I love winter, and not just because it reminds me of Frozen! However, keeping children warm in car seats can be a challenge when the weather gets cold, as it’s not as simple as throwing a coat on your child and putting him or her in your vehicle. This is one of the more common mistakes parents make when it comes to keeping children warm, so let’s take a look at some unsafe, and then 3 safe ways to dress your child in a car seat this winter.
Why are some coats unsafe in car seats?
Let’s start at the beginning. What’s wrong with using some coats in a car seat? Well, this touches on one of the biggest mistakes parents make when using car seats: they don’t tighten the harness enough. As we’ve discussed in the other article, in order for your child to be protected as much as possible in a collision, the harness needs to be snug against the child, or as close as possible to the body of the child in order to effectively turn him or her into an extension of the car seat, which is designed to become an extension of the car.
However, if you’ve got several layers of clothing between your child and your child’s harness, it becomes increasingly harder for the restraint to accurately take into account the side of the child. What ends up happening is that the restraint instead fits itself to your child’s coat, and if a crash occurs, the pockets of air between the coat and the child are pushed out and the harness itself is too slack to do its job of restraining and protecting your child. What results from a loose harness is a risk of your child coming partially or completely loose from his or her car seat. This, of course, can also happen to adults with seat belts.
How do I make sure the harness is not too loose over my child’s clothing?
To make sure your child’s harness isn’t installed too loosely over your child’s clothing, use the coat test. Buckle your child into the car seat while she is wearing a coat, and tighten the harness until there isn’t any slack at her collar bones, just inside of her shoulders. You shouldn’t be able to pinch any fabric when gripping the harness fabric. From here, remove your child, coat and all, while keeping the harness at its current setting. Remove your child’s coat and place her in the seat and reharness her. If there’s any slack at the collar bone, the coat isn’t appropriate for the car seat.
What are 3 safe ways to dress my child in a car seat when it’s cold outside?
1. Try the coat test. The quickest way to see if your child can wear a particular coat or jacket safely in a car seat is to test your child in the coat and out of the coat and see if you need to make any adjustments to retighten the harness. The coat test is described above. You can also perform it backwards by tightening a harness on a child without a coat and then buckling the child in with the coat. If the harness needs to be loosened significantly to accommodate the coat, then the coat is too thick for the car seat.
The solution is to only use coats or jackets that pass the coat test. It’s important to note that you can’t tell if a coat or jacket will pass the test simply by looking at it; there are a lot of thin-looking coats that will fail the test, and I’ve seen many thick-looking coats pass it. The only way to tell is to try each coat or jacket out one at a time.
2. Wear the coat backwards over the harness. Another safe way to dress a child in a car seat in cold weather is to tighten the harness around the child without a coat and then to simply wear the coat backwards over the child and over the harness. It might look a bit funny, but it’s absolutely safe and gets rid of the need to try out a coat with the coat test. Once the child is out of the car seat and ready to leave the vehicle, he or she simply wears the coat normally. Easy! This is the best method to use if you don’t want to deal with the coat test or with blankets, as in the method below.
3. Blankets, gloves, and hats. Finally, if you don’t have a coat available or don’t want to try it out or use the backwards method, there’s always the old-fashioned approach: blankets, gloves and hats may be worn on top of a harness. The gloves and hats have nothing to do with a harness, of course, while the blanket may easily be tucked in around the child once she’s been strapped in tight with the harness. This is the method that’s likely to work best with infants and toddlers, who aren’t going to be as patient as older children when it comes to safely strapping them in.
In conclusion, while it might take a bit of planning to figure out which method works for you, the truth is that it’s worth the time it takes to dress your children safely for their car seat this winter. Properly restrained children (whether they’re rear-facing, forward-facing, or in booster seats) have much better odds of surviving any collision than even properly-restrained adults in many cases, and the rules of car seat safety are just as important to keep in mind when the temperatures drop as when the weather gets warm. Stay safe this winter!
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