Booster Seats

Minnesota passed a new law this summer that required children 8 and under to be seated in a booster seat.

This week The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety came out with new ratings for booster seats. They state that only one in four seats gets a good, or best bet rating. You can see the article here.

Now Ella is still in her convertible seat. It's actually the same seat the Sam has too. She will be outgrowing it in the near future so we'll need to get her a booster seat. I already have the seat picked out and it's on their good list.

The reason I wanted to comment on all this booster seat stuff is because there's something that I feel was important that just wasn't mentioned in the article. The 5-point harness. Ella is still in her convertible so she has her 5-point harness. She "technically" could have been in a booster seat about a year and a half ago, but I didn't think that was necessary. There are numerous studies done that show a 5-point harness is so much safer for children than a booster with seat belt.

Years ago they didn't have the 5-point harness available to the older children like they do today, but nowadays they are making seats that will accommodate much older children in the 5-point harness. The seat I will be getting Ella next is the Britax Frontier which has the 5-point harness and then converts to a booster seat. So she will probably still be in her 5-point harness for a few more years to come.

I just feel that there are too many parents out there so eager to have their children in a booster seat for whatever reason (it's easier) that they aren't always considering the safety of the seat.

It was just interesting to me that they are saying these booster seats just aren't safe enough when they don't even mention the fact that a lot of these children still belong in a 5-point harness belt. That would be the much safer option for these children. I mean if they're trying to get parents to buy a safe seat why wouldn't you mention this much safer option?