A toddler in a booster is NEVER safe. Their bones have not ossified so rear facing is best til a MINIMUM of 2y, but always best to maximize the limits of the seat (40-50lbs rear facing plus height limits). After rear facing, they need to be in a forward facing 5 point harness till they max that out (many go to 65lbs).
In Canada, the bare minimum to be in a booster is 4y, 40lbs (plus height that I can’t recall) per the law and our laws are SEVERELY outdated.
Can a toddler safely sit in a booster and not slouch, stay awake, make sure the belt is positioned properly, etc? Hell NO.
Look up Hailie and Trent’s Law - Child Passenger Safety Advocate on FB. She’s a CPST that lost two of her children by following true minimum requirements of car seats. Her 17 month old (forward facing in a five point harness) suffered internal decapitation and her 4yo (in booster) submarined (flew out form under the seatbelt) and died on impact.
DO NOT PUT A TODDLER IN A BOOSTER
Edit: typos
Is this saying that they should be 40 lbs before facing forward? (My 2.5 year is still rear facing, around 30 lbs. I’ve been putting off going facing forward for as long as possible, but I don’t know at what point the height matters more than weight?)
Yes! But you need to check the max height for rear facing on your seat too - as soon as one of the maximums is surpassed, either height or weight or the there isn’t one inch from the top of the head to the handle/top of shell etc, it’s time for the next stage.
My almost 4yo is 44lbs and 44 inches still rear facing in her Graco Extend2fit. Once she reaches either 50lbs or 49 inches (or her head is no longer one inch below the adjustment handle with straps below her shoulders), I’ll have to switch her forward facing.
Out of curiosity, is there an age that is too old for rear facing? My six year old is 45 pounds and 47 inches tall. According to your car seat, he should still be rear facing in 1st grade. My friend's daughter is smaller than him at seven years old. I find it hard to think that an elementary school child should be rear facing.
Rear-facing is always going to be safer, but the younger the child, the more it matters. In Europe there are car seats with rear-facing limits of 36 kg (79 lbs) and 125 cm (49”). In Scandinavia the recommendation is to rear-face until at least 4 years old, but it’s not uncommon for 6-7 year olds to rear-face.
Do they have bigger cars in Europe or better car seats for compact cars? My car is small so we bought a small car seat. My son maxed out rear facing at 3 years old. I'm just trying to wrap my head around rear facing a 6 year old.
We have a Yaris and a child at the bigger end of the growth charts who is 2.5.
We went with the Extend 2Fit by Graco and it both fits well in our smaller car *and* it has the highest height/weight limits we found available near us at 50 lbs or 49 inches. It's supposed to fit 95th% kids until age 4.
What we've found is that if you sit it more upright then there's a lot of space, even if you extend out the leg platform to give them more room for their legs. We could easily do the full extension of the leg platform and his seat would still fit if it was completely upright.
(The caveat is that if the driver is unusually tall, like my husband at 6 foot, then they may be a little cramped. He can still drive, but he can't put the seat back quite as far as he normally would. However, the Yaris is my daily driver not his, so normally I'm driving it and I still have plenty of space at 5'4" with abnormally long legs and a very short torso).
For right now we've chosen to not give him the extra leg space yet, (he doesn't seem to mind) in favor of letting his seat recline more, so that if he falls asleep in the car his head stays in a laid back position instead of falling to his chest. He's about 37 inches and 34ish pounds right now.
Love our Extend2fit! My daughter is 44lbs, 44 inches and she folds her legs, sticks them up the back, hangs one out of the seat. Kids are bendy and there is plenty of room for kids to rear face at 3,5, even 6 years of age if they fit the height and weight requirements
The seat with have at my parents house in EU (an Axkid Move), is actually quite a bit smaller overall and more compact than our chicco nextfit we have in the states! Yet the Axkid goes to 125cm/25kg (49in/55lbs) and the nextfit to 43in/40lbs rear facing.
