luvmy2babies
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2010
I'm taking my family down in October and it's our first time bringing a toddler. My youngest will be 14 months at time of travel. At first, I was going to have him be a lap baby but then I thought I might prefer him to have his own seat so that we won't have a stranger sitting with us. That's when I saw that the FAA approves of the CARES restraint. However, after posting on a local moms buy/sell/trade FB page, I was informed that my son would actually be better off in a rear-facing car seat and that the CARES restraint is not a good choice. I've seen pictures online of toddlers using them on planes and it just seems so much simpler than lugging a big car seat along with all of our other stuff, especially when we'll be using Disney buses/taxis for the whole trip. Can anyone help me decide which way to go? I don't see what the big deal is if I use the CARES, it's a 2.5 hr flight down and back (leaving from PA). The person who gave me the info seemed very knowledgeable on the subject, but I would like to know what kinds of experiences other families may have had using the restraint vs. a car seat...Thanks in advance!
As to our experience car seat vs harness I loved having the harness. Now that being said, I travel alone with two children so naturally I’m going to prefer carrying the harness to lugging a car seat and dealing with two children. Then there’s the fact that the harness could be used on the middle seat as opposed to the car seat which has to go by the window. For us it meant my older child could finally get the window seat and I got out of the middle to the aisle seat. Plus I didn’t have to constantly remind my son to keep his feet down so he wouldn’t kick the seat in front of him. He wasn't kicking, just likes to swing his legs sometimes.
At 14 months though your child may be two small for the harness. You'll need to double check. There’s a minimum height and weight and though I can’t recall what it is, my son didn’t reach it until he was 2. We used his car seat on his two flights prior to that. Got on early with ECBI with Southwest and went to the back of the plane so I could get it hooked in without too many people around.
A note on the installation, you move the tray table before putting the harness around the seat. We got on early because I had done ECBI and no one was there when I got on; so I just moved the tray and put it back after I had the strap where I wanted it. The harness does not fasten the person’s tray to your child’s seat. When it was time to undo it, I just let the person know I was going to move his tray for a moment and he actually helped me slide it off.