To say no to dh taking one child

[Pikehau]

My DH wants to take the three children away next weekend to see his grandmother who is 90 and has dementia. Children are 2.5,5,7.5.

I initially agreed as I couldn't go due to prior commitments I had in for 2 months. And no I dont want to change. Eg he is not changing a night out in 2 weeks.

Anyway 2.5 year old can get out of Houdini clip and car buckle. And want to climb into front seat.

I stop repeatedly on residential roads on way to nursery and back. Last weekend I took them all to a local party and it was really distracting even driving in a 20 zone and pulling over.

I am now so worried about the 3.5hr trip on motorway with only dh driving and other 2 children in the car.

I said tonight no cant take ds just the other 2. I cant trust ds in the car. Now I am sobbing as DH is giving me the could shoulder clearly annoyed and all I can think of is how by sticking up for the safety of my children I feel like I am in the wrong.

I know I am not. I feel sick at the thought. But maybe I am being unreasonable but I cant get past it.

Dont understand why he cant go in Jan when we have a free weekend and I can sit in back with ds.

I also dont understand why DH just cant talk about things. He just shuts down every conversation like this. I do wonder if one day it will all bubble up. Another issue and off topic. But because of this reaction it took a lot for me to say that to him but I cant trust our son in the car so have to say it. Am I really so unreasonable?

@Brandaris

The just tell them no brigade is really pretty funny. If only all parents were as perfect as they are then there would be no problems with tantrums, no terrible twos, no threenagers... after all, you just have to say no! But in the real world they’ve probably been exceptionally lucky with their children and have no imagination to think that maybe others are different, and have no compassion or emotional intelligence to think maybe telling the struggling parent they just need to say no more firmly is both unhelpful and unkind.

I'm not trying to be unkind to parents who are struggling. I was actually trying to be helpful in my original comment.

None of my 5 children really had tantrums or terrible twos or were threenagers. And the two teenagers I have now are very good kids. At the slightest hint of a tantrum I'd distract them, always carry around a bag of toys/fruit etc, tell them they'd get to go to the park/soft play if they behaved nicely, use rewards/consequences.

When my 16 year old daughter was 2 I took her to the Chinese takeaway across the road from our house. She was bored, didn't want to sit down, keep still, she kept opening and closing the door to hear the bell jingle. I told her to sit quietly or I'd cancel her chicken balls she'd been looking forward to all day. She didn't, instead she started to have a tantrum. Our order was ready a second later, so I told her to stop or I'd bin her chicken balls as soon as we got home. She didn't. I binned her chicken balls. And told her to go to bed. (I did get her up later and make her a boring cheese sandwich.) The point is she never had another tantrum, because from a very young age she knew she had to behave. I can't think of a time any of my other children had a proper tantrum. I've always diffused the situation somehow. Maybe the chicken balls tale filtered down to them. Maybe I have just been very lucky with my children.

But I haven't just been lucky with the thousands of children I've taught over the last 20 years.

There are techniques and there is a tone of voice and if you get it right it does work. It's not just me, there are others on this thread who do it. Maybe look up techniques and tone on Google/YouTube, because it makes parenting a lot easier and more enjoyable. Anyway this is getting really off topic now.

OP, get a different car seat or some other restraint like a rein harness or use tone/techniques /rewards/consequences. But you can't go on car journeys regardless of how long or short they are with an unrestrained toddler. The consequences to that could be fatal.

@Pikehau

Just been to the shopping centre and seen this (see photo) in the Boots Black Friday Deals. If your car seat has D rings, 'rings' in the shape of Ds on either side of the seat, you can attach the harness part to it to them. A 2.5 year old will not be able to undo it. My 2.5 year old used to have this when he was starting to walk outside in public. He couldn't undo it. My teenagers couldn't undo it! I, age 42, struggled to undo it! You really need thumbs of superhuman strength!

@Brandaris

I'm really not a perfect parent and my children are not perfect. My 2.5 year old nearly had a tantrum in the shopping centre today. He saw all the Christmas sweets out on display in Wilkinsons and started to whine that he wanted sweeties. I said, "No sweeties, but we'll go to tesco & I'll buy you a big, red, juicy apple, IF you don't whine." (He loves apples.) He stopped whining. He got an apple. (If he hadn't stopped whining, he wouldn't have got sweeties or an apple and he would have been in bed when we got home if he'd have had a tantrum in public. But he behaved, because he knows he's expected to behave and he wouldn't have got anything he wanted if he hadn't.)

I don't know if it's still on TV, but Supernanny used to be on W. She's got the tone, the look, good techniques and consequences. Personally I've never used the naughty step. I just send my kids to bed for while, as I think it's more private and they can compose themselves in private. You can definitely buy Supernanny books on Amazon though, I've seen them in the Black Friday Deals too.

... forgot to attach the attachment!

You can't use walking reins in a car seat.
There are only a few products which are tested and approved for use in car seats.
The Besafe Belt Collector and the Five Point Plus.

Crelling harness
Expensive but works
For all ages

@Mjlp - you really would have had no such luck with my DC!
On the whole they behaved wonderfully at school - but children do respond better to teachers and other "strangers" than their parents.

To be honest on the whole my children didn't have tantrums but meltdowns - because it wasn't so much them trying to get their own way as being utterly overloaded and unable to cope. And whilst it would be pretty easy to remove them from a small takeaway - it is a different thing when you are on the far side of a huge hypermarket. (I actually would tend to move them to one side and sit quietly "ignoring them" until they recovered, but it was harder with more than 1.)

And the one of my children for whom a sharp "No" was all that was needed from a very young age - was the same one who teachers struggled with at school. As she cared what I thought but not really so much teachers. She was later diagnosed with ASD.

@Mollybutton

I disagree. I think I would've been able to control your DC.

@Namechange30

I also disagree.

You can't use walking reins in a car seat. There are only a few products which are tested and approved for use in car seats.

I don't mean use the walking rein part. I mean use the harness part. Even if you disagree with that, in my opinion it would be preferable to having a toddler loose. That's been tested and is it definitely not approved of. Sudden breaking/shunting from behind/another vehicle crashing into the side/etc could all result in the toddler being sent flying straight through the windscreen/window.

How do you propose to attach the harness to the car seat then?

Are you an expert in car seat safety design as well as parenting and teaching?

Loop the ends of the harness around the D rings - if it has D rings. I've said that 3 times now. That's what D rings are for. That's what harnesses are for. I don't have the box anymore, but it said it could be used for extra security with car seats, high chairs, pushchairs etc. That's why reins and harnesses always come with those two little extra bits, so you can harness your child to something else besides the reins. I remember it had instructions and pictures how to loop it into anything else with D rings.

And I expect you've done the crash test yourself, too

Nobody has done a crash 'test' themselves on any product

Unless they've been in a genuine crash.

My mother was in a crash because of another driver simply being distracted. She was paralysed. She would have died if she hadn't been wearing a seat belt. In the event of a child not keeping their car seat straps on, anything to keep them attached to their seat is preferable to them being loose in my opinion.

Bollocks poppinjay. You can’t always pull over safely at any given point in a journey.

Bollocks yourself.

There's a world of difference between driving short distances on ordinary roads and driving on a motorway in these circumstances.

Lots of parents have a period when their child is getting out of their car seat and have to pull over regularly to put them back.

I don't recall any parent asking for help with this on MN being told stop using their car.

The OP needs to address her DC's behaviour in the car and, in the meantime, is quite right to insist that her DH doesn't undertake a motorway journey with another adult present.

Sorry if this has already been suggested, but I would get a seat with an impact shield. They are much less escapable and while they may be not as safe as other car seats, they are a hell of a lot safer than no car seat at all.

Modern car seats are extremely easy for any 2yo to escape unfortunately. There has been a change in buckle design from one you press in to one you push down and the push down is much easier for them to access and apply the required force. Good for the adult operating the seat, bad for keeping children in them.

Also there is a fault with the design of a 5pt harness which means children can simply suck in their tummies in to create a gap to get their arms out. It's a known thing, older britax manuals used to have a disclaimer about it.

If your child hasn't done this it is merely because they have not thought to try, perhaps they are happy enough in the car seat and have never thought to try and get out. But many do.

Poppinjay are you the OP?

