New rules for using child restraints and booster seats

[aussienic]

Thanks Ali.

My almost 6 yr old is in a H harness with no booster. Simply because there is no booster currently available that she will fit into.
She is 30 kg and her eyes are well above the top line of the booster, plus the poor thing can not sit with her back flat as she shoulders are too wide.
She is def not ready to use just an adult seat belt but that's the best solution for her at the moment. Hopefully they make some bigger boosters.

I just wondered about the age of the restraints as the seat DD2 is using was DD1's so would be just over 5 yrs old.

I can't remember if I posted earlier about this but here goes

My 6 and half year old is to tall for the standard booster. Weight he is 22kg.. According to the QLD department of Transport who I have rung 3 times now after getting conflicting advice have told me he is perfectly safe and legal to go into a adult seat with a lap/sash seatbelt. Our local police told us a different story and said he was to stay in a booster regardless of height.. SO dept of transport told me to print of their info they have on their website and keep it in the car which we have done.

[ll80]

I might print that out too. Knowing my luck I would get pulled up for it.
I have her in a H harness as she isn't quite tall enough for the adult belt. Getting her to sit up straight is like pulling teeth.

Efjay - to meet standards seats are tested with dummies up to 32kg. So I get what you are saying. My DD just can't sit in them though. She just won't fit. She isn't chubby just tall and broad, tallest in her grade 1 class by a head lol.
At 12.5 kg he'd have been fine in RW. I would have kept him back too. I didn't move DD2 to forward facing until well after 12mths but she is petite unlike DD1 who has always been in the 99th percentile.

Hopefully the safety standards are reviewed soon so that the manufacturers can start producing restraints with higher weight ranges.

[maz]

[quote]?Children aged between four years and under seven must wear an approved, properly fastened and adjusted, forward facing child restraint with an in-built harness OR an approved booster seat which is properly positioned and fastened [\quote]

So what age does a child or can a child get out of wearing a harness? Can a child that is over four be able to use a booster seat that is an anchored one with a normal adult belt?

[Olive]

thats right maz, an adult seatbelt with proper booster seat, it should hold the belt in the correct position

[maz]

thanks hun...so that means technically Vy could sit in her booster seat with the adult seat belt after her 4th birthday?

[Olive]

i believe so

[deletedit]

Does anyone know the details of using booster cushions? We have an old one that complies to the current standard and the website says you can't use a *current* booster cushion but you can use an old one that complies to the current standard before it changed.

Otherwise I'm going to have to stop driving places soon, unless we can find a small booster seat. Right now our only options are to find some place that actually sells a narrow toddler seat or to buy a $500 crappy old bomb of a car until we can save up enough money for a good car. Or stop driving places with three kids. Or convince someone to buy our house so I can afford a good car (our old car has about $0 trade-in value, it has extremely high mileage, at least 3x higher than the same model car is expected to have).

They give compensation for everything else, why isn't there an 'upgrade the safety of your kids' grant for parents who can't afford a car that fits modern car seats? I think we'd be less safe in a $500 clapped out old bomb than in our current car with no toddler seat or just an old booster cushion.

Edit: if the eldest kid grows anymore (right now she sort of tucks under the sides of the baby seats, which would probably sever her arms in an accident) we won't be going anywhere for xmas unless the relatives come and pick us up. Which, given past behaviour, won't happen.

[Freya]

I thought they were banned completely?

Anyway how tall/heavy is your eldest? There are quite a few new boosters on the market these days that are 100% adjustable.

[deletedit]

Eldest doesn't need a seat, the other two do. I only fit the eldest in because she sort of fits behind the two baby seats because her shoulders are low enough to fit inside the moulded part of the seat where its hollow, if you get what I mean. There isn't enough space *between* the two baby seats to fit her shoulders, she's too wide. Baby seats are amazingly wide at the top, and we have the 'compact' models so we can't buy narrower.

The kids are 10, 3 and 11 months.

Kind of need to get this clarified although it is a bit academic, if the biggest one grows while the middle one is still 3 and needs a baby seat we simply won't be able to travel at all. She's been growing about 5-7cm each year so the odds of this are really high. Next year when the middle one is 4 hopefully we can find a toddler seat that is narrow at the top.

Government issued "do not travel" card right there. My car is too small for 3 kids as soon as the biggest one gets too tall and I know I can't get a car loan unless we sell the house (currently 100% maxed on borrowing). If I sell the house I don't need a car loan. Argh.

[Freya]

You could try changing one of the other into a slimline convertable booster. Like a Hipod Senator. Its quite slim, we had that and two maxi riders; now we have a Marathon, Senator and a Infa booster seat. Id measure and see what you can get to fit. Its the only way to be 100% sure.

[deletedit]

We can't change to a booster until just after Christmas ... what we really need is one that is narrow at the top so her shoulders fit, we've seen designs like that but they aren't slimline so they are just massive at the bottom. Been googling around and getting extremely demoralised about this whole car seat thing and thinking we simply won't be able to travel without a new car.

Our car is a corolla, the back seat isn't very big.

Need to sell our house but I don't hold out much hope of that, we have just over 6 weeks to sell it in before we move out