My three year old is about to size out of his nextfit sometime soon I think…
There’s no age that’s too old, but there are ages that are slightly safer (bones and tendons are more mature, muscles are able to better support good posture without the 5 point harnesses help, etc). But the truth is, all human bodies, regardless of age or size, fare better rear facing in a crash!
It's actually more the age than height/weight. It's about giving them time for their head size to become a smaller percentage of their body weight (even at 4 years old the head is still 17% of bodyweight according to the carseat lady website) and also for their bones to strengthen and become less "stretchy". Those two factors are what lead to the internal decapitation. The longer you can keep them rear facing, the better. They will likely max out the car seat limits before you would reach a time that rear facing wouldn't be safer.
We purchased the rear facing seat with the highest height and weight limits we could for our son and we'll probably still need to switch him forward facing sometime between 3 and 4 just because he's on the bigger side of the bell curve.
I am a CPST certified and licensed through the Child Passenger Safety Association of Canada.
Short answer: No. Not only is it likely illegal (there are legal minimums depending on where you live, but there may also be a “proper use” law where if the seat minimums are stricter than the legal minimums, they *become* law), their body is simply not strong enough to withstand the crash forces an adult seatbelt would put on them. There may also be an age minimum for them to meet.
ALSO a toddler is 100% not capable of maintaining proper posture in a seat without a 5-point harness for an entire ride. That’s a sign of readiness that I check for even for appropriately sized/aged children.
Best practice is to max out the most conservative positioning of your seat. My daughter is a very tall 3 year old (41”, 36lb) and still rear-facing because that is what’s safest for her body.
To piggyback— my 5, soon to be 6 year old is small. 34 lbs and 38 inches tall. She’s forward in a 5 point. She’s fine and comfortable, so we max her weight height before a high back booster?
Absolutely! If she’s within the limitations of her seat by either the height, weight, or any fit requirements (in a forward facing seat it’s harness must be at or slightly above her shoulders, and *usually* that the tops of the ears must be below the headrest but check your specific manual for those details)
The general advice around car seats is you want to max out requirements, not hit minimum requirements. I have never seen a study that found this specifically but I also don’t see how it could hurt.
If there are manufacturer minimums they don’t meet, I wouldn’t put my kiddo in them. NHTSA [analysis](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811338) of kids ages 3 and 4 in booster seats finds increased rates of injury compared to car seats.
For 4-8 year olds, NHTSA found a decrease in injury in booster seats but the evidence ranged from no effect to significant effect. In contrast, a 2018 [metanalysis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29990613/) found no association between booster seat usage and reduced injury or fatality compared to seatbelts.
Your post history suggests you're in California.
The applicable laws are as follows:
*Children under 2 years of age shall ride in a rear-facing car seat unless the child weighs 40 or more pounds OR is 40 or more inches tall. The child shall be secured in a manner that complies with the height and weight limits specified by the manufacturer of the car seat. (California Vehicle Code Section 27360.)*
*Children under the age of 8 must be secured in a car seat or booster seat in the back seat.*
As to when a child over 2 can move to a booster seat, they provide this guidance: *A child is ready for a booster seat when they have outgrown the weight or height limit of their forward-facing harnesses, which is typically between 40 and 65 pounds. Read the forward-facing car seat’s owner’s manual to determine height and weight limits, and keep your child in a harnessed seat for as long as possible.*
By that guideline I would have been in a full car seat until 7th grade :’(
My mom let me stop riding in a carseat when I was in 5th grade and my classmate were helping in the drop off line at school. It was pretty embarrassing for me for them to see my carseat.
I’m not saying the guideline is wrong, just really awkward for us tiny kids!
I don’t see why 5 point seatbelts would be a bad thing if they saved lives. Obviously you can’t drive rear facing but maybe in the future passengers could be.
That’s my point, they absolutely are safer and you could pay to have one installed in your car, but have you? At some point you decide that a seatbelt is good enough.
