Ds escaping from child car seat HELP

[Outnumberedwoman]

Hi. My son is 5. He is awaiting ASD assessment and displays challenging behaviour and is particularly delayed in speech. He attends special school.

Just recently he has discovered how to escape from his car seat. He has done it in our car and also hos grandparents car. It is not safe to take him out alone anymore. DH or I now sit in the back between him and his NT older brother to prevent escaping. This is obviously not a viable long term solution. I was wondering if any of you could suggest anything? He is still using the 5 point seat belt of his car seat as we havent transitioned to high back booster and 3 point belt yet.

You can get alarms that go around the straps, maybe the noise would be something he doesn’t like, and stop the behaviour?

Otherwise, is he big enough to transfer into a high back booster? I found the tummy button just encouraged fidgets, whereas the side was out of sight. A distraction (tablet) might help too?

Just throwing ideas out, one of mine did the same but different issues behind it. Hope you get something sorted soon.

You want a crelling harness, I think it was £150 or something like that. Phone the lady at crelling and she’ll tell you some stories from parents lol!

I had the exact problem with ds (he actually got in the front and grabbed my wheel and took us up onto the path and I had to emergency stop)

He can’t get out of his seat now. I’ve had the harness nearly 2 years and it’s one of the most useful things we bought.

The harness is 5 point but it is a steel buckle which is difficult to open / shut for a child and then your normal seat belt goes over the top and for added security we have a belt lock we got from amazon (little red box that goes over the belt thing, what’s it called? The red thing on your car seat which you put the car belt into? Too early for me!) the harness also comes with a Houdini clip which is to go across the chest.

Have a look on the crelling website.

Ds doesn’t even try to get out of my car now (he does in his dads as he doesn’t have the harness so if we go out in dh car I have to sit in the back with ds but he goes in it that rarely it’s expensive to buy another harness if you get me) but it solved the issues in my car.

Also can tighten the straps so they have absolutely no wriggle room to manoeuvre out iyswim.

When my DS was doing the same thing (and still in the 5 point car seat) we purchased a clip of the web. It clipped the two breast straps together (so several inches up from the steel buckle in the middle) and the gap was no longer there for DS to wriggle out of.
If however it is your intention to soon move him from this seat - you are probably best with the harness suggestion.

I would second the crelling harness suggestion. They’re expensive but definitely worth it. We have one that can be used with a high back booster and also once he’s grown out of that on a normal car seat, so will last a long time.

Definitely a crelling harness. Keeps my 9 year old dd secure and means I can drive safely!! Best thing I’ve ever bought!

Hi, I had the same problem with my child! I looked online to see if there was any way to stop it and I found this car seat attachment on Amazon called Houdinistop. It's supposed to stop the child from escaping. It worked perfectly