So my LO is only 32 pounds, and obviously still in a 5 point harness booster and will be through Kindergarten for sure. I feel like if I follow the maximum weight restrictions for her car seat (up 65 pounds), she could be in the harness for several more years. Which is obviously safer, but even kids in her preschool class now are out of them (ahh, I know!) So. I'm curious, will your LO be in a 5 point harness booster into elementary school?
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My son is in kindergarten and still in a 5 point. He doesn't care, but he is rarely with other kids in cars that aren't wearing them. Does that make sense?
In other words, I don't know that he knows it's an option to not be in a five point. -
Yup. We rf until 4, so she will probably be in a 5 point harness until she's 10, lol
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I see tons of kids in belted boosters, but my son (at almost 50 pounds) is still in a harnessed booster and will be for a good, long while. The good news is that he doesn't seem to care or worry that it's a "baby seat."
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@Twolittlemen: I was thinking of this too, if she's in one the next few years and then gets together with a friend I wonder how she would feel. Kids can be cruel. Like I said above, most of the kids are just in seat belts with high back boosters.
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@Bao: last year, in junior kindergarten (5 year olds) we took another little boy in our car on a field trip and he refused to ride in the extra seat (my other son's 5 point) because he said it was a baby seat.
(My son seemed unaffected but I'm unsure how he'd react now.)
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So I have always been a car seat crazy - but I will admit once it bothered DS I relaxed a little - his friends parents didn't require a car seat at all and he was embarrassed by his 5 point harness so at 8yrs and 3 months I got him a backless booster and he is much happier - I refuse to let him go w/o anything like his friends so this was our compromise.
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My son is only 4, but I still see a lot of kids at his daycare in booster seats. Moving up to the next carseat stage will never by a milestone I'm eager to reach. He rear faced to the 40lb limit and he'll stay harnessed until he hits 65 lbs or outgrows the seat by height. I think I'll be able to keep him harnessed until he's 6.
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@Bao: also I'm not against compromise. My Same son also has a high back booster that I use when he rides in other friends cars, because it's much easier to transport and install/uninstall. He's over 50lbs and almost 6.5. But for the majority of the time I like him in a 5-point.
(I mean, he also rides with zero restraint on a school bus, so, there is that...) -
Similar to Mamaof2.. I had planned to keep my DD for a long time in the 5 pt, but when she turned 8 she became very embarrassed by her "baby seat"... so the backless booster was the compromise. I feel that I held out as long as I could. Some of her friends who are even shorter than her no longer use a booster at all.
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@Bao: she's tiny. How old is she now?
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DD will be in a 5 point harness until a minimum of 5, at that point we will evaluate based on her maturity. I have a feeling she won't be ready until closer to 7 though. She will then likely move to a high back booster and eventually a low back booster. She'll stay in a booster until 10-12. This is a helpful read on the subject.
http://csftl.org/harness-or-booster-when-to-make-the-switch/
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@Anagram: 4.5! She's very small, kids in her class have a whole head on her.
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She can get in and out of it herself, so I see no real reason to change her anytime soon! I'll be happy when we can finally switch to a regular booster for travelling, though!
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She's in K and still in a 5 point. We have her behind the passenger seat, so we can reach behind from the driver seat to loosen the straps and then help her unblock the middle buckle.
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@T.H.O.U.: someone recommended this thing called a buckle bee to me and I love it! It's a plastic piece that allows them to put more pressure and open the bottom buckle (not sure f you mean that one). So now she can undo on her own for carpool. She's a rule follower so I'm not worried she'd abuse it and it's really nice! I always help her tighten when she gets back in.
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No- we moved her to high back boosters in both cars by Christmas of Kindergarten.
I love it!
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@808love: how much does she weigh? Is she tall?
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@Bao: No, she is short and small. Legal though.
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Yes, at least through kindergarten. Maybe longer if she doesn't complain. She will be 4 this weekend and is only around 27 pounds. California law is that they can be in a booster after 4 but I can't imagine letting her. She's too small and the 5 point harness is safer in my opinion. And she doesn't know that she has any other options either
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Yes. I'm not planning on moving him for a while. We already own this seat and it's still in good shape, so replacing it is way down on my list of things to spend money on! I also don't expect him to ask anytime soon, but he almost never has a reason to inspect the inside of other families' cars.
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Yep, she's 4y3m and still RF. She started JK last September. She'll be harnessed till minimum 5, but likely longer. We don't drive her to school so no chance of being made fun of...
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No. He will be 5 next month and I'm in the process of changing our seats to high back boosters. But my kid is huge. He is around 56 lbs and 46" tall. The straps on one seat are getting too tight and I can't loosen them anymore.
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My kids will be in the safest seat for as long as possible. I'm probably gonna RF our youngest til 3 if she still fits (though at 20 lbs and 4 months old who knows how long her seat will work!!!). Why rush?
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Yes. Pediatrician said probably until somewhere between 6-8 years because he's small. He starts K just as he turns 6 so that would be the absolute earliest but I doubt he'll be big enough.
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She's still in a FF convertible carseat at nearly 5. She's well within the height/weight limits, and will continue to use that seat until her youngest sister outgrows the infant capsule - probably at least a year from now, which will put her midway through kindergarten. At that point, we'll move to a high back booster with 5-pt harness.
DD2 is nearly three and still RF - I won't turn her until she gets really uncomfortable. For now, she's great (and still takes car naps!)
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She's still RFing so in six months she'll be FFing in a convertible. It'll be a couple more years before I move her to a booster. I'm very conservative with car seat safety.
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My big girl (4.5) is likely to be harnessed until six or seven but she does occasionally ride in a high back booster if travelling short distances in other vehicles.
I'm sure I've read somewhere that providing a child over the age of five-ish is sitting correctly in a properly fitted HBB then there is no difference in safety between that and a harnessed seat.
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Probably? He's in a 5 point booster at 4. He's fairly big but I can't see us going to a regular high back booster in the next year. He likes his seat for now. He's also unphased by other kids' opinions so I doubt he'll care.
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My kids are small but have long torsos, so I plan on keeping them harnessed until at least six. I think by the time my youngest is six we will see more and more kids being harnessed at least that long so it won't be such a stigma among the elementary set.
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She turns 6 in a few weeks and is still in a 5-point harness. She doesn't know any different. We do have a backless booster in case we need to ride in someone else's car for a short ride, but I don't think she sits very safely in it, so I'd like to keep her in the harness as long as possible.
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@oliviaoblivia: Are you just turning her seat around or buying a new seat? I'm planning to get H a harness-to-booster and pass down the convertible seat to A.
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I plan to use the harness for a long time. He's only (almost) 3 but at least until 5.
My friends 2.5 year old is in a booster. Ridiculous in my opinion.
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Most likely. We switched her FF just before 4 and now she has many years before she outgrows the height limit on her seat. We'll reassess whenever we have #3 and they grow out of the infant seat to see if we'll just get a booster for DD1 or get another convertible. But that's years away!
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@avivoca: just turning her. She still has two inches to RF and eight for FFing. A needed a convertible and I debated going to a harnessed booster for L and passing hers down, but I'll have been able to keep her RFing for a year longer so it was worth it to me to buy another convertible.
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I just moved my 33 pound kindergartener into a harnessed booster, but only because her little sister needed the carseat. Otherwise she'd have stayed in it until she outgrew it. That being said, I won't still have her in a booster at ten or twelve. There has to be a line somewhere.
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@Mrs. Champagne: 2.5?! Just a seatbelt and booster? That's crazy,
@sarac: I agree with this, 10-12 is too old in my opinion.
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Also recently we had to let DD use the belt (so using her combo seat as a high back booster and not using the 5 pt harness). She had broken her arm and it was too hard to get into the straps.
Now that the arm is healed she had no issue going back to the 5 point harness!
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Granted, I am neurotic about car seats, but LO is 5.5 and still harnessed in his Britax even though he's a fairly big kid physically. I have no immediate plans to convert the seat to booster mode just yet. He doesn't mind and I don't trust him to sit properly all the time.
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B is 3 and weighs 25lb, at this rate I feel like we're going to drop him off at university in a car seat.
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