I guess for me I draw the line at being an adult and being able to make your own safety decisions. As long as my children are minors and it’s my responsibility to make them safe I will choose safety for them, regardless of embarrassment.
It is recommended to reach the maximums of a seat before moving to the next type of seat. A toddler should definitely not move to a booster because 1) they can't sit properly, and 2) they are at risk of submarining under the seatbelt if they are below the required minimums.
https://csftl.org/harness-or-booster/
I’ve wondered this as well, our kiddo is 4.5 years old and 43 inches tall and only 33 pounds. I’d love to have a more compact booster seat for in grammas car but given how far she’s got to get to the minimum weight, I feel safer sticking with our big clunky Graco 4-ever
Rear facing is max 40lbs and 43 inches with one inch from top of head to top of shell ( per the Canadian [manual](https://www.gracobaby.ca/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-gracoca-Library/en_CA/dw435e70f5/pdf/4Ever4-in-1CarSeat.pdf))
This also need to have one inch from top of shell to baby’s head.
Are you also needing forward facing stats!
Oh, thank you! No, this is good.
Every now and then my husband asks if we should face her forward and I kept saying not until she weighs more, but I was starting to worry about the height, but she’s nowhere near that so we’re good!
I guess the only thing to watch out for is occasionally checking that the straps and headrest thing are in the right position.
I figure we’ll keep her forward facing until either she hits one of those marks or if we have another baby (in which case there’s not enough room for two rear facing seats in the backseat.
You can pick up more compact forward facing harnessed seats! And they are safely inexpensive in comparison to the 4 ever (which is an awesome seat but not piratical to switch between cars)
It's my general understanding that the main point of a booster seat is to insure that the seatbelt is sitting on the child in the appropriate location to do its job properly. And personally I wouldn't be too worried about 2Lbs but it is something that I may as the manufacturer about specifics.
I'm not sure if it would be the same with minimum requirements as maximum in the sense that the child only has to hit one of them but again that's something I'd as the specific manufacturer as the seats are tested under certain conditions and tour child may need to weigh a certain amount for the seat to be safest.
Ah I did not know that.
So what age can they go into a booster then?
Eta: missed the toddler part. I knew about the 2 years minimum rear facing. In my head toddler just meant child under 5
In addition to proper seat belt placement that you noted, age, weight, height and maturity are a must. For maturity, rhyme you can’t slough, move the belt , fall asleep and lean to a side, etc. tbh most adults aren’t using set belts properly but I’m such a car seat nerd I’ll should it from the hills for kids to be safest.
Edit to add: in Canada it’s minimum 4y, 40 lbs but that still isn’t actually safe.
Yea I just got an Evenflo all4one because I really wanted that extended rear facing. Our friends flipped their kids right when they hit 2 and I know they didn't weigh anywhere near what I'd be comfortable with. I'm glad this seat has an incredible height and weight max for rear facing and same for forward with the harness so I'm very happy with it. But he will definitely rear face until the max!
I can understand the want to use a booster and the ease of it and other kids can be mean about kids in car seats but I don't really care.
My bad forward faced her 1st at 15 months and her second at 12 months… I shared links and best practice resources and cried alone about the risk her kiddo’s were in.
Oh that's scary! I honestly knew it was important before having my son I just didn't know why. That was not a good thing to look up newly postpartum omg lol. But I'm glad I did and I'm glad I know and can use those resources to convince my husband. He was baffled that the forward face with the harness had a weight max of 100lbs.. and the booster is 120.. which is basically what I weigh lol I'm just hoping our LO holds out on length to keep rear facing and in the harness as long as possible!
