For All Those Escape Artists

A couple of weeks ago we found out that while Aaden was in his car seat he would slide his buckle down and wiggle his arms out of the straps. There was nothing I could do to keep him in his car seat safely. We tightened the straps, I scolded him, I tried to reward him, but the fun of becoming Houdini was much more exciting.

So I went online to find out if there was any solution, any gadget I could buy or quick fix I could do. After about 5 hours of scouring the internet all I found was a whole lot of parents that had the same problem, other parents scolding them for not being better parents, and not a lot of help.

What I did find was a lot of reccomendations to switch out my buckle to a more child proof one, but at the time Aaden wasn't unbuckling the buckle he was just sliding it down (a different story now). The buckle they recommended I change to is this one (Link to Amazon) . I also found a website (unfortunately I couldn't find it again) that sold these little gadget that you clip onto the strap so that if your child does open the buckle the straps still stay were they need to and your kid doesn't get out.  But, they charged $19.99 per fancy clip plus shipping costs and I took one look at it and realized I could make the exact same thing for under $10.

At first I found this at Walmart:

Mitten clips. They were on sale for only $2 since they are out of season. And it worked great till Aaden figured out how to open the clip. So I bought suspenders that had a smaller clip that he couldn't open and  made my own.

Here is mine:

I cut and hand stitched the strap together. I'm not trying to go for fancy or make more to sell, just trying to get something to work to keep my son strapped in. So far it has worked, but that's just for quick around town drives. I'm curious how it will do keeping him secure in his seat on a long drive. Once we go on one I will let you know. OR! if you make your own and test it out, PLEASE let me know how it works for you.

I first put the clip under the buckle because he hadn't figured out how to undo it yet, he just knew how to slide it down and wiggle his arms out

Now, Aaden knows how to unbuckle the buckle so I moved the clip above the buckle so even if he gets it open the straps stay where they are at and he stays safe.

I know in these last 2 pictures his buckle is too low but I just put him in the seat so I could take the pictures. You can tell he was so happy about it :)