Seat belt extenders and booster seats

Currently squeezing three kids across the back of the car. Kids are struggling to get to the female end of the seat belt (not sure what it’s called!) with the way the booster seats are positioned, any reason why seat belt extenders are bad ideas?

Ideally something about 2-5 inches long and semi rigid so it’s easy to clip into

Started to look at these but seems to be a bit of a minefield of shitty quality products. Hopefully someone can advise of one which isn’t going to break in a crash.

It would probably put the seat belt in the wrong position on your child’s body. It’s very important where the belts are.

E.g.

An extender would make it more like the left image. I.e. myoving the belts up, thus negating having a booster seat in the first place. Find a local specialist, preferably other than Mothercare* or Halfords*, and get some proper advice.

*Only really because you’ll be at the mercy of the car seat trained/experienced staff being on shift that day or not

What car and seats?  Seats vary massively in size, I’ve found “harmony” branded ones among the narrowest,. Cheap from Asda or Halfords too.

I have a s-max to make this situation easier!

On Facebook have a look at the Car Seat Advice UK group. Might be some answers on there. You can only post every so often as all posts are moderated before being made public. You can search existing posts though.

Edit: Could one booster seat go in the front, and swap the non booster user to the back? Obviously this may cause fights over who’s upfront 🙂

Not on facebook so can’t look at that group

It’s a rear facing baby seat on one seat, then two older kids (6 and 7) on the other two boosters. Have a variety of booster options as we often give lifts to other kids and I bought a very narrow (but cheap and basic one) from amazon. Front seats reserved for adults, though if only 1 adult then 1 of the kids will be up front

That pic above is helpful to check where the seat belt is sitting. The problem is getting their hands down in between the seats to reach the seat belts. I had 4 kids in the car on the way back from cubs yesterday, my son and 3 others. The 3 others were in boosters in the back and I had to do their belts for them as they couldn’t reach down.

It’s an e class merc estate, it’s not as wide as a people carrier but it’s not small either. I am doing everything I can to avoid getting a people carrier!

This is how we did it when we had 3 booster seats. I used short extenders which didn’t reach past the edge of the seats.

Not on facebook so can’t look at that group

Ah, ok. I see this place recommended a lot on the Facebook group

https://incarsafetycentre.co.uk/

Worth dropping an email to ask what they recommend? With seat belts being such a critical thing, I’d seriously not recommend buying x product to combine with y and using it because it looks like it works ok.

Thanks, that’s a good link. I’ve just spent 10 min on the phone to understand a bit more.

I’ve now discovered seatbelt buckle crunch

I couldn’t get a rear facing child seat to fit in the front of my t5. I looked at extenders but I was told by several retailers, halfords, mothercare etc not to use them as they are designed to be held at the buckle, low down, not 3 inches higher. It put me off.

Way back when I did my child seat fitting course with Britax they didn’t recommend extenders to be used with their seats.