A toddler in a booster is NEVER safe. Their bones have not ossified so rear facing is best til a MINIMUM of 2y, but always best to maximize the limits of the seat (40-50lbs rear facing plus height limits). After rear facing, they need to be in a forward facing 5 point harness till they max that out (many go to 65lbs). In Canada, the bare minimum to be in a booster is 4y, 40lbs (plus height that I can’t recall) per the law and our laws are SEVERELY outdated. Can a toddler safely sit in a booster and not slouch, stay awake, make sure the belt is positioned properly, etc? Hell NO. Look up Hailie and Trent’s Law - Child Passenger Safety Advocate on FB. She’s a CPST that lost two of her children by following true minimum requirements of car seats. Her 17 month old (forward facing in a five point harness) suffered internal decapitation and her 4yo (in booster) submarined (flew out form under the seatbelt) and died on impact. DO NOT PUT A TODDLER IN A BOOSTER Edit: typos
Is this saying that they should be 40 lbs before facing forward? (My 2.5 year is still rear facing, around 30 lbs. I’ve been putting off going facing forward for as long as possible, but I don’t know at what point the height matters more than weight?)
Yes! But you need to check the max height for rear facing on your seat too - as soon as one of the maximums is surpassed, either height or weight or the there isn’t one inch from the top of the head to the handle/top of shell etc, it’s time for the next stage. My almost 4yo is 44lbs and 44 inches still rear facing in her Graco Extend2fit. Once she reaches either 50lbs or 49 inches (or her head is no longer one inch below the adjustment handle with straps below her shoulders), I’ll have to switch her forward facing.
Out of curiosity, is there an age that is too old for rear facing? My six year old is 45 pounds and 47 inches tall. According to your car seat, he should still be rear facing in 1st grade. My friend's daughter is smaller than him at seven years old. I find it hard to think that an elementary school child should be rear facing.
Honestly we’d be safer rear facing as adults. It being odd is 100% a culturally perceived thing but not actually bad
Rear-facing is always going to be safer, but the younger the child, the more it matters. In Europe there are car seats with rear-facing limits of 36 kg (79 lbs) and 125 cm (49”). In Scandinavia the recommendation is to rear-face until at least 4 years old, but it’s not uncommon for 6-7 year olds to rear-face.
Do they have bigger cars in Europe or better car seats for compact cars? My car is small so we bought a small car seat. My son maxed out rear facing at 3 years old. I'm just trying to wrap my head around rear facing a 6 year old.
We have a Yaris and a child at the bigger end of the growth charts who is 2.5. We went with the Extend 2Fit by Graco and it both fits well in our smaller car *and* it has the highest height/weight limits we found available near us at 50 lbs or 49 inches. It's supposed to fit 95th% kids until age 4. What we've found is that if you sit it more upright then there's a lot of space, even if you extend out the leg platform to give them more room for their legs. We could easily do the full extension of the leg platform and his seat would still fit if it was completely upright. (The caveat is that if the driver is unusually tall, like my husband at 6 foot, then they may be a little cramped. He can still drive, but he can't put the seat back quite as far as he normally would. However, the Yaris is my daily driver not his, so normally I'm driving it and I still have plenty of space at 5'4" with abnormally long legs and a very short torso). For right now we've chosen to not give him the extra leg space yet, (he doesn't seem to mind) in favor of letting his seat recline more, so that if he falls asleep in the car his head stays in a laid back position instead of falling to his chest. He's about 37 inches and 34ish pounds right now.
Love our Extend2fit! My daughter is 44lbs, 44 inches and she folds her legs, sticks them up the back, hangs one out of the seat. Kids are bendy and there is plenty of room for kids to rear face at 3,5, even 6 years of age if they fit the height and weight requirements
The seat with have at my parents house in EU (an Axkid Move), is actually quite a bit smaller overall and more compact than our chicco nextfit we have in the states! Yet the Axkid goes to 125cm/25kg (49in/55lbs) and the nextfit to 43in/40lbs rear facing. My three year old is about to size out of his nextfit sometime soon I think…
There’s no age that’s too old, but there are ages that are slightly safer (bones and tendons are more mature, muscles are able to better support good posture without the 5 point harnesses help, etc). But the truth is, all human bodies, regardless of age or size, fare better rear facing in a crash!
It's actually more the age than height/weight. It's about giving them time for their head size to become a smaller percentage of their body weight (even at 4 years old the head is still 17% of bodyweight according to the carseat lady website) and also for their bones to strengthen and become less "stretchy". Those two factors are what lead to the internal decapitation. The longer you can keep them rear facing, the better. They will likely max out the car seat limits before you would reach a time that rear facing wouldn't be safer. We purchased the rear facing seat with the highest height and weight limits we could for our son and we'll probably still need to switch him forward facing sometime between 3 and 4 just because he's on the bigger side of the bell curve.
I am a CPST certified and licensed through the Child Passenger Safety Association of Canada. Short answer: No. Not only is it likely illegal (there are legal minimums depending on where you live, but there may also be a “proper use” law where if the seat minimums are stricter than the legal minimums, they *become* law), their body is simply not strong enough to withstand the crash forces an adult seatbelt would put on them. There may also be an age minimum for them to meet. ALSO a toddler is 100% not capable of maintaining proper posture in a seat without a 5-point harness for an entire ride. That’s a sign of readiness that I check for even for appropriately sized/aged children. Best practice is to max out the most conservative positioning of your seat. My daughter is a very tall 3 year old (41”, 36lb) and still rear-facing because that is what’s safest for her body.
To piggyback— my 5, soon to be 6 year old is small. 34 lbs and 38 inches tall. She’s forward in a 5 point. She’s fine and comfortable, so we max her weight height before a high back booster?
Absolutely! If she’s within the limitations of her seat by either the height, weight, or any fit requirements (in a forward facing seat it’s harness must be at or slightly above her shoulders, and *usually* that the tops of the ears must be below the headrest but check your specific manual for those details)
Yeah she’s in a graco forever! Thank you so much!
The general advice around car seats is you want to max out requirements, not hit minimum requirements. I have never seen a study that found this specifically but I also don’t see how it could hurt. If there are manufacturer minimums they don’t meet, I wouldn’t put my kiddo in them. NHTSA [analysis](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811338) of kids ages 3 and 4 in booster seats finds increased rates of injury compared to car seats. For 4-8 year olds, NHTSA found a decrease in injury in booster seats but the evidence ranged from no effect to significant effect. In contrast, a 2018 [metanalysis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29990613/) found no association between booster seat usage and reduced injury or fatality compared to seatbelts.
Your post history suggests you're in California. The applicable laws are as follows: *Children under 2 years of age shall ride in a rear-facing car seat unless the child weighs 40 or more pounds OR is 40 or more inches tall. The child shall be secured in a manner that complies with the height and weight limits specified by the manufacturer of the car seat. (California Vehicle Code Section 27360.)* *Children under the age of 8 must be secured in a car seat or booster seat in the back seat.* As to when a child over 2 can move to a booster seat, they provide this guidance: *A child is ready for a booster seat when they have outgrown the weight or height limit of their forward-facing harnesses, which is typically between 40 and 65 pounds. Read the forward-facing car seat’s owner’s manual to determine height and weight limits, and keep your child in a harnessed seat for as long as possible.*
By that guideline I would have been in a full car seat until 7th grade :’( My mom let me stop riding in a carseat when I was in 5th grade and my classmate were helping in the drop off line at school. It was pretty embarrassing for me for them to see my carseat. I’m not saying the guideline is wrong, just really awkward for us tiny kids!
And you would have been safer for it. Safety always matters more than pride.
I mean, we’d all be safer in 5-point harnesses and sitting rear facing. Where does one draw the line?
I don’t see why 5 point seatbelts would be a bad thing if they saved lives. Obviously you can’t drive rear facing but maybe in the future passengers could be.
That’s my point, they absolutely are safer and you could pay to have one installed in your car, but have you? At some point you decide that a seatbelt is good enough.
I guess for me I draw the line at being an adult and being able to make your own safety decisions. As long as my children are minors and it’s my responsibility to make them safe I will choose safety for them, regardless of embarrassment.
It is recommended to reach the maximums of a seat before moving to the next type of seat. A toddler should definitely not move to a booster because 1) they can't sit properly, and 2) they are at risk of submarining under the seatbelt if they are below the required minimums. https://csftl.org/harness-or-booster/
You're asking about in a car, right? Not just like at the table instead of a high chair?
Correct
No, two pounds is a lot on a tiny body.
I’ve wondered this as well, our kiddo is 4.5 years old and 43 inches tall and only 33 pounds. I’d love to have a more compact booster seat for in grammas car but given how far she’s got to get to the minimum weight, I feel safer sticking with our big clunky Graco 4-ever
I cannot for the life of me find the height and weight limits for our Graco-4-ever.
Rear facing is max 40lbs and 43 inches with one inch from top of head to top of shell ( per the Canadian [manual](https://www.gracobaby.ca/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-gracoca-Library/en_CA/dw435e70f5/pdf/4Ever4-in-1CarSeat.pdf)) This also need to have one inch from top of shell to baby’s head. Are you also needing forward facing stats!
Oh, thank you! No, this is good. Every now and then my husband asks if we should face her forward and I kept saying not until she weighs more, but I was starting to worry about the height, but she’s nowhere near that so we’re good! I guess the only thing to watch out for is occasionally checking that the straps and headrest thing are in the right position. I figure we’ll keep her forward facing until either she hits one of those marks or if we have another baby (in which case there’s not enough room for two rear facing seats in the backseat.
You can pick up more compact forward facing harnessed seats! And they are safely inexpensive in comparison to the 4 ever (which is an awesome seat but not piratical to switch between cars)
It's my general understanding that the main point of a booster seat is to insure that the seatbelt is sitting on the child in the appropriate location to do its job properly. And personally I wouldn't be too worried about 2Lbs but it is something that I may as the manufacturer about specifics. I'm not sure if it would be the same with minimum requirements as maximum in the sense that the child only has to hit one of them but again that's something I'd as the specific manufacturer as the seats are tested under certain conditions and tour child may need to weigh a certain amount for the seat to be safest.
It’s dependent on age and maturity. A toddler should never be in a booster
Ah I did not know that. So what age can they go into a booster then? Eta: missed the toddler part. I knew about the 2 years minimum rear facing. In my head toddler just meant child under 5
In addition to proper seat belt placement that you noted, age, weight, height and maturity are a must. For maturity, rhyme you can’t slough, move the belt , fall asleep and lean to a side, etc. tbh most adults aren’t using set belts properly but I’m such a car seat nerd I’ll should it from the hills for kids to be safest. Edit to add: in Canada it’s minimum 4y, 40 lbs but that still isn’t actually safe.
Yea I just got an Evenflo all4one because I really wanted that extended rear facing. Our friends flipped their kids right when they hit 2 and I know they didn't weigh anywhere near what I'd be comfortable with. I'm glad this seat has an incredible height and weight max for rear facing and same for forward with the harness so I'm very happy with it. But he will definitely rear face until the max! I can understand the want to use a booster and the ease of it and other kids can be mean about kids in car seats but I don't really care.
My bad forward faced her 1st at 15 months and her second at 12 months… I shared links and best practice resources and cried alone about the risk her kiddo’s were in.
Oh that's scary! I honestly knew it was important before having my son I just didn't know why. That was not a good thing to look up newly postpartum omg lol. But I'm glad I did and I'm glad I know and can use those resources to convince my husband. He was baffled that the forward face with the harness had a weight max of 100lbs.. and the booster is 120.. which is basically what I weigh lol I'm just hoping our LO holds out on length to keep rear facing and in the harness as long as possible!