3pt carrier vs 5pt carrier

a lady on my bb is due any day now, and got a 3pt carrier from someone that she doesn't want to use, however, she needs to convince her dh that they need to get a new 5pt
it's an evenflo (discovery, she thinks) 3pt DOM feb 07.
can you give me some info for her?

oh, and the base is gone

The fact that it's missing pieces is never a good thing. IF it can be installed without the base (I can't remember right now), she will have to re-install it every single trip which leaves a great amount of room for error.

Add to that 3pt's rarely fit babies properly. Babies can wiggle a leg from one side of the seat out to the other side and are no longer protected properly.

Does the seat even have the instructions with it?

You can share this pic with him:


Note that this is an OLDER baby who has nearly outgrown the carseat - smaller babies have even more "wiggle" room.

If he wants to know why they're "allowed" to sell carseats like this if they're not safe, tell him it's because crash test dummies don't wiggle.

(There are some situations where a 3-pt harness is preferable, but usually a 5-pt is preferred.)

I can't find it right now, but there is a youtube video of an older baby climing out of a 3pt seat with it buckled.

The Evenflo, I believe, needs the handle down AND 1.5 inches between the seat and the car seats - that is hard to do! So in other words - the seat begs for mis-use!

Here's that youtube video (I remembered the Mr. Screamer name)-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dvRjQRnuqM

Although, that child has already or very nearly outgrown that seat, but it's a pretty good example of what can happen.

Ugh. I can almost assure you that with the tightness of my harnesses, my kids couldn't escape.

At least I'd hope not

That is so scary that he can get out of his carseat. I feel safe putting my baby in a 5pt. Even though it takes more time it is worth it... I hope all parents that have the 3pt harness see this.

Mama! said:

Ugh. I can almost assure you that with the tightness of my harnesses, my kids couldn't escape.

At least I'd hope not

Click to expand...

That's the problem with a 3pt though, is that it's very hard to get a proper fit on a baby - the buckle point is often fixed at the front of the seat, so the harness is never snugged up against the crotch... With smaller babies a better fit can be achieved by using a rolled wash cloth between the crotch and the buckle so as to hopefully keep their legs on either side of the buckle, but the seats themselves just often don't fit well. And because of the design of many of them, there's going to be that room between kiddos crotch and the buckle where kiddo will be able to swing one leg to the other side and then twist and turn...

This is an old 3pt evenflo on my way carseat. We used it 10 yrs ago. My bio dd is 3mos old in this picture - you can see the harness is tightened properly, but you can see how it'd be pretty easy for her to have twisted to get out if she'd wanted to...



eta: I have a picture of her at 5.5mos old in the same seat, and she looks like she'd be more able to turn herself in that picture than in this one. I have to imagine that it's like when a kid rolls on the changing table despite you holding part of them down and they just keep twisting. With nothing holding the hips, they can just roll from their bum, gain a bit of wiggle room and then fight to get their head through the top.

Just for fun, here's her at 9days old. These 3pt carriers only had one set of slots, so you can see how high above her shoulders the straps were. You can't see the buckle because of the blankets over top, but you can imagine with the harness that far above the shoulders it didn't provide for a good fit. I had the right idea with the head thing, but somehow I don't think it made a difference the way I used it.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/snowbird25ca/Old pictures/picturesofoldpictures006.jpg

thanks guys, she'll appreciate this info