Swedish FixWay - pulling arms out

DS2 just turned two and rides in a Britax FixWay. He has started pulling his arms out no matter how tight the harness is. At this point, he tells me, I pull over, sternly tell him he can NOT pull his arms out. He says "only Mami" but then does it again later. I thought he had stopped but then did it twice today on very busy highways. Very scary.

So, now what to do? DS1 did this at a similar age and we used a chest clip for a little while from a Boulevard but now know we shouldn't have. Yes, we are those odd people who bought a Swedish seat back in 2005 in Europe (staying RF a long time seemed like a good idea even pre-children) without really knowing what we had or the ins and outs of car-seat safety.

The only thing I can think of at the moment is to put a button-up shirt over him or on him backwards but I know there are issues with that too. DH is wondering if using the clip for a little while might be okay in this situation. We could potentially put him in a Multi-Tech but don't know if that would be any better or not. The only other option as far as using another car-seat is concerned would be to buy DS1 a high-back booster for our car-pool car and get the Boulevard back to use for DS2 RF. DS1 is not booster-ready in my mind. He doesn't have great impulse control and I worry about that especially in someone else's car. We are going to have to replace the boulevard in the Spring anyway but I was hoping to avoid moving to a booster seat for car-pooling until August when he'll be 6.5 and hopefully have better impulse control. I assume we'd hopefully only have to use another car-seat for a little while until the escaping idea blows over. DS2 is a very mellow kid so I feel a chest-clip would definitely do the trick. A chest clip for DS2 seems less risky than having DS1 in a booster-seat. Hopefully there are other ideas I'm not thinking of.

What do you think?

You know, my daughters have done this in seats with chest clips just as much, maybe even more, than in seats without. I think you're doing the right thing- to pull over as soon as he does and fix it. Do you have a safe, soft mirror so you can catch him right away?

Other things to try: keeping him distracted with games and conversation, or planning a trip somewhere fun (like the park) but having it "take too long" and running out of time to go there because you keep having to pull over to make him put his arms back.

Yes, I have a mirror already. He is only doing this on our 25 minute commute back from DS1's school. He has almost an hour in the car every day for this purpose. He doesn't do it on shorter trips. He has a snack, we listen to books on tape, he has his big brother and our car-pooler (sitting right behind him in the 3rd row) to entertain him. It seems to more of a novelty (whoa! Look what I can do!) than him physically trying to get out of his seat. He isn't upset when he does it. DH also talked to him about it tonight at dinner but he just smiled and thought it was funny.

Pulling over doesn't feel like a very viable safe option after today. The first highway had a VERY wide emergency lane but having cars wiz past at 70 mph with my 5 year old SCREAMING his head off about how scary it was just plain nearly gave me a heart attack. The second high-way had essentially no emergency lane at all so I took the first exit and couldn't even pull over there because the exit had curbs and I had to stop near the top and to the side with my hazard lights on. Still freaky since someone could have plowed right into me! The other route we usually take is stop and go traffic lights instead of the highway but there is still almost no-where to easily pull over quickly. The one time he did it on that route, I had to drive probably a half mile at least before I could turn off.

Blahhhh!

Hmmm, that's rough.

Is it possible he's doing it because he gets attention? what about keeping him so occupied with attention for other things (Hey, let's sing a song! Oh my, that was great singing!) that he doesn't want it- and when you do fix it, not giving him any attention for it, just pull over (when you safely can), fix it, don't talk to him, don't make eye contact, don't get out of the car (just go back from your seat) if possible, make it the smallest amount of attention that you can?

Hopefully he'll grow out of it soon.

A thin button-up shirt is definitely a viable option if he can't undo buttons. It's probably what I'd go to next if behavioral things aren't working, to give him time to outgrow it without you going insane.

Sounds like you are approaching the problem in a good way. A chest clip might help. In the long run the way to solve this is to make the child understand harness must be on and that it will be terrible if it comes off.

I know very well about this issue since I have Europe's most active daughter The first two years were a bit rough in the car seat. Not because she hated rear facing, she just hated sitting still for more than a minute.

She would sometimes undo the harness and I would then pull over right away, raise my voice and show very clearly that it wasn't a good idea. Her getting out of the harness was not an issue for more than a few days.

We had her in the front seat in a Britax Hi-Way, with deactivated airbag, until age 4.5. Using front seat with a deactivated airbag is always a good idea but especially so in these situations. Not sure if this is a possibility for you?

If you need a chest clip just let me know and I'll send one over.

Adventuredad said:

Using front seat with a deactivated airbag is always a good idea but especially so in these situations. Not sure if this is a possibility for you?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately not. We did have a deactivation kit installed in DH's car but it is a two-seater. I haven't verified this myself but I was under the impression that this isn't allowed unless you don't have a back seat. I guess I should check. We have an XC90.

Luckily, he hasn't done it since I posted even during 5 hours in the car on Saturday. I'll keep my fingers crossed.