Vent A battle within me

I'm just curious if I'm the only one who does this...

I'm constantly back and forth in my head between wanting the kids in the biggest baddest beefiest car seats I can afford, and having them use them until they graduate college because they're my babies and I want them in a bubble.... and wanting to put them both in teeny backless boosters and/or the incognito asap because the giant car seats make me feel claustrophobic in the car (especially in my sedan) and because in my real world day-to-day life I need space and versatility (like being able to fit an adult in the back seat with them, or having them sit side by side so I can fold down the 40 section of the back seat to fit long cargo in the trunk, for example. And no, buying a truck is not an option lol). I *almost* bought my 5 yo DS a harmony youth booster yesterday. Am I going crazy?

Not crazy at all!

I bought my DD the harmony booster when she was 5. She didn't use it often but it made live easier to put that in our 3rd row when family was visiting than trying to re-install the big seats. And I know the day is coming when she'll ask to go backless since she's 8yo now.

And I can say I'm happy DS (6yo) is boostered in both vehicles now because he can unbuckle himself which makes my life much easier. Yes I sometimes freak out a little that maybe he'd still be safer in a harness, or that having him use the NBB for a 4 hour drive when we're traveling next week might be tricky if he falls asleep but I know we're using age/size appropriate seats, and using them correctly. And if he falls asleep next week I'll just have to squeeze back there with the kids (part of the appeal of the Bubble bum for DD, leaves more room for me if needed )

Which Harmony booster is the narrow one? Is it the Dreamtime? Three of the kids are almost 6 and I want to booster train in my car and it would be great if there was something narrow enough to where an adult could still sit back there. This is in my new '14 CR-V.

Yeah, Dreamtime is narrow. 17 inches, I believe.

When I decide how my kids are allowed to ride in the car I ask myself if I would feel like I had done something wrong if we/they were to get in a crash. I'm not talking about the inevitable guilt. Like if my 13yo were to get hit by a car walking to her friend's house, I might feel like I should have gone with her, or I shouldn't have let her go when the roads were icy... but that would be irrational guilt. I would also know that it wasn't *wrong* of me to let her go.

Same thing with car seats, trampolines, leaving the kids home alone, whatever... If my 65lb 7yo was injured in a backless booster, I might feel irrational guilt or wonder if she would have fared better in a highback. But I wouldn't feel I was *wrong* to let her ride in it. But when it comes to my 5yo, I don't like the belt fit and I've busted her moving the seatbelt in the Monterey. So I know if anything were to happen to her, I would know forever that I *knew* I should suck it up and deal with the extra 20 seconds it takes to put the Radian in for her.

I guess it comes down to asking yourself honestly what you can live with. I'm a practical, non-alarmist personality by nature, so maybe it's easier for me than for some. I don't know...

I have the same brain turmoil... it's even weirder for me because I've had the same van so long... was my ds safer in his Husky outboard than my same age dd2 is in her backless Safeguard Go in the center?!?!!?
I swore I'd keep them all in highbacks till I got a car with curtain airbags, but 5 years later I still have the same car. And the statistics used to say highbacks were safer, but now backless is just as good. :dizzy::shrug-shoulders::twitch:

I wish I didn't know what I do. I'd move my 6 year old backless and my almost 3 year old in a HBB and not care if they layed all over the back seat. BUT I do know what I know, so my older one stays in a HBB until he outgrows it and I wrestle my younger into her RF convertible every day. Car seats are a PITA and inconvenient and scrape your hands and ( in our case) trigger tantrums, but proper restraints do make children safer and I want my kids safer. Thus, I put up with the daily hassle.

Keeanh said:

When I decide how my kids are allowed to ride in the car I ask myself if I would feel like I had done something wrong if we/they were to get in a crash. I'm not talking about the inevitable guilt. Like if my 13yo were to get hit by a car walking to her friend's house, I might feel like I should have gone with her, or I shouldn't have let her go when the roads were icy... but that would be irrational guilt. I would also know that it wasn't *wrong* of me to let her go.

Same thing with car seats, trampolines, leaving the kids home alone, whatever... If my 65lb 7yo was injured in a backless booster, I might feel irrational guilt or wonder if she would have fared better in a highback. But I wouldn't feel I was *wrong* to let her ride in it. But when it comes to my 5yo, I don't like the belt fit and I've busted her moving the seatbelt in the Monterey. So I know if anything were to happen to her, I would know forever that I *knew* I should suck it up and deal with the extra 20 seconds it takes to put the Radian in for her.

