Now that the cold weather is here, safety experts have a reminder for parents.
We bundle up our kids before leaving the house, however, experts say a bulky coat and a car seat can be a dangerous combination.
Experts recommend children not wearing their winter coats under the car seat harnesses.
Authorities said that is because all the fabric can make the harness too loose to be effective in an accident.
Consumer Reports offers a simple way to check if your child’s coat is too big to wear under a harness.
Here are some of the tips from Consumer Reports:
- Put the coat on your child, sit them in the child seat and fasten the harness.
Tighten the harness until you can no longer pinch any of the harness webbing with your thumb and forefinger
- Without loosening the harness, remove your child from the child seat
- Take the coat off, put your child back in the child seat and buckle the harness straps, which are still adjusted as they were when he was wearing the coat
- If you can now pinch the webbing between your thumb and forefinger, then the coat is too bulky to be worn under the harness
To read more, check out this alert from ConsumerReports.org.
Source: WHNT
