnessed until he outgrows it.

Mrs.Greeko · March 2012

We are still using a five point harness for my oldest. She's 5.5 years old and will be in it till November of this year probably. So she will be almost 6.5 years. I have no idea what she will weigh at that point. She weighed 42ish pounds at 5 I think. The only reason we will take her out of it is because my middle kid will need her seat because the baby will need the convertible seat we have... And she's pretty over sitting in a five point harness already. She will be in first grade. I think that's long enough.

regenab · March 2012

We are not going by weight but by height and age (maturity to handle a regular seatbelt with a high back booster). My girls are going on 4 and they are 31 lbs. and 33 lbs. If I went by weight they would be in a harness until 10 years old. We have them in the Graco Argos 70. I am planning on having them in a harness until they are at least 5 years old. I don't see them being mature enough to be without a harness until they are at least 5. The still sleep in their carseats when we travel and the 5pt. harness will not allow them to slump over as a regular seatbelt would, which is not safe. Also my girls are not even 40 in. in height yet, so they can use a harness for a lot longer (I think my harness goes over 50" in height). I don't see them growing 10" in the next 15 months.

shouldbworkin · March 2012

dirtbikemom:
I used the 5 pt harness until it no longer fit (with the belts as far as they could go it would no longer strap.)

This. DS outgrew it at almost 6 y/o and DD at 4 y/o, both based on height. Both were fortunately over 40 lbs at the time. If DS had outgrown it earlier, I probably would have bought him another harness seat, though, b/c he was not ready for a booster until 5-6 y/o.

jlw2505 · March 2012

You need to look at height and not just weight when deciding - my kids will be way more than 4 (my almost 6 year old weighs 34 + pounds at her last weigh in (at around 5 years 9 months) but for as thin as she is, she has some height to her. Height wise, she outgrew her 5 point harness so we moved her into a highback booster. She is tall enough and mature enough to handle it - if I waiting for the weight, she would not fit safely in the 5 point harness so its not as simple as you are X weight and X age.

duckiegrl · March 2012

I voted for 40lbs, only because DD is a skinny mini. She's about 4.5 yrs old only weighs 28 lbs but is pretty tall. We plan on keeping her in her seat until she either gets too tall for it or her little brother needs it.

alibee09 · March 2012

I would use 5pts until it is physically not safe to do so. Whether or not my kid reaches forward for dropped toys outside of the belt doesn't matter to me because while it fits properly, 5pt is the safest option according to all tests.

penguingrrl · March 2012

alibee09:
I would use 5pts until it is physically not safe to do so. Whether or not my kid reaches forward for dropped toys outside of the belt doesn't matter to me because while it fits properly, 5pt is the safest option according to all tests.

That's actually not true. There is absolutely no evidence that a 5 point harness is safer than a properly used booster seat. In fact, in Sweden they rear face until the child outgrows their seats (different seats, they last until 4-6 depending on the kid) then go straight to a booster without using a 5 point harness. The theory there is that forward facing harnesses make the body too rigid, transferring all the forces of an accident onto the head and neck instead of spreading them out across the body as happens with a 3 point seatbelt. There's a reason racecar drivers need a hans device to tether their helmet to the seat and prevent too much forward motion.

There's a lot of evidence that kids frequently graduate to boosters before they have the maturity to ride safely in one and that that is dangerous. But if a booster is used properly it is every bit as safe as a 5 point harness (and possibly safer in certain conditions).

penguingrrl · March 2012

regenab:
We are not going by weight but by height and age (maturity to handle a regular seatbelt with a high back booster). My girls are going on 4 and they are 31 lbs. and 33 lbs. If I went by weight they would be in a harness until 10 years old. We have them in the Graco Argos 70. I am planning on having them in a harness until they are at least 5 years old. I don't see them being mature enough to be without a harness until they are at least 5. The still sleep in their carseats when we travel and the 5pt. harness will not allow them to slump over as a regular seatbelt would, which is not safe. Also my girls are not even 40 in. in height yet, so they can use a harness for a lot longer (I think my harness goes over 50" in height). I don't see them growing 10" in the next 15 months.

