Look at this seat

stayinhomewithmy6 · Jul 5, 2007

Look at this seat - Help me fix it please!

One of my daycare babies came with this seat today. Grandma left it here for dad to use when he picks him up this afternoon. First of all, it's a FF only seat for a 22 lb 16 mos old. But, then it's also a 5 pt turned 3 pt harness and has a DOM of 2-11-99. Part of me is actually glad they even brought a seat for him today because I've seen them pull out of my driveway with him in the front seat in a seat belt all too many times. It all just makes me so sad, but they don't care.

SusanMae · Jul 5, 2007

Do you have another seat you can just give them? A scenera would be great for him...even FF would be better than that poor seat.

Susan

Loves2sing · Jul 5, 2007

Oh my! That seat is disgusting. I thought they didn't ever have 3 point harnesses for a FF seat. Did they maybe replace the straps from a different seat? I hope that you can speak to the Dad and knock some sence into them!

jen_nah · Jul 5, 2007

YUCK!!!

It looks like a Cosco Highback booster. Can you get it back to a 5pt harness? I too would encourage them to get a new seat for the little guy.

jen_nah · Jul 5, 2007

JennasMommy said:
Oh my! That seat is disgusting. I thought they didn't ever have 3 point harnesses for a FF seat. Did they maybe replace the straps from a different seat? I hope that you can speak to the Dad and knock some sence into them!

They most likely didn't replace the harnesses. Some 5pt harness seats are only 1 piece of webbing for the whole harness system. Ex: Graco CarGo, Cosco Scenera, etc....

stayinhomewithmy6 · Jul 5, 2007

Yes, I can probably get it back to a 5 pt harness if I mess with it. And it has the harness adjustment in the back, so if I put him in it and tighten the straps good, they probably won't mess with it to loosen it and then at least I'll know the straps are tight enough, too. But, then, I don't even know if they buckle it into the car. It has the empty slots there for the hip straps, so they just routed it wrong when they washed the cover or something. I'll try that at nap time. I have a Touriva that I could give them. It's my extra, but I'd gladly give it to them and buy a new Scenera for myself. They have used the Touriva in the past when 1 person would come in to pick him up and ask, "Did ___ leave a car seat for him today?" and nobody ever left a car seat for him so I would give them the Touriva. But, after awhile, they stopped asking and started taking him without one. His mom & dad are divorced & this is dad's family. I've even talked to his mom about it and she doesn't know what to do and hasn't had any luck trying to get them to be better about car seat safety. They have even been pulled over before for not having the kids in appropriate seats. Nothing works with them, I swear! I feel so bad for his mom. I mean, can you imagine knowing that your kids aren't properly restrained every other week? I think I would cry & try to get full custody if they really refused to be better about it. It's child endangerment, IMO. It just makes me want to scream!

jen_nah · Jul 5, 2007

stayinhomewithmy3 said:
Yes, I can probably get it back to a 5 pt harness if I mess with it. And it has the harness adjustment in the back, so if I put him in it and tighten the straps good, they probably won't mess with it to loosen it and then at least I'll know the straps are tight enough, too. But, then, I don't even know if they buckle it into the car. It has the empty slots there for the hip straps, so they just routed it wrong when they washed the cover or something. I'll try that at nap time. I have a Touriva that I could give them. It's my extra, but I'd gladly give it to them and buy a new Scenera for myself. They have used the Touriva in the past when 1 person would come in to pick him up and ask, "Did ___ leave a car seat for him today?" and nobody ever left a car seat for him so I would give them the Touriva. But, after awhile, they stopped asking and started taking him without one. His mom & dad are divorced & this is dad's family. I've even talked to his mom about it and she doesn't know what to do and hasn't had any luck trying to get them to be better about car seat safety. They have even been pulled over before for not having the kids in appropriate seats. Nothing works with them, I swear! I feel so bad for his mom. I mean, can you imagine knowing that your kids aren't properly restrained every other week? I think I would cry & try to get full custody if they really refused to be better about it. It's child endangerment, IMO. It just makes me want to scream!

That is so sad! Yes, Please try to mess with it. At least this little guy has you & his mom on his side trying to help keep him safe. Usually a ticket with a fine wakes parents up. I mean hitting where it hurts (aka the pocket book) usually wakes parents up but I guess it's not always the case.

mommy2env · Jul 5, 2007

OMG, poor little guy. You are right about it being child endangerment (sp) If I was his mom, I would make the court either give me full custody, or force him to buy new seats (yes two, so that they can have a spare one. that way there is no excuse for not having him in a restraint.). But thats just me, and I understand that it might be hard to do that. I really have no other suggestions, other than giving him the touriva. This is all tooo sad

Judi · Jul 5, 2007

I have seen this a lot at car seat clinic. Parents say they forgot how to put the straps back in. I just don't get it. That seat is so dirty. I am not a germophobe, but why would you put your baby in that?

doriansmummy · Jul 5, 2007

Is the dad nice enough say if he came to pick him up and you handed him the child and grabbed the carseat and said "oh I can help you install it, I know they are hard to get in!" and then he prob wont know what to say and let you do it...

