As a former tech, my training always leans on following the manufacturer’s guidelines. The fit of the harness may be compromised by a child that is taller than the limit that was set. One of the criticisms of the CARES harness is the low weight and height limit.
I definitely was the “crazy” one back when the kids were younger. That was part of the reason I took the class and became certified just before my now 19yo turned two! I stopped volunteering when my kids were well into their teens. I didn’t have as much time w/ a full time job and running around w/ all of their activities.
I do think timing is key. The one ride we weren’t’ successful at obtaining was right around 5:00 - rush hour? Other rides were during the day but mid-morning or mid-afternoon. We did have to wait but it felt like a normal Uber/Lyft wait.
Someone came to the desk at BW at around 10:00 while I was there, looking for help getting a ride back to their car. They’d been planning on taking the boat back to HS, because they thought it would make the full circle since Epcot was still open and the desk people were talking to each other about how you can’t get taxis to pick up at all right now, and Uber and Lyft are just as bad.
My mother drove me crazy about turning my son around too. She had him telling me he could watch videos in her car when his seat is turned. I finally turned him about a month ago, 4 months before he turns 4. I regretted it though- I thought he was about to reach the weight max but I later figured out he’d just had a growth spurt and is now holding steady several pounds under the max.
Are you my sister?! My son/mom said basically the same thing. Then I popped that bubble and made it clear to both of them that there would be no watching videos in the car regardless!
This thread had me thinking about when my niece (who is now 36) was a toddler. My then step-mom thought we were so cruel to make her ride in a car seat for long rides. It was inhumane! I tried to explain that she was used to it - hadn’t known anything else! But she just thought it was awful.
Generational differences are interesting. When I was a kid (as with most here), we stopped riding in car seats at maybe age 4. No boosters, no nothing. We sat in the front seat. I wouldn’t have been caught dead in a car seat pulling up to 4th grade. In fact, I literally would have been murdered.
But nowadays, that’s the standard. All the kids are in boosters until maybe middle school. I’m glad the kids mostly take it in stride, but it’s surprising nonetheless.
I think my girls were in boosters until middle school, but they are/were very small. None of their friends were and DD21 coerced me into agreeing she didn’t need the booster when her friends were in the car (no room, she said). The one that gets me today is the rear-facing for so long. I don’t know how the tall kids do it!
From 2001 to 2007 when my kids were rear facing, all the height and weight limits were really low. Infant seats maxed out at around 22lbs, the convertibles had 33-35lb rear facing limits, and every forward facing seat (except one) had a 40lb limit.
Both kids hit height or weight limits just after their second birthdays. My older one was skinny and tall so when she outgrew her forward facing harness by height at 3yo we spent $$$$$ for the only seat that had higher weight/height limits. My ILs thought we were crazy for spending that much on a seat, but there was no way I was putting her in a booster seat at 3yo! The second seat w/ higher forward facing limits came out in 2007 right as my second needed to be turned around, and was thankfully half the price of the seat we had to buy for his sister!
It sounds really young by today’s standards that they started forward facing at 2yo, but in fact I was the “crazy safety mom” because everyone turned their children on their first birthdays back then. It was seen as a milestone, and I was definitely a freak for not doing the same.
I can’t tell you how gratifying it is for me to see how much more seriously child passenger safety is taken today than 20 years ago. Thank you all for being awesome!
My older one was still in a harnessed seat in kindergarten when most of her peers weren’t even using booster seats anymore. I picked her up from after school care one day and one of her friends (also a kindergartener) jumped into the front seat of their family minivan and the van pulled away w/o her having a seat belt on.
My daughter turned to me and asked, “Why doesn’t XXX’s mom love her enough to have her ride in a car seat?”
We had a long talk on the way home about how other people make different decisions and to not ask XXX that question because it may make her feel sad.
I think my younger daughter was a little older than 12 months because she was so small, but we ended up turning her around when her pediatrician said it was okay due to her age even though she didn’t meet the weight requirement. She turned 1 in 2003. Things have definitely changed!
I’ve been following this thread and thinking how happy I am to be past the car seat life. Not to diminish anyone else’s real struggle with meeting regulations while traveling. I feel the pain. I’m think this is why we mainly drove across county instead of flying. Also there was the high cost of flying a large family.
Reserve a car now, one with a flexible cancellation policy and then you can cancel closer to? I’ve heard the buses are really crowded these days too, but that is likely to change as restrictions ease.
Buses are NOT crowded. But that sometimes means the wait is longer. The inside the bus experience is far and away a million times better than pre-Covid
I wonder when that shift took place, because the culture was the same around us back in 2014. Everyone seemed to think I was nuts for keeping our very tall DS rear facing until he was 2. (And we probably would have kept him RF longer but his DS was about to be born and my tiny car didn’t have room for 2 RF seats in the back and my tall self in the front.)
What is considered normal these days in the US for going from RF to FF?
ETA - And airlines are waaaaay behind the times. I had DD in an FAA approved car seat when she was about 2, and a flight attendant wouldn’t allow me to install it RF in a plane. I explained and illustrated how it was dangerous to install such carseats FF without a tether (which no airplane has) and how it could result in brain injury during a crash, and showed that DD fell within the height and weight limits for RF, but the attendant wouldn’t have it. She threatened to throw us off the plane. We ended up installing it FF for the very first time on the plane, but I was not happy.
I think with airplanes, crashes are so exceedingly rare (and if there was one, it’s even more rare that anyone would survive on impact) that the only reason you need a seatbelt is to hold you in place during severe turbulence. Having a car seat would basically be beneficial for a crash during an aborted take off or overshoot on the runway when landing, etc. Which is fine if a parent wants to do that (especially if you already have your car seat with you for your destination), but it’s kind of like … wearing a helmet when you’re walking your bike. Yes, you might get hit with a brick falling from a construction site or trip and land on you head. But those aren’t really the circumstances a helmet was intended for.
So anyway, I think it’s reasonable that airlines don’t require / have car seats.
I finally turned him about a month ago, 4 months before he turns 4. I regretted it though- I thought he was about to reach the weight max but I later figured out he’d just had a growth spurt and is now holding steady several pounds under the max.
She turned 1 in 2003. Things have definitely changed!
how happy I am to be past the car seat life. Not to diminish anyone else’s real struggle with meeting regulations while traveling. I feel the pain. I’m think this is why we mainly drove across county instead of flying. Also there was the high cost of flying a large family.