What makes a booster "lousy?"

pastrygirl

New member
I've read that the all-in-ones make "lousy" boosters. What does that mean? (I'm not in the market for an all-in-one, but I want to be able to explain myself if I tell people this.)

Thanks!
 
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MomToEliEm

Moderator
Some boosters like the cargo hold the seatbelt in a clip like thing on the top of the cover. Due to it being held down and not allowed to move freely, whenever the child moves, the seatbelt may get extra slack in the area where the child is sitting. When the child moves back into position though, the extra slack isn't able to retract back since the seatbelt is clipped down. Also with the cargo, the shell of the seat is pretty wide which doesn't allow the seatbelt to sit nicely across the child's chest and shoulder. With my child when I tried her out in the cargo as a booster, the seatbelt was about 2-3" away from my child's chest which I wasn't comfortable with.

With the 3-in-1 seats, the seatbelt positioners do allow the seatbelt to move freely, so it doesn't have the slack issue that the cargo seat has. However, it does seem to hold the seatbelt too high on a child's belly which can lead to internal injuries during a car crash. Also, just as in the cargo, the seatbelt may be held out too far away from the child's upper chest due to the wider wings on the seat.
 

Neatfreak

New member
I think that some of the 3-in-1 seats also do not expand enough for a growing child to truly be the last booster they'll need before they are the proper size to be protected by a lap/shoulder belt alone.
 

TerisBoys

Well-known member
Yes. Even combination seats like the Cargo, Chase, and Cosco hbb are much shorter than what is needed to get a child to the proper age/size for using just a seatbelt.

My almost 6yo is this><close to outgrowing his step-sister's Cosco HBB. Yet he's only using the first notch on his Vivo. He's got a good 4-6" of torso growth before I'd be comfortable with him in just a seatbelt.
 

scatterbunny

New member
I had to switch a ton of 3-4yos into their 3-in-1s booster mode yesterday. :( It pained me to do it, but their seats had a recall on the harness adjuster, so harness mode is not safe until they get the recall fix kit. These poor kiddos were 30+ pounds and met the minimums to use their older 3-in-1s as boosters, but the fit was AWFUL. Lapbelt riding much too high on the soft tummy, and on some kids, even with the shoulderbelt through the lowest guide, it was still too high. The shoulderbelt did not have good contact with the child's body in some cases, there were inches of space between the belt and the child's body. :( But the goal is to always have the kids leave safer than they came in, and we couldn't let them leave in a recalled seat that has a harness that could pull loose in a crash, so booster mode was the safest choice for now.

At Lifesavers, I was at a session that included private crash testing (I believe it was UMTRI) of various models of booster seats. Some models (that looked identical to many Dorel and Evenflo models, but were not identified for us) allowed the lapbelt to ride much too high, and we were shown real crash photos (of a child's body :( ) to illustrate the kind of damage that can be done with the booster does not keep the lapbelt low where it needs to be. It was a very emotional session for me, but one of my favorites, where I felt like I learned a lot. I try to explain to everyone now, what to look for in a proper booster fit, especially when dealing with these 3-in-1s. I pointed out the too-high lapbelt to the parents, and all the other issues with using those seats as boosters, and they all seemed to understand that a new seat was in order.
 

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