Adios car seat

The CA DMV says children under 6 or 60lbs must ride in a car seat.

My son is 6 yrs / 45lbs. Technically I suppose he's okay to ride without a
car seat and I won't get ticketed. But I would imagine he'd see safety
benefits from the car seat at least another year or two.

When do car seats become dangerous? (I think mine states an upper weight
limit of 80lbs, but it omits a height)
When did you get rid of your kid's car seat?

Ericka Kammerer...

They don't really ever become dangerous unless you

xkatx...

That's a good thing that you don't really have to worry so much about seats
and all that... Let your own grown kid(s) deal with those issues ;)

xkatx...

I really don't know. From personal experience, you really can't be too
safe. It wasn't the seat, or lack of seat, that injured my son in a recent
wreck, it was the actual car that sliced his forehead right open. I do,
however, strongly believe that the cuddle bag thing in DD's infant seat
saved her from being covered in glass and road rash that comes with shards
of car window glass tossed all over her. DS had some bad road rash from the
window blowing out, and I really do believe that his injuries would have
been a helluva lot worse had he been in no booster seat, and if he was not
in a high back booster seat, I know his injuries would definitely have been
a lot worse. In our accident, his seat did take most of the beating. The
car was nearly crumpled in half, and where his door was, is no more. Almost
4' pushed in to the centre of the car on the spot that caved in the most,
and the bench seat in the back is now like a tent, raised up about 3" and
broken about half a foot to the right from the centre. That high back
booster seat definitely did save his face from being shoved right through
the car's door and window, and if the window frame was the one thing that
caught him, only after pushing his seat over, it would have been 100x worse
had he just been sitting in the seat or in just a regular, low booster seat,
as the high back would not have taken the biggest blow, my son would have.
I, personally, would pay $1000 or more, if that were the price, of his exact
same seat if I knew then what I know now. No price would be too high to pay
if it came to safety. That's probably just me, though, as I still have
issues dealing with all this, almost 2 months later.

exceed the specifications for the carseat. As far as height
goes, the usual rule of thumb (IIRC) is that the child's ears
shouldn't be over the top of the carseat.
A child really ought to be in a booster until he
fits properly in the seat and shoulder belt without one.
He needs to be able to sit all the way back in the seat
and have his knees bend at the edge of the seat. Otherwise,
he'll scoot forward so his legs bend over the edge of the
seat and the seatbelt won't be able to properly restrain
him (he'll be at higher risk of sliding under the lap belt
and injuring himself as a result). The shoulder belt also
needs to fit properly and not cut him at the neck.
For my kids (on the tall side) they were around
7-8 years old before they fit properly in the seat without
a booster.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Gorgon Park...

Well, this was a couple of years ago, but as I recall, she told us that
because of the size of the seat and the amount of space around an
infant, that it is really hard to properly adjust the seat to be safe
for a small baby.

According to what they see at the carseat inspections around here,
about 80-90% of people either install their seat incorrectly or fasten
their children in incorrectly, so I think that using a seat that is
designed to be easily adjustable for an infant makes sense.

So, this recommendation is probably based on what carseat inspectors
see, rather than how the manufacturers intend their products to be
used.

Ericka Kammerer...

That may be the case, but then I do think it's a bit
misleading to say that the infant carseats are safer! At least
in my experience, while it may be the case that convertibles
are more likely to be poorly adjusted, infant only carseats
seem more likely to be installed improperly. At any rate,
I do agree that it's essential to properly install the carseat
and properly "install" the baby, but assuming that is possible
with your car/carseat/baby combination I don't think there's
anything unsafe with using a convertible. For many, it's
certainly more economically viable to buy one carseat rather
than a whole host of them to meet a child's growing needs.
Personally, if money was limited, I'd rather buy one really
good carseat that would last a while than a couple of cheap
carseats of more dubious quality. I've used both infant only
seats and convertibles, and properly adjusted I didn't feel
that the baby wasn't safely secured in the convertible (and
I'm pretty nuts about that sort of stuff).

Best wishes,
Ericka

Here are the recommendations of our automobile association: