over a bloody booster seat 🥵

Having worked in several emergency depts and intensive care units over the years, car seat safety is really important to me. Whilst I was relaxed about many things over things in my girls’ childhoods, being in a high backed car seat was non-negotiable and when driving their friends to parties, as a responsible driver, they sat in them too! My kids still have friends and haven’t been psychologically damaged!

You’re not being unreasonable at all, definitely safety first.
Hardly surprising that the majority disagree however - they’ll be the same parents who give their kids unlimited screen time, have a smartphone before it’s necessary/healthy, take them to McDonalds countless times a week. Anything for an easy life eh?!

Most of the rules about child seats, boosters, ages, etc are essentially arbitrary. In some EU countries the height limit is 135cm, in others it's 150. In some it's done by age or weight. In Luxembourg it's illegal for anyone under 17 to ride in the front seat of a car. There is in fact an EU Directive on this, but countries are free (imagine that!) to pass stricter rules than the EU minimum, and most have done so.

There is no scientific evidence establishing that children who are 134.9cm tall have hugely better outcomes with a booster and those who are 135.1cm have hugely better outcomes without one. It's just a way of establishing objective rules that the police can enforce when people are taking the piss and going out with five kids on the back seat. The police have the discretion not to force your child who is belted in without a booster to get out to be measured at the roadside in case they are just under 135cm, and fortunately they exercise this discretion in pretty much every case.

One reason why there is no such evidence is that there really aren't all that many accidents in which children are badly hurt, due to the amazing safety features of modern cars. Your DD making a single two-hour return journey with her seat belt 10cm higher relative to her body than usual is an absolutely homeopathic level of extra risk. At a population level the difference between 130 and 135cm maybe saves one neck injury per year. The simple fact of allowing her to go on the trip is several hundred times more dangerous than making her take the booster. We are all safety-first, but we don't have to be safety-safety-safety and nothing else. Otherwise we would never leave the house (which is of course itself a risk factor for early death).

Doesn’t sound like being with these friends brings her much joy!
Do you ever take the piss out of the mean girls or sort of slag them off a bit at home? I do this sometimes to take the shine off them for my kids…. Sort of make them realise that actually these mean people have feet of clay. Like if she’d said “Leanne says I’m a baby for being in a car seat” I’d say “well tbh Leanne’s an annoying twat so I’m not surprised her mum doesn’t care about her safety and tbh she needs to watch out calling other people babies after she pooed herself in the pool in year 3”. It’s all done tongue in cheek and it creates a sort of secret giggliness between my kids and me about anyone mean and often steers them away after a while. I sort of help to give them the ick with their “friend”, or in most cases, gives them confidence when someone is picking on them a bit.

No doubt this is a horrible parenting strategy and I may get a pile on but I don’t know, it works for us.

Yabu. Poor kid. She'll be mocked.

YY obviously it's a generalisation, and there will be parents who have actually looked up the law.

But you can see a lot in this thread have the attitude that 9 is "ridiculous" for a car seat, which they perhaps would not think if they were aware of the law.

My DC was in HBB much closer to 150cm than 135cm, in the same way we choose cars that have high safety ratings, why wouldn't you?

For those saying this child would die of shame on a booster seat if they were 8yo and 134cm, have you ever driven in Europe, would you break the laws there, where they have higher height restriction?

I’m surprised at these replies. Mine was in a HBB until the end of primary school, as were many of her friends. As others have pointed out, 135cm is quite a low minimum. Many other European countries have 150. Safety is more important than embarrassment.

Unclench

Glad you relented on this OP. I imagine given some of the silly and pious nature of car seat groups on Facebook etc you expected everyone to say you were doing exactly the right thing and use it as a chance for them to all polish their halos on perfect parenting advice- in fact, never mind a car seat- why isn’t she rear facing? Lol. But it takes a lot to back down and you don’t often see posters doing this on AIBU.

Given that the height requirement varies so much from country to country, the evidence on safety and need for booster seats is clearly not all that great.

I know OP backed down, but the facts are that this is so variable that it is a meaningless thing when people choose to keep clutching their pearls saying 'will no one think of the children'.

I don't understand all the responses on here telling the OP just to "let it go, it's only a few cm". If someone had posted on here that a grandparent had driven a 4 year old 100m down a private road without a car seat there would be an immediate call to never ever let grandparent near child again.

The truth is that booster seat rules are there for a reason, and as others have said, it's the car driver who will get fined/points if they get stopped by police or worse. Where I live, the rule is the child has to be at least 140cm tall to not use a booster. My 12 year old son is 147cm tall, and to be honest he looks very low in the backseat of the car, and the seat belt is very high across his chest without a booster seat. This is in a totally standard family car.

What I don't understand is that your DD had been 'shouting and sobbing on and off since 7am' about your decision , yet within 10 minutes of starting this thread, you changed you mind due to strangers' comments.

So if you were 166cm everything would be hunkydory?!!! Bonkers.

I thought "Sges" was a new mumsnet acronym until I realized she meant "She" 😂

You can't blame me, I just came from a thread where the poster was using "DL for Dear Labrador" 😂

My kids will be in booster seats till they’re 12. Just cos it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s the safest option.

Probably unless you are the driver and have a car that allows you to adjust the seat up and down as well as back and forth.

Cars are designed with men in mind using the average male height as a guide which is 176cm.

The average height for a woman is 163cm and even then the seat belt can hurt women's necks in many cars because it is positioned for a much taller person.

Glad you've posted, Bertie, you are so knowledgable about car seats.

FWIW I'm 40 and I have done my research (though not as extensively as you!) ever since my oldest was born 8.5 years ago.

how is prioritising her child’s safety ‘precious’?

a) she’s too short and the driver has the responsibility of ensuring she is in the correct seat
b) poor daughter? Or what a lucky girl to have a mum that cares so much.

If something was to happen she would never forgive herself.

Same here.

I know a lot of shorter women who use booster seats as otherwise the seat belt rubs against their neck non-stop and also they would not be high up enough to see over the bonnet to drive safely. Some women use a well-packed cushion to not use a booster seat but the problem is at the design level which uses the average male height and build as the guide.

In more recently built cars the driver seat can be adjusted up and down as well as nearer /further from the pedals.

Are you joking? Or an idiot?