Question Extended harnessing?

*HH*

New member
Can someone please enlighten me a bit on this subject? I have never seen any information about this here in Scandinavia. We have one car seat that can be used with internal harnessing up to 55 lbs, that is the convertible car seat we currently use RFing and it will be used that way until the seat is to small.

My 5 year old is still rear-facing but when he grows out of his seat the only option here is high back booster where the child is fastened with the cars own seat belt.
 
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Maedze

New member
Extended harnessing is technically defined as continuing to harness a child in the forward facing position after 40 pounds. Up until very recently, we didn't have harnessed options beyond 40 pounds, which resulted in big two and three year olds traveling in booster seats.

We also didn't until very recently have larger seats that rear faced, so keeping a kid rear facing until they are big was not a physical possibility. The next best thing to a rear facing seat is a harnessed top tethered forward facing seats.

Sweden has us beat in terms of style and selection of seats to keep you rear facing, but the US has you guys beat in terms of keeping a child harnessed. Despite one poster's insistence that forward facing harnessing is unsafe (which is not true), and that four year olds are as safe in belt positioning boosters as in harnesses (also potentially untrue), the fact of the matter is that very few four year olds have the developmental maturity to sit in a booster correctly 100% of the time.

Until a child has that maturity, he or she should remain harnessed, whether rear facing or forward facing.

Most kids will get booster maturity by six. We have only a few seats that are designed to be used beyond 3-4 rear facing, and we have to fill in the gap somehow :)
 

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
Boostering a five year old, as far as we know, is not unsafe. Provided that child sits properly in the booster. We have no data saying that a harness or booster is better past five years and 40 pounds.

The debate from Scandinavia is that the head should move with the upper part of the body decreasing neck loads and therefore fewer neck injuries.

The idea behind the harness is that the head travels forward less, therefore there's less chance of it hitting something, therefore less chance of injury. Also, by spreading out the crash forces over five points instead of three, there's less likelihood of damage to the torso. There's also more side impact protection, since the child can't move as much to the side. And it's what pilots and race car drivers use, so it seems that they think a harness is better than just a seatbelt. That's not evidence, but it makes sense.

What we need is a country that rear faces to 4-6 years old, offers harness options beyond that, or high back booster options, and boosters until 12 years old regularly like mainland Europe. So a little bit of Scandinavia, a little bit of the US, a little bit of Europe.

Wendy
 

*HH*

New member
Thanks so much for enlightening me :) Then I think he will be fine when he moves into a high back booster, whenever that is, we have no plan to turn him FF anytime soon.

I cannot see how race-drivers can be compared in this case because they use a HANS-device to hold the neck in place a large harnessed child does not have this extra security for the neck.
 

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
They didn't used to have HANS, but they also travel at so much faster speeds that I don't feel a HANS is required at highway speeds.

Wendy
 

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