I guess it comes down to asking yourself honestly what you can live with. I'm a practical, non-alarmist personality by nature, so maybe it's easier for me than for some. I don't know...

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That's a great way to put it. I know my kids are safe in the seats they're in. When we decided to switch DS to the booster right when he turned 6 instead of waiting until the winter bad weather was over I really didn't stress over it too much. He proved he could sit correctly, the booster/belt fit him great and he had no problems sleeping. If one of those hadn't happened I wouldn't have kept him in the booster, but since they did the booster made my life much easier (he never figured out how to unbuckle his Frontier).

I think if anything happens you're always going to play the 'what if' game.

I blame Britax.

I think their push to market taller and taller harnessed seats (which is great for the kids who are tall for their age) has led a lot of parents to feel that decisions that are developmentally appropriate and perfectly safe as far as anyone knows... AREN'T safe.

Personally I don't mind the size of our harnessed seats (much) but I am looking forward to the ease of removing, moving, reinstalling boosters. I had to remove and reinstall my girls' frontier 85s in a hurry recently and I have been dealing with these seats for almost 3 years, I know what I am doing - and I still managed to make two completely absurd mistakes due to being in a rush.

My girls have used a booster part time in DH's car since they were 4 1/2 and have done very well. My oldest went into a booster at 3 (since harnessed seats tended to be smaller than and he was big, this wasn't as crazy back then as it sounds now!) - to me 4 1/2 was good. They are still harnessed in my car but partly because I am waiting for the perfect booster, partly because i like the cow of their seats...

I find it funny though that when DS1 was younger, if someone was in an accident and ie wrote a review on Amazon and said "My 5yo son's graco turbo saved his life!" people would be like "That's great!" whereas now, same outcome, same kid, people would say "You know he could still fit in a harnessed seat!" Drives me kind of crazy.

YinzerMama said:

Personally I don't mind the size of our harnessed seats (much) but I am looking forward to the ease of removing, moving, reinstalling boosters. I had to remove and reinstall my girls' frontier 85s in a hurry recently and I have been dealing with these seats for almost 3 years, I know what I am doing - and I still managed to make two completely absurd mistakes due to being in a rush.

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I've done this before too, and I always and feel glad that none of my newly-trained Techs was there to point out the error I made on my own child's seat. It's very easy to get into the "I know this seat" mode, and miss the details.

I'm glad I'm not alone.

DD was boostered full time at five and I was fine with it, but for some reason putting DS in one is harder for me to wrap my head around 100% even though I want to be there so badly. He's bigger and older than she was! We bought the Britax Pioneer for him thinking that'd be great for him, harness a while longer then it'll be his booster for...ever lol. But like I said it's huge and truthfully it is almost touching the roof already and it's nowhere near fully extended. I'm thinking of returning it and getting him a turbo or something, because any other harness seat he'd fit into would be just as big and bulky. Logically, I say to myself, I would tell almost every other parent who asks that it's ok to put their 40+ lb 5 year old in a booster full time, but I hesitate with mine.

Minnesota said:

I've done this before too, and I always and feel glad that none of my newly-trained Techs was there to point out the error I made on my own child's seat. It's very easy to get into the "I know this seat" mode, and miss the details.

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On the one, I stuffed the seat belt through the wrong slit in the fabric where you shove it down to work it around the back... I don't know how to describe it. I caught that right after I finished and fixed it. The other was bad lol. I routed the shoulder belt over the headwings rather than behind. And I did NOT catch it till later. I'm thinking why is this belt so much shorter than normal??? Then I was driving and happened to glance back and saw it was completely wrong. Go me!

I think a lot of us feel that way! I hadn't much until recently, looking for a new car to buy and finding they are not friendly with my big FR85 in booster mode. (On the other hand, I'm not convinced many reasonably sized cars are friendly with many boosters anyway, but I digress. ) I don't have the option to be tempted though because my DD will not go backless. She demands her big comfy seat! But if I had a kid who was affected by peer pressure and begging for that little backless, it would be hard to resist.

I hadn't read the other posts. I guess I don't agree that boosters are automatically easier. Mine are large and bulky and they latch and tether, so I'm still installing the seat. To try it in new cars I'm considering buying is a total pain! I was actually thinking, if we just had a backless ...