As parents, we want to do everything that we possibly can to keep our little ones safe and happy. Sometimes, we may just need a little bit of help along the way to know the right thing to do.
One of the things we tend to do if we live in a colder weather area is to bundle our kids up before taking them out in the winter. This is an act of love but it can actually be dangerous for the child if are not careful.
If you tend to put your child in the warmest coat that you can possibly find, it is not only a danger in some cases, it could even be fatal! The reason why this is the case is because of the seatbelts in the car.
When you put a seatbelt over a large, bulky coat, they are actually a lot looser than you imagine. It may appear as if the child is strapped in safely but in an accident, the coat would quickly crumble and allow them to slip out from inside of the belt.
That is clearly seen in a crash test dummy that was shown in an automobile accident that was simulated at 30 mountain hour. The straps looked good at first, but when you see what happens in the video, you will quickly understand how dangerous it can be.
One of the seat experts had this to say: “Without adjusting the harness and doing the buckle back up, you can see how much movement there is in those straps and how much slack there in fact still is.
“Now if they wear a winter coat in a car seat and the car is involved in a crash, all the padding in the coat will be compressed and effectively this is how loose the straps are and the child could be ejected from the seat.”
In other words, you are a parent, remove the bulky coat before you strap them in the car. Otherwise, you could be potentially hurting your child with kindness.