Gosh that is just really sad, the seat makes me sad just looking at it.

stayinhomewithmy6 · Jul 5, 2007

doriansmummy said:
Is the dad nice enough say if he came to pick him up and you handed him the child and grabbed the carseat and said "oh I can help you install it, I know they are hard to get in!" and then he prob wont know what to say and let you do it...

That's what I've always wanted to do, especially back when they used to borrow the Touriva. The problem is that I always have other kids in the house and can't really run out to put in a car seat and leave the other kids unattended. I'd have to get all the other kids ready to go outside and by the time that's done & we're all out the door, the dad would have probably grabbed it himself & be gone. If he comes early enough today and all the other kids are napping, I'll definitely do that. He is a nice guy. I'm sure he wouldn't argue with me, especially if I made it sound like I'm just helping him out since he has his hands full with kid + diaper bag.
I'm going to change the straps back to a 5 pt harness and just say, "oh I noticed you didn't have the straps in quite the right way, so I changed them for you." There's not much he can say to that.

Patriot201 · Jul 5, 2007

Wow. That is truly disgusting!

stayinhomewithmy6 · Jul 5, 2007

Oh sheesh! So I carried the seat into my family room and sat down to start trying to rethread the straps and this is what I found on the back of the seat:

It basically looks like they really didn't know what they were doing, so they threaded the straps through the little metal paperclip looking thing and just tied them in a knot. Now what? If I get the knot undone, I don't know how to correctly use the little paperclip thing. Is that all there should be? Or is it missing a piece? HELP! I'm having a real crisis here! I've never had a seat that didn't have an up front adjustment, so I'm really lost. Can someone talk me through it?

doriansmummy · Jul 5, 2007

OH MY GOSH!
I hope someone can help you.
Anyway you can just get ahold of a proper seat for them and say you had a "extra" seat and that theres was expired?
Jeez, thats insane.

Patriot201 · Jul 5, 2007

OMG!!!!!!!

THANK GOODNESS you discovered that!!!

OMG!!!!!!!

stayinhomewithmy6 · Jul 5, 2007

I'm trying to get up the nerve to tell the dad that the seat is expired and that he can have my extra one and just keep this one here. For one thing, he won't want to accept it. But, then the other thing, I think he'd still take this one and use it anyway, so it wouldn't really be doing any good.

scatterbunny · Jul 5, 2007

Tell him it expired 2 years ago and it's put together wrong and missing parts, so you threw it away and HERE, here's a nice, new seat he can use.

stayinhomewithmy6 · Jul 5, 2007

scatterbunny said:
Tell him it expired 2 years ago and it's put together wrong and missing parts, so you threw it away and HERE, here's a nice, new seat he can use.

Oh my, I'm going to have to. I get so nervous about this kind of stuff!

doriansmummy · Jul 5, 2007

scatterbunny said:
Tell him it expired 2 years ago and it's put together wrong and missing parts, so you threw it away and HERE, here's a nice, new seat he can use.

:thumbsup: YEAH TO THAT!:thumbsup:
Just say you have an obligation as his daycare provider to make sure he is riding in a safe seat and that it was expired and you threw it out as you have this extra seat you "never use" anyways and you were going to be giving it away for free anyways. If you dont want to give it away then just say that you have this extra seat he can use until he can get a new seat, and have a print off of maybe the scerena and price and tell him its a great seat for the price.

stayinhomewithmy6 · Jul 5, 2007

Okay, I'm going to do it. I stuck that old seat in my laundry room to be destroyed later when DH gets home and I got out my Touriva and sat it by the front door. I know the dad will be nice about it, but I'm still so nervous. I'm going to say exactly what Scatterbunny said and be very casual about it. The Touriva really is just an extra and we have the Radian that's an extra and an extra booster & when the Signo comes, we'll have the Intera as an extra, so I really don't mind giving it to him, but I would feel better if I really knew for sure he was going to use it right. I sort of feel like what's the point if he's going to not have it installed right and have the straps too loose & that kind of stuff, KWIM? Is there anywhere that I can print out a basic car seat use brochure or something to give to him?

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