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?

Binning the chicken balls seems a bit harsh!

It worked. I made her a sandwich later. She didn't go hungy. She learnt to behave properly. That was her one and only tantrum. She's now a model 16 year old.

" IF it's possible to fit some kind of restraint, it would be better than none."

This is a misconception in a car unfortunately. It would be like saying well if you can't use a seatbelt, just tie a dressing gown cord over yourself, that will be OK - common sense tells you it definitely wouldn't. But the same applies to any other method of securing a child in a car seat other than the one it was designed with and supplied with.

Car seat harnesses are tested to many many times the maximum weight load to ensure that they will hold firm even in high speed crashes. Something like a set of reins just is not designed to hold that amount of weight. The clips holding it into the rings would snap, so it's not true in a car crash situation that any restraint is better than none - the proper car seat or seatbelt restraint is the only thing suitable. Any other type of restraint is equivalent to none. In fact a partial restraint can be worse (for example, a child with their arms out of a correctly fitted/fastened 5 point harness, or a child in a lap only belt or too-young child in a seatbelt) as these place such severe stress on the internal organs they can cause internal bleeding and death.

If you are interested here are a couple of crash tests showing - a typical baby sling (as sometimes suggested as a makeshift restraint for use in a taxi) and a "fake car seat" often found sold on ebay, amazon, aliexpress originating in Asian countries with no car seat laws. These products consist of the kind of safety harness you would typically find in a high chair or child's toy - very similar to a reins harness - simply strapped to the car seat itself.

See in both of these tests that the child may as well be completely unrestrained for the protection that the products offer them. If your child does not remain harnessed in a car seat, you need to either find a way to prevent them from releasing the harness (behavioural or product based, it doesn't really matter as long as it works) or buy another seat which is more difficult to release. Using other products either to secure the harness if it has been undone or to restrain the child entirely is not better than nothing - it is equivalent to nothing.

It's a good job my children stay in their seats & I've never needed to do it then.

Yep :) just looking to correct misinformation really.

As additional info perhaps for OP or anyone else experiencing the problem, it might be useful to know there are two types of car seat harness release button generally used in the UK at the moment. This is a poll from a car seat safety Facebook site and the names are the ones they have attached for the purpose of the poll, not official industry standards or anything. Anyway it seems most manufacturers have changed from type b to type a in their newer models as type a is easier to open, but of course if it's easier for an adult it's also easier for a child. The poll was asking which model a child had escaped. So I'd say if you have this issue with type a, try looking for a type b kind of harness Button, but if you already have type b, it's probably worth getting the product that velcro covers over the button or changing to an impact shield car seat.