Hi, I was just wondering do you guys lock the seat belt on a booster seat or do you just let your kids buckle themselves and go? I want to lock my sons because I feel it is safer but he throws a fit because his cousins and friends don't have their locked. What do you do?
Thank you!
Thank you for your answers. I was asking about pulling the seat belt out and releasing it to lock it. I couldn't find anything online with the booster seats but everyone helped answer my question. Thank you!
My kids have buckled their own belts (either booster or before that, 5-point harness) as soon as they were able to. Probably around age 4.
Do you mean locking the buckle or locking the belt itself in place. You are not supposed to pull (thus lock) the belt itself you are basically disabling the safety function by doing that!
Please go to a free seat check location and learn all of the proper ins and out of car seat use. 7 out of 10 are used incorrectly, thereby unsafe.
Find an inspection site today at: http://www.nhtsa.gov/
If he can latch it correctly himself, let him do it. Maybe you can just check it?
My daughter hates it if I try to buckle her into her seat. She is still in the 5 pt harness but can do it up herself. Once she gets herself in, I double check it to make sure she got it all the way. She has no problem with that. If he is having a fit about having his fully secured, yo ucould tell him that you cannot go anywhere unless everyone is safe. I have also told my kids that the police tell everyone that kids must be tied in right or the parents get in trouble. It always worked without making them afraid of police.
I belt my daughter in just because I want to be sure she is safe and secure. But as one of the other moms said on here, maybe teach him how to do it and tell him that you have to check it to be sure he is in there safe. That way it's a win/win situation.
I would be a little more scared if my child knew how to unbuckle a 5-point harness though. If my youngest daughter knew that, she'd be out of her seat more than she'd be in it.
By locking, do you mean pulling it out and then releasing it so that is can not move?
I don't lock it, I wouldn't view that as safe. The seat belts are designed to give as the car goes and locking to provide safety when pulled to hard. Having it locked all the time could prevent some of the give that might be needed. Does that make sense?
If you just mean making sure it is latched - I always make sure that my three year old's is latched, I wouldn't want to take any chances thinking that she got it all the way in and it might not be.
We've mainly used a Britax Frontier until my daughter was almost 7 years old, because of this. That's why many people don't use basic boosters until their children are old enough to be responsible with it. I let her do it but look to make sure it's done right and watch her pull it tight.
By "lock" do you mean pulling the belt out all the way then releasing so that it doesn't give when he moves... like you did to secure his carseat to the car?
I was doing that when my son first used a booster, but then I did some reading on this, and it looks like it is actually safer NOT to lock the belt. Booster seats are designed to make the adult carseat function for a smaller, weaker body. Seatbelts are DESIGNED to have that give, that's how they work.
If your son can't be trusted to sit still and keep the seatbelt positioned properly, you may want to invest in a high weight 5-point harness and put him back into a seat that will hold him in.
HTH
T.
I'm terrible.. my son is 6 and I really should be teaching him to buckle his own seat, but I still buckle it. I don't know what you mean about locking it, but I hate seatbelts that lock so you can't move. If you mean where you pull the belt out until it locks? If so, I don't think that's what the car seat belt is designed for. The locking feature is supposed to be for infant seats, not boosters. The booster is just making the child fit in the car properly with the regular seat belt. I guess different cars are different, but in a collision my seatbelts would lock automatically. So, he can move otherwise. I do enforce sitting properly and don't allow him to lean over all the time or whatever. Back to buckling, I buckle him b/c I'm paranoid about the lap part being in the proper placement.
How old is your son?
You latch him in, unless he can do it himself. (I am talking about buckling the child).
It just takes one accident... and a kid can fly out of their car seat/booster. If unlatched.
I was in an accident once. If my son was not latched in, well he would have been seriously hurt.
I would hate to think about the cousins/friends that do not latch their seat belts.
Like the others, I don't know what you mean by "locking" the seat belt in. Do you mean just buckling them or locking the seat belt, strap?
My daughter who is 6 buckles herself in. She has to know how to do it herself because at school pick up, I am not allowed to get out and buckle her myself. But, she has known how to do it for a while though. Even my 4 year old son knows how to buckle himself into his 5 pt harness car seat (although most of the time I buckle him in just because I'm faster at it)
You might want to check the manual for your booster and for your car, a lot of boosters don't allow you to lock the seat belt. How old is he? If he isn't mature enough to stay in position in the booster seat you may want to move him back into a 5 point harness.
