HELP! She unclips her chest clip!!!

[TexasMama]

I am the mom to FIVE.

This is my youngest.

I have never had this big of a problem with car seats before.

All the rest of my kids were soooooo compliant (minus one incident)!

She has a MA 70 in my car and Radian XT in hubby's.

Her siblings are MUCH older and they are all in boosters, so she feels like she is the baby I think.

She is always talking about hating her car seat.

Sigh...her car seat is the BEST we have!

Other kids (6,8,9) are in high backed boosters and 11 year old is out of seats. So it is not like she is the only one.

I know I am supposed to love Britax, by the way, but those happen to be the only car seats my kids ever got out of in a moving vehicle. One was a long time ago...the older Roundabouts...you pressed the button straight down...they got rid of that design...and I got rid of that horrible seat! After that one indcident my son was fine....but this DD. Unbuckles the chest clip ALL THE TIME.

Any seat that is better?

Have you had this problem?

WWYD???

Thanks.

 

[Stelvis]

How old is the child in question?

 

[TexasMama]

Whoops...I am sorry. I am really upset.

She is 3.5.

 

[Stelvis]

Honestly, at that age, you've just got to come up with behavioral rewards and punishments. You could show her some YouTube crash tests of dummies with no car seats and explain how she needs to be safe in an accident and how the clip keeps her safe.

 

[Fallon]

With Britax the chest clip is made to pop open during a crash ( the European seats don't even have it). So the seat will still function w out it. So hopefully this eases your mind some.

 

[jjordan]

You could try getting some sticky velcro and sticking the rough end to the parts of the chest clip that she has to squeeze to undo it. The uncomfortable pokiness might dissuade her. Otherwise, I agree with Stelvis, give her consequences and do your best to eliminate the behavior. If she continues to get away with unbuckling the chest clip, she'll move on to trying to squirm out of the harness and maybe unbuckling it entirely.

I assume she is forward facing and so you can see in the rear view mirror if she gets her clip undone? Otherwise I might turn her FF so that you can keep a better eye on her, or assign the older kids to "chest clip watch" and ask them frequently how she is doing.

 

[babyherder]

Does she take her arms out of the straps after unbuckling the chest clip? Or does she just ride around harnessed but with the chest clip unbuckled?