Before deciding whether your child is ready to move on from a car seat to a booster, it helps to understand the difference between the two. Car seats use a five-point harness to restrain the child. A booster seat adjusts the position of the vehicle’s seat belt to fit safely across the child’s torso and legs as a restraint.
Booster Seat Readiness
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids use a car seat until they reach the maximum height or weight for that five-point harness, which is often older than many parents assume. Usually, kids aren’t ready to transition to a booster until at least age four, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Three-year-olds are not ready to ride in a booster seat, even if they fit within the manufacturer’s height and weight guidelines. After the age of 4, if you can safely keep your child in a harnessed car seat for a while longer, do it. Research shows that kids are typically safer in car seats than in boosters. To sit in a booster seat, children should:
Be mature enough to sit properly in the booster for the entire trip (no slouching, no leaning over, no messing with or unbuckling the seat belt)Have exceeded the height or weight limits on their harnessed car seatIdeally, be at least age 4 or older
Many convertible and harness-to-booster car seats have harnesses rated to hold kids up to 65 pounds. In fact, children in the U.S. today can often stay in a harnessed car seat until age six or beyond. Thanks to advances in car seat safety technologies, four-year-olds that might have been moved into a booster 10 years ago can still safely ride in a rear-facing car seat. Even fairly tall children can remain rear-facing through toddler years and then switch to a forward-facing harness until kindergarten age. For most kids, even those in the 95th percentile for weight or height, there shouldn’t be a necessity to move to a booster before age 4.
Should You Wait to Switch?
If you can wait to switch you should, as kids are safer in 5-point harness car seats than in boosters. The truth is that any step up in car seats—from rear-facing to forward-facing, from the harness to booster—is actually a step down in safety. The 5-point harness spreads crash forces over more points on a child’s body, lessening the potential force any one part of the body must take in a crash. While some high-back booster seats have a minimum weight of 30 pounds, kids should weigh at least 40 pounds before riding in any booster seat. From a practical standpoint, it is easier to have the child sit properly when in a car seat than in a booster, which is important because it keeps kids safely contained and limits distraction to the driver. In a booster, the child can unbuckle themselves more easily. They can also lean and slouch, which is dangerous. They can’t do that in a car seat when the 5-point harness is properly adjusted. Many parents find that their child is actually much older than four before they can be expected to sit still in a booster. If your vehicle has lap-only seatbelts in the rear seats, keep your child in a harnessed car seat as long as possible. Harnessed seats can be installed with a lap-only belt. Booster seats absolutely must be used with a lap/shoulder belt. Extended harnessing, or using a harnessed car seat with a higher weight limit, is vastly preferable safety-wise to moving a child into a lap-only seatbelt with a booster. If you have a pre-2008 vehicle with a lap-only belt in the center, it is important to know that car seats can safely go there but boosters and big kids should not. Boosters and big kids need the protection of a shoulder belt. Therefore, if you need to have a kid ride in the center, make sure to use a car seat with a 5-point harness there.
Determining Car Seat Fit
If you think your child is outgrowing their harnessed car seat, first be sure that you’re checking the right signs to judge the fit. Most children outgrow harnessed car seats by height long before they outgrow by weight, particularly with the 65-pound seats. When your child is forward-facing, the harness slots should be at or above the child’s shoulders. When the shoulders are above the top slots, it’s time to change seats. A forward-facing car seat is also outgrown by height when the tops of the child’s ears reach the top of the car seat shell unless the manufacturer states otherwise in the instructions. When checking the weight limits of the car seat, be sure you’re looking at the forward-facing harness weight limit, not the booster weight limit (if it is a harness-to-booster seat). There are many harness-to-booster car seats available today with a higher harness limit that later become booster seats. These can be a good option because they allow you to avoid buying another car seat and then a booster. Look for a car seat with a higher harnessed weight limit and a higher top shoulder strap height. This will allow the seat to be used longer in car seat mode (and likely, but not always, in booster mode, too). The range of car seats available today means no family should struggle to find even a budget model that allows their child to remain safely harnessed to a minimum of age five, and most likely far beyond that.
