Re: 2-year-old complains of back pain in car seat
I realize this is a really old thread now, but the same thing happened with my daughter. She would scream and cry the entire time she was in EVERY harness car seat that her back hurt. She was (and still is) very tiny, and needed to be in a harness seat, but after going through 5-6 different car seats, and having her back checked at 2 & 3yrs old - not to mention being told that she needed to be in a rear facing seat by the Dr - now, where would she put her FEET and legs as a 2, 3yr old? really?! sometimes they are so ridiculously stupid - we let her sit in a booster. Anyone can say, "oh you have to do this, this and this, and they MUST be harnessed", but when your child is in horrible pain every time you drive somewhere, it's ridiculous. Car seat laws are out of control in my opinion, i want my children, who mean everything to me, to be as safe as possible, but forcing a child into a seat that may produce severe back problems doesn't seem quite right to me. My children are very small, and for them to reach the new height/weight ratios for being OUT of a car seat seems impossible at this point! And with how the car seat laws change daily, I'LL probably need to be in a 4 point harness soon. Anyway, all that to say we never figured out what was wrong, and it was only our one child this happened too. I used my parental discretion with choosing a booster, and making sure she was strapped with the chest/waist belt properly and she always sat still. She never cried or complained of back pain again. I think when a child as little as 2 says something so serious, you have to listen and try to figure out how to deal with it.