I took a trip with my family last week and had a friend kindly give me both of her CARES harnesses to use. I took both even though my 2 year old had his MA on the plane. I'm glad I did. It came in handy. 
We used it exclusively with my 4 year old. He is 41 lbs and in a Regent most of the time but has a Monarch as a spare seat. We took the Monarch apart and carried it onboard. We weren't given in trouble over it other than the FAs making sure he wasn't going to sit in it. It fit really well in the overhead bin.
Here is the 4.75 year old in the harness. He's 41 lbs and 44 inches tall. He's technically too tall for the harness according to their specs, but he fit in it really well and I made the parental decision to go ahead and use it. I would not have done that had he been over the weight limit, but I don't see the height as mattering as much.
As you can see, gracious plenty harness length left. He is scrunched down a bit in the pic. That is one problem I found with the harness. The seatbelt was not tight enough on any of our flights (4 of them). Even with it as tight as it would go, he still had a lot of wiggle room and tended to scoot down in the seat. I felt better with him in the harness given our situation, however. Had we hit turbulence, he had something to help hold him in his seat. I'm pretty sure the seat belt alone would not have been enough.
Child #2 is 2 years old (and two weeks lol), 26 lbs and 33 ish inches. He was in his rfing Marathon for the majority of the flights, but since it was 11 hours in a seat each way, he asked to get out a few times. Since we had the second harness and a free seat in our row, we let him do just that.
I would not have felt comfortable with him in this the entire time, but he did really well for the 30 minutes or so he was in it mid-flight. He didn't mess with the seat belt at all. He also tended to scooch down. Again, it was better than nothing at all. If I had a car seat at both ends, I might consider just using the harness to avoid the car seat hassle, but honestly, I was really, really glad to have him safe in his rfing MA on takeoff and landing. :twocents:
We used it exclusively with my 4 year old. He is 41 lbs and in a Regent most of the time but has a Monarch as a spare seat. We took the Monarch apart and carried it onboard. We weren't given in trouble over it other than the FAs making sure he wasn't going to sit in it. It fit really well in the overhead bin.
Here is the 4.75 year old in the harness. He's 41 lbs and 44 inches tall. He's technically too tall for the harness according to their specs, but he fit in it really well and I made the parental decision to go ahead and use it. I would not have done that had he been over the weight limit, but I don't see the height as mattering as much.
As you can see, gracious plenty harness length left. He is scrunched down a bit in the pic. That is one problem I found with the harness. The seatbelt was not tight enough on any of our flights (4 of them). Even with it as tight as it would go, he still had a lot of wiggle room and tended to scoot down in the seat. I felt better with him in the harness given our situation, however. Had we hit turbulence, he had something to help hold him in his seat. I'm pretty sure the seat belt alone would not have been enough.
Child #2 is 2 years old (and two weeks lol), 26 lbs and 33 ish inches. He was in his rfing Marathon for the majority of the flights, but since it was 11 hours in a seat each way, he asked to get out a few times. Since we had the second harness and a free seat in our row, we let him do just that.
I would not have felt comfortable with him in this the entire time, but he did really well for the 30 minutes or so he was in it mid-flight. He didn't mess with the seat belt at all. He also tended to scooch down. Again, it was better than nothing at all. If I had a car seat at both ends, I might consider just using the harness to avoid the car seat hassle, but honestly, I was really, really glad to have him safe in his rfing MA on takeoff and landing. :twocents:
