Our 2-1/2 year old has recently taken to wiggling her arms out of the shoulder straps on her car seat and is unmoved by being asked or shouted at to put them back in. I got one of the 5 point plus add ons yesterday evening: http://5pointplus.com/
but apparently she wiggled out regardless today. There seems to be a number of add-on chest straps available but these are frowned upon by the emergency services as they add something extra to undo to remove the child in an emergency and there seems to be some concern that the buckles of these can do damage to a child’s chest in a crash, although our daughter is still rearward facing so I’m not sure if that would apply.
Does anyone have any experience of good ways to stop her escaping her harness?
Thanks.

Tell her to stop it or shes in trouble.

That worked for us anyhow.

Have you explained why you want her to stay in the straps?

We had a policy of pulling over immediately if she started to wriggle out, and waiting – whilst explaining – until she co-operated. That’s all it took, for us.

Also – whilst rearward facing might be safer, I reckon that by the time they are that age they will want to interact with the rest of the car and watch where they are going. Imagine if you were facing the back whilst going forward and having people talking and doing stuff behind your head. You’d be fed up after a while. Rear facing is safer for adults too, but we wouldn’t buy a car with rear facing adult seats!

+1 for turning her around. They’re nosey!

There’s been no hint of wanting to turn round, she’s plenty verbal enough to articulate it if she wanted that plus she’s been forward facing once and asked to be turned back…
On the asking or telling not to, no, that does nothing, she just smiles, after all, what trouble if really coming to a 2 year old in that situation? She doesn’t comprehend the idea of being horribly injured in a car crash when she’s never had worse that a wee cut on her finger.
We could try pulling over and just talking her through it though. Typically she usually pulls this stunt on the dual carriageway so far though!
Thanks for the input so far, much appreciated.

STW standard answer is I believe to threaten no pudding.

There’s been no hint of wanting to turn round

No, she probably doesn’t know it’s an option. We weren’t asked, we thought it would be best given how interactive she was at other times.

We could try pulling over and just talking her through it though.

Pull over, talk, then wait.

To be fair, ours are quite safety aware – when she did wriggle out, we went over the top with WHOOOOAAAHHH!! like she was hanging out of the car door or something really dangerous. Seemed to do the trick, but as I say we’re probably lucky. My sister in law whose kids were much less ruly* had to do the emergency pull over and wait thing.

* ruly: opposite of unruly.

At some point you’ll be going to something that she understands is important to her, such as a birthday party or whatever. Tell her that if she does it on the way then you turn around and go home, impressing the main aspect on her (safety) again. Then follow that through when she does it, so that there’s a definite consequence.

I was in this exact situation and did the above – she never did it again. Tough at the time obviously and only really a last-resort option!

She’s not an unruly kid at all to be fair, she just has a wee mischievous streak. Pull over and wait might work but then she’s tried to refuse being put in the car to come home from the middle of nowhere due to complaints of having a numb bum from a long journey up to that point and will insist that she’d rather just stay where she was than go home for tea, so I’m unsure on the motivational factor of “we won’t continue until you are safely strapped in”

At some point you’ll be going to something that she understands is important to her, such as a birthday party or whatever. Tell her that if she does it on the way then you turn around and go home, impressing the main aspect on her (safety) again. Then follow that through when she does it, so that there’s a definite consequence.

That might indeed work, I’d just rather stop it sooner rather than later.

Yeah but that won’t work next time you try and take her somewhere she *doesn’t* want to go 🙂

I’m unsure on the motivational factor of “we won’t continue until you are safely strapped in”

If you just sit there in the car, she’ll soon get fed up. If she screams the place down, get out and sit on the verge.

Google “houdini straps”. Sorted.

With similar safety issues we tell ours that she’ll die and everyone will be sad and she won’t be able to play with her toys or eat special treats anymore if she’s dead. I don’t think she understands death but she understands making everyone she loves sad and she understands missing out on fun things.

This whole website has lots of good stuff: http://www.ahaparenting.com/ask-the-doctor-1/4-5-year-old-doesn-t-follow-rules-at-the-dinner-table

My wife found it and we’ve tried to take a similar approach of empathy rather than autocracy and it seems to work pretty well.

If you just sit there in the car, she’ll soon get fed up. If she screams the place down, get out and sit on the verge.

Fair enough!

Google “houdini straps”. Sorted.

Yeah, that’s probably the next thing to try but there seems to be a concern over the potential for the buckle of the houdini strap to do damage although I struggle to see how when she is rear-facing.

With similar safety issues … but she understands making everyone she loves sad and she understands missing out on fun things.

