Why You Should Never Dress Your Child in a Bulky Winter Coat for Car Rides
Tips for keeping your little one warm and safe
We bundle up our children to help them brave the elements, but a bulky coat and a car seat can be a dangerous combination.
There are ways to safely transport children in child car seats while still keeping them warm all winter long. Here are some tips from the experts at CR’s Auto Test Center.
As a general rule, winter coats should not be worn underneath a car seat harness because that can leave the harness too loose to be effective in a crash. Here’s a simple way to check whether your child’s coat is too big to wear underneath a harness:
CR recently spoke with NPR’s Morning Edition about the dangers of winter coats and car seats.
How to Bundle Up Safely
If you find your child’s coat can’t be safely worn under the harness, here are a couple of things you can do:
- For smaller children, put a blanket over them to keep them warm.
- Only use aftermarket covers, essentially fitted blankets, designed to give additional warmth that are approved by the car seat manufacturer for your specific model. Such covers have been tested with the seat and won’t compromise your child’s safety.
- For a bigger child, after securing them in the car seat, turn the coat around and put it on backward (with arms through the armholes), so the back of the coat serves as a blanket resting on top of the harness.
One of the most common problems with a child’s car seat is that the harness is left too loose, and wearing a big winter coat can be just one of the causes.
It’s important that the harness is tight enough so that you can’t pinch the webbing between your thumb and forefinger. Extra slack in the harness can let the child move to the point where they’re beyond the protection of the car seat, perhaps even being ejected during a crash.