Because you seem very enthusiastic to defend driving on a regular basis with a child whose behaviour is endangering themself and others.

Driving on a motorway would be dangerous.
Driving anywhere is dangerous.

Most accidents happen on what you term ‘normal’ roads. Accidents which cause fatalities or serious injury occur on ten minute regular runs, particularly at peak times such as the school or nursery run. The OP admits she is distracted and can’t give her full attention to the road when her child is in the car. It’s appalling that she continues to drive in these circumstances. She clearly doesn’t give a shit about pedestrians and other roads users. And saying ‘oh well I can just pull over and tell him off’ is fuck all good if another driver shunts then in traffic.

The OP needs to wake up and realise how insane this situation is

Car seats do not have d rings. High chairs, pushchairs, trolley seats etc do - car seats I not. This is because they are designed not only to contain the child while the adult drives or be a comfortable place for them in the car but because they act as the child's seatbelt in the event of a collision. There is no way you should be attaching extra harnesses to them. Car seat harnesses are highly regulated and crash tested, reins are not.

I'm sure some do. I'm sure we used to have one that did. None of the ones we have now do though. Which is why I said 'if'. Maybe they don't make them with D rings nowadays. I have never needed to use anything extra with a car seat because my children all know they have to keep their straps on. If they didn't though and the car seat did have D rings I would attach another harness to it, because it's better than the child being loose, as it wouldn't matter how highly regulated and crash tested the original car seat harness was if the child wasn't even in it, it would be useless.

The OP needs to wake up and realise how insane this situation is

I shall look forward to seeing you on all future threads where people ask for advice on keeping children in car seats, instructing them to stop taking their child in the car immediately and calling them insane for having ever driven with toddler who could get out when they shouldn't.

BertieBotts is a car seat expert but guess what, Mjlp is absolutely sure she knows better - there's a surprise

Yes because MN is full of threads from people thinking it’s acceptable to drive while being distracted by a child who undoes their safety belt (while also telling their partner they mustn’t). Not.

Haha, I wouldn't quite call myself an expert, more enthusiast (yes, I am a bit of a weirdo) - expert comes later when I get a job in the industry, which is my aim.

I am 100% sure the current specification for car seats though absolutely does not have any provision for D rings allowing for an extra harness to be added, and that has been in place since the early 80s. It's possible that older car seats did have them, but they would have had to have been really, really old.

I can see an argument for wrapping a reins harness around the child and then threading the car seat's harness through this before doing it up. I wouldn't advise it, but I've seen it advised on MN before, especially when DS1 was little so going back 10 years or so. I don't think this would affect the workings of the car seat as long as the car seat harness is properly done up and it may act as a deterrent. But I can't see any car seat manufacturer encouraging parents to do this (by including D-rings or any other method) because the temptation would be to think that if the child did manage to undo their straps, but they didn't fully come off because they were tangled in the reins, that the child is still somewhat safe and this wouldn't be correct. Reins have to have a certain strength to meet British Standards, but this is more to prevent them from breaking if a child falls over or bolts, they definitely wouldn't stand up to crash forces which are many times stronger.

One solution advocated in the US is to put a button up shirt on the child, undone, and then button it over the buckle so that they can't reach it. I think it probably works better for the getting the arms under the straps escape method.

Driving on a motorway would be dangerous.
Driving anywhere is dangerous
Now now, surely there's no need for common sense.
Haven't you heard, it's absolutely unreasonable in every way to expect people to have appropriately fitted and safe car seats for their children?

@AnotherEmma

My opinion is my opinion.

I've seen how restraints can save someone's life, so I think that IF it's possible to fit some kind of restraint, it would be better than none. IF it's not possible, a different car seat, which is harder to undo, could be a solution. Although, if I child figures out how to undo one, they may well be able to undo others. Or use rewards/consequences to keep the child strapped in.

Presumably you're arguing with me and laughing because you disagree & would just let your child be loose & risk them dying. Great parenting 👏

If your DS wants in the front is putting the chair in the front seat with the airbags off an option? Means your DH could keep a closer eye on him too

@AnotherEmma

Wow lol and you've shown what you are now you've resorted to name calling 😂