Good advice, thanks.

As per chiefgrooveguru – “if you don’t stay in your straps and we have an accident then you might get hurt/die and that would make us sad”

My wife found it and we’ve tried to take a similar approach of empathy rather than autocracy and it seems to work pretty well.

That’s always been our approach, and it works very well. I’m not sure if our kids are good because the approach works, or if the approach works because our kids are good…

It’s our approach too and I think it does work well. We just haven’t managed to make it work for this particular situation yet!

I told l’il J that if he didn’t put his arms back in the straps,
” daddy would be arrested ,&spend the rest of his life behind bars doing hard labour . Furthermore, due to having an absent daddy ,he would likely follow me into prison”.
Worked for us.
The next time he got in the car I tightened him in properly.:-)

She doesn’t comprehend the idea of being horribly injured in a car crash when she’s never had worse that a wee cut on her finger.

Punch her really hard in the face to give her something to compare it to. #badparentingtips

Maybe she’s ready for a booster with a 3 point harness? It could be that she feels too constrained.

Ours was in a high back booster like this

from 2 or so, because she got too broad in the shoulder for the other one. She loved the extra space and being able to lean forward to look at stuff and pick things up from the seat etc. Made for happier journeys. She’s still in it at 7 too, she prefers it to having no back because the headrest makes it easier to snooze.

Another vote for Houdini Strap.

I might have our old one somewhere, but they’re cheap enough to pick up.

It worked until she understood the reasons why

She doesn’t comprehend the idea of being horribly injured in a car crash when she’s never had worse that a wee cut on her finger

Have a massive car crash? seems the most obvious solution really.

#that’lllearnher

Switching to a high back booster using the 3 point belt is not going to improve this. If anything its more dangerous as the 3 point is easier to slip out of and in a crash she would then be propelled out of the seat. At least while still in a rear facing she would be pushed into the seat (I’m making assumptions about forward crashes being more likely and higher energy). Age 2 is to young for either 3 point belts or forward facing (we kept our daughter rear facing without issue till just before 4 without a problem including long Southampton-Ambleside trips aged 3.5)

What does she do in the car? Just sit there? Much as I hate having it in the car have you considered giving her something to watch, either a dedicated dvd player or tablet on a holder. Might keep her amused enough to not misbehave.

Are you sure the harnesses are positioned and done up properly (seen them left too loose by a lot of people)? This could make it harder for her to get out.

Yeah, we make sure the straps are right up on her shoulders and pulled properly tight so I don’t think it’s that, she’s just good at escaping and thinks it’s fun.
I’m extremely reluctant to give her a screen to distract her but I do see your point. So far, she gets basically zero screen time which we are happy about and it’d be a shame to start her on that sooner than we have to to solve this issue. Usually in the car she has some toys to play with / books to look at and we talk to her, sing with her etc.

Hoppy Jr was able to do this more easily when the straps were relatively low compared to his shoulders, moving the shoulder straps up helped.

Switching to a high back booster using the 3 point belt is not going to improve this. If anything its more dangerous as the 3 point is easier to slip out

The point is, it might remove the incentive to do it. No-one seems bothered about *why* she’s doing this… Did the OP ask?

I was reluctant to give ours a screen too. She also doesn’t get a lot of screen time as she normally wants to play and do craft things. In the end I decided it wasn’t that big a deal for the amount of time we actually spend in the car and dropped my objections. We did/do only use for longer trips. It did help make journeys easier and she still interacts with us in the car (for a while she always wanted someone to sit in the back with her as well).

Molgrips, I don’t think it would remove the incentive but yes your right working out the why is key.

Yeah, we’ve considered a screen for special circumstances in the car like long journeys with only the driver. It’s not fully off the table but we’ll try other things first.
As to why, I’ve asked and she said “Me just wanted to be naughty” and then wouldn’t talk about it any more. So I guess boredom may be part of it.

We used a large clip, the type you get from IKEA etc for sealing cereal packets etc. Worked like a charm! Clip the straps together above the buckle and it holds the tighter. Can’t see there’s any great risk of injury from it, it’s a flat surface the same as the buckle. HTH

Just check your mirrors and do an emergency stop… that’lll learn her…

Or just gaffer tape her hands to the armrests.

So far, she gets basically zero screen time

Better she watches some Cbeebies than escapes her seatbelt every car trip. We gave in quite early on, especially as we do a lot of long trips to visit relatives in the far NW of Scotland – the kindle was an absolute lifesaver when the boredom kicked in. Lots of games and “jigsaws” on there too, so it’s not just mindlessly watching Fireman Sam.