Car Seat Troubles

She might get board in her carseat. Try giving her an activity to do, a book to read, something to take her mind off of the straps.

I am a huge fan of driving in with my kids to car-seat clinics with police officers who check them to see if you've got them installed correctly. I don't have the police officers lecture my kids because I don't want them to be scared but my kids watch me calmly discuss each car seat and the safety of it with him or her in front of the kids and they learn from my behavior that safety is serious and important and that police officers are helpers and are not scary. The statistics are really high for incorrectly installed car seats and it CAN mean life or death in an accident. My kids are too important to me to miss a car-seat check.

I had the same trouble, try pulling up the piece that buckles across their chest. It should slide on the straps but not too easily. I put it right right below his neck but still on his chest. They shouldn't be able to be put their arms up and through there. Once I got the seat fitting right, he couldn't move around too much. You should only be able to put a finger inbetween their chect and the straps. But I know that when I pulled up the chest piece it stopped. Just make sure it isn't on their neck or able to hurt them if something did happen. Place it on their upper chest! Good Luck - Car seats are always a struggle.

S.,

I too have been having the same trouble with my 3 year old. I finally decided to try a booster seat with a back on it. I let her choose the color that she wanted. There is a weight limit. I asked my Dr. and she agreed that the old carseat wasn't doing it's job, and me scolding her and fighting her each time I had to go anywhere wasn't good for her or I. So, we picked out a booster seat that she wanted. The first week was awesome, she didn't get out of her seat and did really well. Then she started climbing out of that one, so I put the old car seat, the one she hated back in the car and when she would get out of the booster I put her in that. I had to plan extra time to drive anywhere, because I had to stop and transfer her to the car seat. Only a couple times of this and now she sits in the booster seat and doesn't even try and get out.
My sister had the same trouble with her son. She had given her old seat away, so she would just stop the car and rebuckle him each time and told him that if he wasn't in his buckle and a police man ever stopped mommie, then she would get in a lot of trouble. He didn't like that and finally stayed in his seat.
Good luck! M. B

Hi I also have a 3 yr old and if you can get any advice that works, please pass it on to me! I havenot been able to stop him either. P.

I've tried two things that have worked (so far.) :)

1) I have gone by the fire station to talk to the fire men about the improtance of using a car seat appropriately. (My 3 year old loves fire men so he was very interested in what they have to say.) I just need to say, "Remember what the fire man said?"

2) I had a problem getting my 3 year old in the car seat at all for a while so I used a prize bucket. He got to earn a prize for getting in his car seat right away. You could always do something like that, tell her that she will earn a prize (even if it's a sticker at the end of the car ride) for doing a great job in her car seat, meaning no taking her arms out of the straps. I've also used a Snoopy stamp and given my son a stamp every time he did a good job in the car seat.

When my daughter, also 3 wants to do something unsafe, and even illegal in the car, like not wear her seat belt, I tell her she has too. Of course, the "why" questions. Finally I tell her if she doesn't mommy will get in trouble with the police and they will yell at me. She usually excepts this answer and is fine with it.

If the seat fits as it should and the straps are truly as tight as they should be, there's no way she can pull her arms out unless she's unbuckling it. In which case, go buy a seat that's really hard to unbuckle. I never had this problem, but I started with a carseat that was really hard to unbuckle because my peditrician told me about having problems with her kid unbuckling himself. I felt like a fool at Babies-R-Us, but I sat there and buckled and unbuckled every one - some are very easy and some are tough. Ours is so tough that my 6 1/2 year old still can't get his 4 1/2 year old sister out of the buckle....
Something that worked for a friend of mine...she put a doll in the seat next to the kid w/out restraint and then at a safe time (no one behind her, residential street), did a sudden stop from about 30 mph - one hard enough to lock up the adult belts. Seeing the doll go flying made her kid understand using seatbelts.

This will be highly inconvenient, but I would stop the car each time she does it, and wait until she puts her arms back in. I would try this on a day when you have nothing else going on, so you are not late getting places because of it. When she decides that she is tired of sitting in a stopped car, and gets back in her seat properly, then start driving again. Repeat this as many times as necessary. If she realizes the car will not move unless she is strapped in, maybe she will stop the behavior. If not, I would get a new carseat. We have Britax Marathons and they tighten up really well, and my kids couldn't get out if they wanted to!

Take her to a nearby police station, very nicely ask one of the officers about safety and maybe have him or her to explain it to her. Not scaring her but sometimes when it comes to someone else in that position explaining it to them it sinks in. I also would put her in time out when you get home when she does it. She is old enough to understand consequences and tell her it isn't an option for her to do this.

Our son did that and we finally just switched him to a booster. If she's big enough weight- and height-wise, you might try that. Just the available freedom was enough to end the war. GL

BRIBERY!
Hi S., I know that with my kids they always responded to the promise of getting something special if they did a "special" job for mommy. So make it her "job" to keep her body in her carseat the right way. Then when you're getting ready to leave tell her that you'd really like her to do this "special job" for mommy and that if she does it she will get a reward, but she has to "earn" it. When you get into the car remind her and show her what she needs to do to receive the reward. Make sure the first few trips are small errands so she gets the reward pretty quickly in order for her to get the idea. You'll want to praise how well she's doing while you're driving along and make a big deal about how well she is doing "earning" the reward. When you arrive tell her you knew she could do it. This is very important. If she knows you believe in her ability, it will boost her self-confidence and she will want to please you all the more. Don't worry if she misses a few times and don't make a big deal about it. Just an "oops, no ___ on this trip. Try harder next time please." And let it go. She is probably trying to see what will happen if she doesn't do the job, will she still get the reward or not? Will you talk and talk about it or not? The attention she's seeking needs to be bigger for doing it right, not for doing it wrong. Does that make sense?
You should start out with a small something, since you'll need to repeat this each and every time you get into the car and arrive at your destination. So maybe a dum-dum sucker or something small she can collect, like stickers. Put away a good number of the prizes so you have one to give each time, at her age she's not going to understand IOU and the missed reenforcement will not help your effort. Maybe she'll do keep her part of the deal every time and maybe she won't, but when she realizes that she gets a treat just for keeping her arms down she's going to like that alot more than listening to you lecture - (by the way, this works for getting cooperation from teenagers too, only dum-dums don't work for long:0) Let us know how it goes.
Good luck, H.

O know this is gonna sound like a drag, this is what I did. Explain and then pull over wait for her to rebuckle. Help her if she will let ya. She will propably cry and complain, but you know that's kids:). This will probably go on alot try to remember she is little. Stay firm stay consistant!!!