New guidelines for booster seats make safety nearly intolerable

Posted in Uncategorized
by Lorain County Moms

By Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press

The back seat battles had become unbearable.

My 3-year-old loathed her car seat. She screamed from the moment we strapped her in.

“It’s too tight,” she’d screech. But for a car seat to work properly, the straps have to be pulled tightly. Inches between the straps and the child only add to the risk in a crash.

It was becoming difficult to drive just the mile or two to school or the grocery store with all the wailing coming from the second row.

So recently, I bought her a high-back booster seat, and instantly had a happier child. She barely meets the height and weight requirements that make this seat a safe option. It uses the car’s built-in seat belt, which gives her a bit more room to wiggle — a key activity for most 3-year-olds.

Then — just two days after her new booster went into my car — the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with new safety guidelines.

These recommendations say that what we’ve done is exactly wrong. Rather than switch from a car seat to a booster as soon as children reach the minimum height and weight requirements, they say parents should keep their kids in a car seat with a 5-point-harness buckle as long as possible, until they max out on it size-wise.

For some car seats, the maximum weight is 85 pounds. I know some petite adult women who weigh close to that.

Other recommendations, published in Monday’s journal Pediatrics, include:

Keeping children in rear-facing car seats until at least age 2, or until they meet the height and weight limits set for the seat.

Using booster seats for children over age 4 who are too big for their car seats, but who haven’t yet grown to 4 feet 9 inches tall.

Keeping kids in the back seat until they’re at least 13 years old.

While I’m not crazy about having to argue with my kids about sitting in the back seat until they’re 13, or having my daughters ride in boosters through their tween years, it’s hard to deny that if it’s safer, we ought to do it.

But the recommendations make it mighty difficult for parents to drive anywhere with happy kids.

For us, there’s no going back now. Our 3-year-old won’t go into her old car seat without a fight of World War II proportions. And certainly, it can’t be safe to drive around while your kid is going ballistic in the back seat. Holy districted driving!

The Academy of Pediatrics cited research that shows children 2 and under are 75% less likely to die or be severely injured in a crash if they are in a rear-facing child restraint. That’s a pretty persuasive statistic.

We’ll keep our soon-to-be born baby in a rear-facing seat as long as we can. But we tend to have big kids in our family and it’s unlikely that a child of ours will comfortable in a rear-facing seat until age 2. The poor kid’s knees would be up around his chin.

We just might need to take our chances. Either that, or put all of our kids in helmets, surround them with bubble wrap, strap them in and hope for the best.