Escape Artist

Our just turned 3 yr old scared us by getting her harness almost totally off on the interstate during our thanksgiving trip. She's in a ETA. When she first went forward facing we had a problem with her sliding the clip down but it seemed to resolve once we made sure she was all the way back in the seat. We tried this Wednesday and she's sitting back and the harness is tight. She only had a shirt on so it wasn't a coat making room for her to wiggle. This morning she even had her arms out again in the less than 5 minutes to Kroger. Any suggestions on things to check or how to keep the clip from sliding or any carseats with better clips and high weight limits. She's 38lbs and 39". I had noticed one of the times this happened the strap height had gone below her shoulders. Could something have broken and the straps are moving down when she's in there? We've used this seat for around 18 months with little problem.

The first thing I would check for is proper harness tightness. Too loose can leave too much wiggle room, too tight and it may be uncomfortable, leading to escape attempts. The EFTA is easy to overtighten if you aren't paying attention.

What I like to do is tighten the harness, then open the harness adjuster (the lever on more traditional systems, rotating the harness release knob on the EFTA) without pulling on the harness. If it's too tight, the child's body will naturally loosen the harness. Then check to make sure that the harness is tight enough by pulling any slack up from the lap towards the shoulder, and trying to pinch a horizontal crease in the harness over the collar bone. If you can crease the harness, it's too loose and needs to be tightened. If the harness slips through your fingers without creasing, it's tight enough.

If the harness is properly tightened and the chest clip is in proper position (top of the clip even with the armpits), then you have a behavior problem. You can try to keep her busy and distract her, you can try punishing the undesirable behavior, you can try rewarding good behavior.

One way to keep her from having access is to use a shirt. Get a shirt that is either button down or zipper, whichever is harder for her to do. Put the shirt on, but don't do it up. Put her in the carseat and fasten the harness, pulling the shirt out from underneath the harness. Then button/zip the shirt over the harness.

About the harness sliding down below her shoulders - I have heard of some EFTAs where it will no longer click into place. The harness basically slides all the way down when the child gets out. This is considered a defect and Evenflo will tell you to stop using the seat if this is happening.

The shoulder straps have stopped clicking, I don't know how we didn't notice and I wonder how long it's been happening. My hubby has a EFTA in his car as well and we compared them just now, his definitely CLICKS while mine doesn't. Then we had our 3 yr old in each one and basically told her to get the straps off. The seat from my car she can get her arms out in 15 seconds flat because the straps come down. His seat is in my car now and I'll be calling Evenflo.

Thanks for the help.