FYI, overall height is irrelevant to when they will actually outgrow a carseat. It's torso height that's the determining factor. A seat is outgrown for height when either the shoulders go above the top harness slots OR the tops of their ears reach the top of the shell whether or not they've hit the overall height limit for a seat. Some kids will make it to 50 inches, some will outgrow that seat at 40 inches because their height is all in their torso.

jenuine · March 2012

bim38106:

I don't want to vote by weight because my DD1 is really tall and super skinny.

This. DD will be in a 5 point as long as possible (IE outgrows due to height). I would be in one if I could.

She's already getting made fun of by her booster seat friends for sitting in a "baby" seat. I need to work on this one.

Jinsy80 · March 2012

DD1 is still in her Britax Frontier (5 point harness). She is over 4 1/2 years old. We'll probably keep her in that until the end of the year or so. She's around 36lbs, but pretty tall. We did, however, just get a regular high back booster for our second car. She won't really be riding in that car that often...maybe once a week.

bim38106 · March 2012

penguingrrl:
alibee09:
I would use 5pts until it is physically not safe to do so. Whether or not my kid reaches forward for dropped toys outside of the belt doesn't matter to me because while it fits properly, 5pt is the safest option according to all tests.
That's actually not true. There is absolutely no evidence that a 5 point harness is safer than a properly used booster seat. In fact, in Sweden they rear face until the child outgrows their seats (different seats, they last until 4-6 depending on the kid) then go straight to a booster without using a 5 point harness. The theory there is that forward facing harnesses make the body too rigid, transferring all the forces of an accident onto the head and neck instead of spreading them out across the body as happens with a 3 point seatbelt. There's a reason racecar drivers need a hans device to tether their helmet to the seat and prevent too much forward motion.
There's a lot of evidence that kids frequently graduate to boosters before they have the maturity to ride safely in one and that that is dangerous. But if a booster is used properly it is every bit as safe as a 5 point harness (and possibly safer in certain conditions).

penguingrrl, do you have any links to good articles/studies regarding this? I'd love to read more about it to make an informed decision. Not finding a whole lot Googling it though. Thanks

penguingrrl · March 2012

There actually have not been studies at this point, but there are a lot of experts at car-seat.org who are happy to share knowledge and experience. You can either ask questions or just lurk over there to gain knowledge. Over there there is some debate about when to put kids in a booster, but the debates basically are over when a child is reliably mature enough to handle the responsibility of a booster seat versus you having control over their safety via the harness, so opinions on that seem to vary based on people's personal experiences (someone with a mature, compliant kid will likely say younger; a person whose kid is a bit of a handful will think kids need to be older before they're ready).

Basically, it was very easy to build evidence for RF being far far safer than FF. Real life crash data (compiled over 15 years by the NHTSA) shows that without question children (and adults) who are properly restrained in a RF position have lower instances of serious injury or death in car accidents. At this point in time real life data and crash tests for properly used booster v. 5 point harness show no significant difference in outcome proving one is safer than the other. Part of that, though, is likely because booster seats and high harness height/weight carseats are (relatively speaking) new to the market so there is not enough data from accidents to compile a study comparing the two (which is a very good thing!).

In Sweden (the worlds leading car safety experts) they never use a FF harness and also have the lowest rate of child injury/death in a car in the world. They have different seats that allow children to RF a lot longer than here (55 lb weight limits, very tall shell yet compact design to work in smaller European vehicles). Then they go straight from that to a booster.

The theory behind the RF straight to booster practice is that if the body is rigidly attached to the carseat but the head and neck are moving freely it will transfer all the forces of the accident to the head and neck instead of distributing it evenly across the body as would happen with an adult seatbelt. If you watch YouTube videos on crash tests with boosters it looks scary because the child's body moves a lot more in a booster than a harness, but basically the theory is that the movement allows the body a slower, less sudden stop and that is good.

