Child escaped car seat…referral to social services

[A2010]

My 2 year old daughter absolutely hates sitting in her car seat and escapes literally every 30 seconds.

My husband took her out today when she escaped her car seat and climbed in to the passenger seat. He should have stopped but he told me because he was nearly there he didn’t. Which has absolutely infuriated me😭

Anyway, someone has obviously reported all this and the police pulled him over. He’s not been fined or anything like that, they just gave him a lecture but also said it was being logged with social services??

Does anyone know what will happen next, I’m absolutely beside myself.

Buy a pair of padded mitts,gaffa tape them onto her wrists. I doubt she could undo catches then.

This is not considered safe anymore. If something happens like a big crash or a fire, you won't be able to get her out quickly.

Are we also taking the passenger seat as in the front seat? I'm finding it hard to understand how a baby can clamber over the the front a)easily or b) quickly. I reckon she was already there.

@A2010 kids can be a nightmare in the car. Although yes your husband should have pulled over and put your daughter back in the seat, perhaps it wasn't 100% safe to do so. I doubt you'll hear much about it, and if you do I don't think it will go very far. Try not to worry yourself too much.

Yes, the Cybex Pallas ones as a couple of people have linked to are a good option, if you've adjusted the straps correctly AND the anti escape devices you've ordered don't work AND behaviour management isn't effective.

This is a good price and you should be able to trial it in store. The i-size version is worth having, as they have tightened up the rules for these in the newer regulation. https://www.johnlewis.com/cybex-pallas-g-i-size-car-seat-moon-black/p6387664?irclickid=WzIxT5Uk3xyPRxwW6uTkeXNXUkHxGHwMPV-rXc0&irgwc=1&tmcampid=99&s_afcid=af_4838889_&tgclid=0f01002f-7016-4534-a900-12316590914a

There is also a super duper one with an airbag in it which is meant to be extra safe, but it is also a lot more expensive.

I’m close to buying the Cybex Pallas, but does anyone that has this car seat know how easy it is for them to wriggle out of it?

@A2010 There’s a few car seat safety groups on FB, usually run by independent car seat specialists (e.g. Car Seat Safety UK/ERF Car Seat Safety) who can do fit checks if you post a photo (assuming you’re still rear facing at age 2). Advice can be very straight to the point but if there’s an issue with the fit which is encouraging the escapes, it might be worth a try before a new car seat is in order.

@RockahulaRocks she is still rear facing, and I’ve just joined the groups thank you :)

The bumper bar ones.

It’s impossible.

They are fast. It’s horrific.

Is that not standard in UK car seats? They all have to have a chest clip here.

My son used to do this at about 2.5 too, it was horrendous. He was rear facing too…to be honest the only thing that stopped it was turning him front facing…I was adamant prior to this that he would be RF until 4 as it’s so much safer, however I also figured that I was much less likely to crash if I wasn’t distracted by constantly watching the rear view mirror checking that he wasn’t trying to climb Out of his seat

@waterdusky she wasn’t already there, because I strapped her in to her car seat before they left.

She knows what she’s doing is wrong, because she’s quiet and sneaky whilst she’s escaping. Sometimes we don’t realise until her leg is climbing over in to the front passenger seat.

You can buy a £10 adjustment strap from Amazon, which makes it impossible for her to do this- buy it now. Why didn’t he pull over?

You can take her into John Lewis and try the seat out there before you buy it to see if she can escape. If she does escape this type you need to speak to the In Car Safety Centre as they have solutions for children with special needs, and have seen every situation you could imagine.

I remember some years ago on MN somebody said that their extreme escapee child could escape this type of seat - this was an older style that used the seatbelt to secure the shield. The child would basically wedge their elbow behind the shield and then work it very slowly to inch the seatbelt through without engaging the emergency lock, until it was loose enough that they can wiggle out. I've never seen ANYBODY else say this, this was literally one person - and I have read almost all the car seat threads on MN in probably the last 10 years (yes, I'm very fun at parties) and a lot in various other places too - including various different FB groups. This type of seat was very popular from about 2008-2013, so a lot of posts about it. There is a post about a child escaping a 5 point harness roughly once every other week, with many respondents saying they have experienced the same. I've only ever seen that one comment about a child escaping an impact shield. (I would believe that more than one child has ever worked this out, but just to illustrate that it must be far far less common even though these seats were at some point in fairly common use).

In theory, the Pallas G (which is the one I linked) should not have this problem anyway, because rather than the seatbelt, the shield has a belt on it which clicks into two buckle receivers on the seat. The belt is locked, unlike a seatbelt.

However, it does look from photos as though the child might be able to reach these buckle receivers while sitting in the seat. So if she is liable to figure out how to release the shield by opening the buckle, that could be a problem. This might be worth testing in the shop - it might be that a 2 year old could not reach them, but an older child of 3/4 with longer arms and sitting higher in the seat may be more able to reach them, but hopefully by that point she will have better safety awareness, better response to discipline, or might have just forgotten about the desire to escape the car seat (which may have become a game).

I had one of the older seatbelt type (which are still sold) for my eldest who is now a teenager. He could not physically reach the seatbelt buckle when the shield was on, because the shield was too bulky. So only the elbow loosening method would work for the seatbelt fixed shield seats. All the other Cybex Pallas seats apart from the G i-size have the seatbelt fixing rather than the strap attached to the shield.

The car seat groups on FB are very anti shield seats. You will get good advice on keeping her RF there but you won't normally get any useful advice relating to the different options of FF.

It's true that they are less safe than rear facing. But they are definitely safer than being unrestrained. Most of the FB groups are of the opinion that FF before 4 is a total death trap, this is overblown. Yes rear facing is safest, but FF is also OK if it's the solution that keeps them harnessed.

Good luck! :)

So she's escaping again less than a minute after your back is turned? I don't think you can safely take her in the car again until this is sorted.

The chest strap restraints like Houdini clip are unsafe and illegal!!

https://5pointplus.com/chest-clips-on-child-car-seats/

https://www.mummypages.co.uk/car-seat-safety-five-point-harness-and-the-chest-clip#:~:text=However%2C%20according%20to%20Maxi%2DCosi,the%20event%20of%20an%20accident.

I had a houdini too, car seats, push chairs, high chairs. She was a devil for getting her arms out of the straps. We switched to the cybex seat. She hated it but she never escaped it.
(She's nearly 15 now so survived the new seat!)

I feel I’m getting nowhere, people are advising one thing, and then others are advising against it 😫

What happens when she escapes? Do you tell her off? I know she's only 2, but you say she's aware it's wrong?

Ds is 2 and he can escape the harness in his pram and car seat.
I've stopped taking out in a car for his own safety and have him walking instead of his pram.

I was extremely stern with my children when they did this - I think it was mostly DC2! - you need to scare the shit out of them so they don't do it!!

How is she escaping? I have the Axkid Minikid and a toddler wouldn't have the strength to press the metal buckle. If the straps are properly tightened I don't think they could get out as the head support comes down to their shoulders and the harness is tight.

@Seaside3 she gets a telling off every time, sometimes to the point I’ve screamed and shouted at her. It doesn’t bother her.

She will bow her head and sometimes pout her lip if she’s been told but it doesn’t stop her from escaping.