Car seat for nursery trip

[DarkDarkNight]

I just got a letter about two trips for my 3 year old. What is the done thing regarding car seats? I wouldn't let him go if they say there won't be seats unless we could meet them there.

He is 12.5 kg and his seat (Britain Dualfix) is isofix only and too bulky to move around. The only other seat I have is a Klippan Triofix but he's not old enough to use it as a high back booster.

[Andbabymakesthree]

If you have ability to do so I'd take him there myself. My daughter ERF til recently and that's what we did.

[dementedpixie]

Are they going by coach? They don't normally need them and a lot of coaches wouldn't be able to accommodate them anyway and would just use the seatbelt

[DarkDarkNight]

I don't drive so it would have to be a lift off my parents, which is doable. I'm not sure if coach or mini bus, but he can't just use a seatbelt. I can see how lots of people taking a seat would be awkward but I couldn't let him just sit on the seat.

[dementedpixie]

You wouldn't take a car seat on a normal bus though so why would the coach be any different ?

[Soubriquet]

I did actually take a car seat on a coach

But it was for my my 18 month old and was for me to be able to get him to sit still long enough.
Not a safety thing

[JennyOnAPlate]

What does he sit on when you take him on public transport?

[helpfulperson]

Because seatbelts are positioned differently on a coach or minibus using carseats can be actively dangerous at worse and not usable at best. Car Crashes are totally different from Coach Crashes in terms of impact etc and the issues with using an adult belt in a car don't exist in a coach, Unless the other vehicle is also a coach or an HGV a coach is unlikely to be badly damaged.

[AliceMum09]

My daughter's Pre-School arranged a trip in June involving a 45 minute coach journey, half of it on the motorway. I drove her there myself, and met the coach there when it arrived. She travels in a rear facing seat in our car, so just the fact that she would be forward facing was a problem for me, never mind the 'seatbelt and no child seat' issue!

She'd been 4 a couple of months earlier, but is a very petite build and only weighed 14kgs (just) at that point. If she'd been an 'average' 4 year old, and therefore heavy enough for a high backed booster, I would have taken my chances and put her on our Trunki Boostapac backless booster on the coach, at least that would have positioned the seatbelt correctly over her.

There is no way a 3 year old should be using a seatbelt alone, how is a coach seatbelt any different from a car one? If the lap part of the belt is up over the child's abdomen (rather than low on their pelvis/thighs like it should be) then that child is going to be at risk of internal injury in a crash. Our daughter is at school now and at the beginning of December they are going on a trip on a coach, but it's only to the woods about a mile away. I've not decided what I'm doing about that trip yet, it depends whether she's hit 15kgs or not!

We rarely use public transport buses, why would we when it would cost us £9.20 for us all to do a 3 mile round trip into the city centre! Parking the car for a couple of hours costs about 1/3 of that!