No one hate me - this is a real question based on having bought car seats for 11 years and watching the best practices change.
When my older kids were still in car seats, there was a big push to keep them in harnessed seats until they didn't need a car seat at all. I bought 4 Radian XTSLs and I had a huge 85th percentile 9 year old still in a five-point harness. I was doing the car-seat.org safest thing.
Now the consensus is that as long as a child is mature enough to sit still and over 40 lbs, a HBB is just fine and a five-point harness adds nothing to their safety. I have a 7 year old in a HBB at the point at which her older siblings would have still been in their Radians.
The current thing seems to be that FFing tether for five-point combination seats - people saying they would turn their 5 year old RFing rather than have them ride in a FFing seat without a tether. And yet not all cars have tethers at every seat where a car seat might go.
So, in five more years, will this need for a FFing tether also fall by the wayside? What makes the need for a FFing tether any more sure or definite than the former need for extended harnessing? I am seriously asking - what data is this based on, and is it any more reliable than the data used to justify and promote extended harnessing?
When my older kids were still in car seats, there was a big push to keep them in harnessed seats until they didn't need a car seat at all. I bought 4 Radian XTSLs and I had a huge 85th percentile 9 year old still in a five-point harness. I was doing the car-seat.org safest thing.
Now the consensus is that as long as a child is mature enough to sit still and over 40 lbs, a HBB is just fine and a five-point harness adds nothing to their safety. I have a 7 year old in a HBB at the point at which her older siblings would have still been in their Radians.
The current thing seems to be that FFing tether for five-point combination seats - people saying they would turn their 5 year old RFing rather than have them ride in a FFing seat without a tether. And yet not all cars have tethers at every seat where a car seat might go.
So, in five more years, will this need for a FFing tether also fall by the wayside? What makes the need for a FFing tether any more sure or definite than the former need for extended harnessing? I am seriously asking - what data is this based on, and is it any more reliable than the data used to justify and promote extended harnessing?