Is Your Child Ready for a Booster Seat?

While parents greet most milestones with cheers and applause, moving a child into a booster seat shouldn’t be a cause for celebration. While a booster seat may make it easier to buckle and unbuckle a child into the car, statistically they are not as safe, even in the best booster seat, as they are in a car seat with a five point harness.

According to a study by a researcher at Montana State University, each “graduation” level of car seats for young children are progressively less safe.

While the best booster seat will keep a small child much safer than seat belts alone, they are less effective in an accident than a seatbelt with a five point harness. Just as a forward-facing car seat is not as effective as a rear-facing car seat.

According to experts, the number one mistake that parents make with car seats is promoting a child to the next level prematurely.

What is a Booster Seat?

Unlike an infant car seat, toddler car seat, or convertible car seat, a booster seat isn’t anchored into a car, but instead is designed to raise a child’s seated height until the car’s seat belt can be positioned correctly across their lap and shoulder.

The best booster seat allows the lap belt to correctly cross low on the child’s hips. They also lift a small child high enough that the shoulder belt can cross snuggly against the collarbone, rather than the neck area. Boosters also give a child a shorter seat pan so their knees bend at the edge of the booster seat rather than the actual car seat. This helps to prevent the slouching that occurs when a child is belted into the car without a booster. Small children belted directly into the car’s seat belt will slouch, causing the lap belt to cross the belly instead of the hips. This can result in more serious injuries to the abdominal organs and spinal cord in the event of a crash.

Booster seats may include back support, or they may be backless. Some come with the option of converting from a booster with back support to a backless booster as a child grows. If your booster seat has armrests, make sure the seat belt is positioned under the arm rests. Arm rests are often designed to help keep the belt in place during a crash.

When is a Child Physically Ready to Move into One of the Best Booster Seat Options?

One of the great contradictions of today is the fact that while parents usually want to keep children from growing up and leaving babyhood behind, they tend to rush them out of each car seat level and into the next before it’s necessary or even advisable to do so. Each step up is less safe, and the best option is to keep a child in each stage as long as it’s safe to do so—and that means until they exceed the weight limit for each car seat.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends that you keep your child in the rear or forward-facing five point harness car seat until they outgrow the maximum weight and height limits. These limits can vary in different car seats, but most can safely seat a child up to 65 pounds. This means that the majority of children can remain harnessed into a car seat until age six or more.

Most of the best booster seats require a child to weigh at least forty pounds before they can be used safely, but experts tell us that this doesn’t mean we have to move a child into a booster seat as soon as they reach forty pounds. It’s a much safer choice to keep a child in a harnessed car seat until they exceed the maximum weight limit.

Other Considerations When Moving a Child into a Booster Seat

Before you make the decision to move your child into a booster seat, it’s also important to consider the child’s maturity level. Even if your child meets the weight requirements and can legally be moved out of a five point harness car seat and into a booster, it’s essential to ask yourself if you can trust your child not to unlatch himself, or lean downward to pick travel toys up off the floor, or lean over to play or fight with a sibling, or pull the shoulder strap off of his or her shoulder. Even the best booster seats on the market allow much more freedom of movement for children than a car seat with a five point harness, meaning your child has to be mature and trustworthy enough to remain correctly positioned in the seat.

How Long Must a Child Remain in a Booster Seat?

Studies show that by age 12, the majority of children are large enough to no longer need a booster seat. Some children grow faster, and they may outgrow even the best booster seat by age 10. You can tell when your child is ready to graduate from a booster when their knees bend at the seat’s edge and the lap belt falls correctly across the upper thighs and hips rather than the belly, when the shoulder belt crosses at the collar bone, and when a child can remain seated properly without slouching.

Resources— TheCarSeatLady, csftl.org, VeryWellFamily

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