All of this is moot if the child won't sit correctly, which is why maturity is the most important factor for knowing when your child is ready to move from a harnessed seat to a booster (aside from meeting the minimum height/weight set by the booster manufacturer) and why different kids will be ready at different ages. My older one moved right at 4 (she outgrew her radian for harness height at that point and a frontier does not fit in our only car, so we had no real option aside from specialty harnesses, which was my backup plan if she didn't sit correctly) and was absolutely ready for the move. My younger one will be at least 5 before I move her because she tests the rules and pushes boundaries all the time, so I know I won't be able to trust her as early. Luckily we're getting a bigger car this summer so we'll be able to buy a taller harnessed seat if needed!

bim38106 · March 2012

Thanks penguin! That all makes sense.

I actually have a new friend who moved here from Sweden (her DH is originally from there, she only lived there a short amount of time) and we started talking about this the other day at playgroup...her DH is a car engineer and I told her I wanted to talk to him about car seat safety! She said he was really into that. They're actually using their Swedish carseats over here somehow, that way her kids will be RF until 4... she mentioned something about her DH bolting them to their car so they would be installed "properly" (I use that term loosely in this situation

UsedToBeGoldie · March 2012

my boys will be in a 5-pt harness as long as they fit in their Sunshine Radian 80s...which goes up to 80lbs...

Griffin is about to turn 5 and he's 50lbs now, so we've got some time for sure.

penguingrrl · March 2012

bim38106:
Thanks penguin! That all makes sense.
I actually have a new friend who moved here from Sweden (her DH is originally from there, she only lived there a short amount of time) and we started talking about this the other day at playgroup...her DH is a car engineer and I told her I wanted to talk to him about car seat safety! She said he was really into that. They're actually using their Swedish carseats over here somehow, that way her kids will be RF until 4... she mentioned something about her DH bolting them to their car so they would be installed "properly" (I use that term loosely in this situation

Okay, so technically it is illegal to use a Swedish seat in the US (or a Canadian seat for that matter, or a British seat in Sweden... each country has its own standards so carseats can't cross borders). That said, over on car-seat.org many members have imported Swedish seats to use because of the higher RF capabilities. And there have been rare times that people actually got waivers from the NHTSA to import (one case was a child who was severely injured in a FF seat at 18 months and his parents needed him to be RF as long as possible while the injury healed, so he was able to get a 55 lb seat), although it takes a really extreme case for that.

That said, it's unlikely they'll get "caught" or get in trouble for it. In a routine traffic stop it's unlikely the officer will have any clue what seat s/he is looking at (in fact, my friend had an officer yell at her to turn around an 18 month old because "the law is 1 year and 20 lbs" was the extent of the knowledge), so they wouldn't be ticketed then. If they had an accident there could theoretically be an issue, but that's unlikely.

As far as the installation, she might be referring to a prop, which I think is on the britax multitech and it prevents overrotation down with a larger/heavier kid. That might actually be bolted to the car (I'm not sure, I've seen pics of installs with them but haven't seen one in person).

SummerMama12 · March 2012

UsedToBeGoldie:

my boys will be in a 5-pt harness as long as they fit in their Sunshine Radian 80s...which goes up to 80lbs...

Ditto this. I'm sure my boys will outgrow the Radian for height long before they ever get to the weight limit, though.

KristinKD · March 2012

We have a Britax Frontier for DD1 and plan to keep her in it as long as she fits. She is nearly 4 1/2 now and still under 35 lbs. so most likely she'll outgrow it by height before weight.

Although another consideration for us is that the Britax Marathon we're now using for DD2 expires next summer, so we will need a new car seat for her which may affect our decision as to when to switch DD1 to a booster. If she still has plenty of room in the Frontier, we'll just buy a second one for DD2, but if DD1 is close to outgrowing it, we may use that for DD2 and switch DD1 to a booster then.

SpartanGirl · March 2012

My 6 year old is still in a 5 point harness. She just hit the 40 pound mark. My DS is about 38 pounds and 4 years old and still harnessed as well. They are both in a Graco Nautilus which I think goes up to 65 pounds. We plan to keep them in the 5 point as long as we can. DD1 has just started riding in a highback booster in DH's car though.

MaddysMama07 · March 2012

M will be 5 this summer and weighs 37lbs. We have no plans to move her to the booster seat until she's stoat least 6. She will most likely outgrow her Nautllus in height before weight.

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