hbb lock the seatbelt???

Unregistered · Sep 7, 2012

My son is 5 &1/2 now and just started kindergarten. I have him in a frontier 85 and was harnessed until 2 weeks ago (I felt that he was ready to switch to booster mode) my question is this, in booster mode once the seatbelt is on are you suppose to retract the belt and lock it or do you just buckle it the way you would yourself? Which is safer? He's fine with it being locked and understands that if its not locked that he can't slouch or move. I'm very weary of the booster mode cause I feel like he was more protected in a 5 point harness. He hasn't outgrown the harness yet I just figured that since he's riding a bus now with just a lapbelt that he is getting too old for the internal harness. He's 48" tall and about 53 lbs...big kid. Would you recommend just switching it back to harness mode? I just want to do what's safest for him. We rear faced until he was 2...all my friends thought I was nuts. I was getting funny looks lately too when people saw him still in a 5 point harness. Sorry for being so long winded...I'm just confused!!!

Brianna · Sep 8, 2012

Welcome to car-seat.org

He's met the minimum requirement for booster mode on the Frontier, so as long as he sits properly all of the time then we have no evidence that he would be safer in a booster or 5 point harness. You can lock the seat belt in booster mode if the booster and vehicle permit it but otherwise you should not.

Be sure that you moved the recline block back and removed the screw. You may use LATCH in booster mode to ensure the seat won't be thrown around when not occupied. Just remove the slack from the straps, you don't need to pull as tight as if you were installing a harnessed seat. And great job on keeping him RF until 2!

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Baylor · Sep 8, 2012

I am of the opinion that if the belt needs to be locked the child is not ready for booster. I used to think it was okay until I read some really well thought out posts from techs that make that argument.