Help for a friend about winter coats in carseats

A friend of mine asked me about winter coats in carseats and her preschool pickup line the other day. She had an issue in the beginning of the year with them buckling her daughter correctly but they fixed that but how they are telling her it takes too long to put her coat on after she gets out of the car or that it takes too long to do the carseat trick thing. We decided she would wear a fleece and carry her heavier coat for when they go outside...problem solved right? Nope! They are giving her trouble about it. Lord, knows why!

Does anybody have links to any research about coats in carseats? actual facts about how it's less safe? She is looking for something to print out to show the school.

Thanks ladies!

Well, there's not anything "professional" that I could think of, but you could have her do this little trick:

- Put your child in article of clothing that you are testing (in this case, the coat), buckle and tighten the harness as you normally would.
- Take child out of the car seat without loosening the harness.
- Put child in regular day to day clothing (or in this case, take the coat off), place into car seat and buckle up -- without tightening the harness.
- If there is too much slack in the harness, then that particular clothing item is not allowed. If there is no extra slack, you're good!


Then just have her think about it for a minute. What happens when you sit on a big fluffy coat? It smashes and compresses, right? Well, that is exactly what is going to happen in a crash; all that fluffy material is going to compress, causing too much slack in the harness.

They wouldn't normally drive with slack in the harness, right? That could put her child at risk for ejection.

However much slack is notable after she does the above trick and puts the child back in the seat after taking the coat off is how much slack is going to be in the harness after a crash and that coat compresses. It's like the space saver bags. The air gets smashed out of the fabric, smushing it down.

Show them that and perhaps it will change their opinion/actions.

Thanks! That is what I told her to do, show the teachers the coat test and ask them if that is how loose they would buckle her. Hopefully they get it!

Obviously giving them info on why it's not safe is great, but in the end, the teachers and school dont have to understand and dont have to agree because it's the mother's decision.

Perhaps the quickest way to deal with this would be to have her get to the car, climb in, remove the coat completely, get buckled and then put the coat on backwards.
Once they've done it a few times, both the teacher and the child will be able to do it quickly and efficiently.

I think there issue was more with her arriving at drop off without her coat on and waiting for her to put it on before being able to walk her in the building.

What about a carseat poncho? Takes 2 seconds to put on. You could even do a double layer one if its really cold.

My ds prefers one over a coat, he calls it his blankie!

Leenybean said:

We decided she would wear a fleece and carry her heavier coat for when they go outside...problem solved right? Nope! They are giving her trouble about it. Lord, knows why!

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I don't understand why the teachers would complain over this. That's crazy.