The minute my sons stepped on the scale at the pediatrician’s office and the number read 40, I knew the time had come. They’d outgrown the car seats we’d used for roughly their whole lives, and I had to figure out the seemingly complicated new world of booster seats. Now, as a few booster seat companies—most notably Evenflo—have found themselves in the news for being unsafe, it’s time for consumers to reexamine car seat choices once again, as they transition from baby seats to boosters in those first several years.
The car seat terminology is enough to make a new parent’s head spin, but it really breaks down to three basic types of seats: infant, harness, and booster seats.
A booster seat is designed to boost your child’s height so that the seat belt fits properly and safely.
Infant car seats, also called pumpkin seats, are often purchased as part of a “travel system,” including a base, car seat, and stroller that all work together. Infant car seats are rear-facing only. Then, around age one (give or take), you find your baby outgrowing the pumpkin seat. Usually they outgrow their infant seats in height before weight, and you’ll know if your child’s head is closer than an inch from the top of the carriage. But changing seats earlier, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), isn’t a bad idea. By then, they’re ready for a toddler “harness” seat, sometimes called a convertible car seat. These seats are so named because they face backward for younger children and then convert to sit forward after age two (though some safety advocates push for parents to wait even longer to turn their children around). A five-point harness secures the child at the shoulders, hips, and crotch.
Then, when your child hits 40 pounds, they are technically able to switch to a booster seat. A booster seat is designed to boost your child’s height so that the seat belt fits properly and safely.
Still other parents opt to skip the pumpkin seat stage entirely and buy a single “forever” seat or “all in one” seat, which they can use from infancy through the child’s time in a booster seat, as it converts. The upside is having to purchase only one seat, and the downside is that you can’t remove your sleeping infant in the pumpkin seat to transfer him or her to a stroller, because those car seats stay put and are not really transportable. Another downside is the all-in-one may not fit the child quite as well at different stages, because an infant and an eight-year-old are quite different sizes.
So even though experts recommend waiting longer than the 40-pound mark, some car seat companies are heading in the other direction—but with frightening results.
Although 40 pounds is the magic number, some experts recommend waiting as long as possible—sometimes to age six or seven—to make the switch to a booster, because the five-point harness is simply more secure. The NHTSA clearly outlines the rules and recommendations for each seat style and when it should be used, and also recommends a solid rule of thumb for any car seat change: “To maximize safety, keep your child in the car seat for as long as possible, as long as the child fits within the manufacturer’s height and weight requirements.”
However, even at 40 pounds, a child may not be mature enough to switch to a booster. Booster seats allow for more side-to-side movement, and if a child is messing around (like leaning sideways to reach their Hulk toy, which I’ve never experienced, of course), they are in danger because the seat might tip over. For me, a solid “You’re going back to your baby seat for a while” suffices to stop the dangerous play, but it technically means my child isn’t mature enough yet. Still, for me, the booster is the right choice: My kids are too big to stay in the harness seat, and the ease of moving between seats for three kids won out.
Evenflo notwithstanding, using booster seats improves safety, and an older child can and should remain in a booster as long as possible.
So even though experts recommend waiting longer than the 40-pound mark, some car seat companies are heading in the other direction—but with frightening results. The Evenflo Big Kid booster has come under fire recently because the company recommends kids can start using it at 30 pounds, not 40. In addition, the company claimed to have tested the side impact in a potential accident, but as a viral video shows, it’s nowhere near safe for a child of that size. Evenflo, according to independent news investigator ProPublica, declared that in a T-bone-style collision, a child may be thrown out of their shoulder belts. The article said, “Evenflo’s top booster seat engineer would later admit in a deposition if real children moved that way, they could suffer catastrophic head, neck and spinal injuries—or die.” Yet, Evenflo proceeded to approve the seat because its standards were so low (the only way to fail Evenflo’s safety test is if the child ended up on the floor or if the seat broke). While most seat companies stick with the 40-pound recommendation already, other seat companies that had 30-pound minimums have responded favorably when they were called out; for instance, Graco raised its weight recommendation for a booster seat to 40 pounds.
Evenflo notwithstanding, using booster seats improves safety, and an older child can and should remain in a booster as long as possible. Eventually, peer pressure from friends and carpool rides may take over, but an 8–12-year-old can still use a booster until they’ve grown out of it. Parents will know when this happens based on the fit of the seat belt: “For a seat belt to fit properly the lap belt must lie snugly across the upper thighs, not the stomach. The shoulder belt should lie snugly across the shoulder and chest and not cross the neck or face,” NHTSA says. Yes, that means you may have a preteen in a booster, and they will survive (literally and figuratively).
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