Yes, Your Kids Can Sleep in Their Car Seats, but Only When Traveling

A child’s car seat is not one of those products, Consumer Reports warns. Misleading marketing and a lack of proper education on the matter may have prompted you to assume it was, but it’s not. Moreover, letting a child sleep in the car seat when he or she is not actually traveling by car is putting his or her life at risk. Cutting corners is not worth a kid’s life.

Presumably, all parents / drivers know how important it is to follow the instructions by the letter when it comes to children’s car seats. A child car seat only works as it’s meant to if, a. it’s installed properly, b. it’s used according to the child’s age and height, and c. it’s replaced after an accident. Not buying second-hand car seats and doing proper maintenance on the one you have are also points worth considering. After all – and this can’t be stressed enough – your kid’s life is not a gamble you should take.

Apparently, there’s another issue with children’s car seats, one that could result as problematic as that of not installing it correctly inside the vehicle: sleeping in it. Many parents, CR says, assume that, if the car seat is ok for the kid to nap while on the road, it’s just as good for extended periods. This applies especially in the case of models destined for small babies, carriers that can be fitted to a stroller.

Parents use them for sleeping even when not attached to strollers, inside the house, placing them on countertops or on the bed or the table, for fear moving the baby would wake him or her up. Some even use it during the first days of starting on solid foods, on the grounds that the kid is already used to them.

Shocking as it may seem, though it shouldn’t, car seats are not an all-encompassing solution. They’re designed to keep the child safe, so using it for any other purpose could result in harm to the child. This also applies to long-term sleeping, because the body is inclined at an angle, which may cause the head to tilt forward and compress the airways.

As Emily A. Thomas, Ph.D., automotive safety engineer at CR’s Auto Test Center, specialist in pediatric injury biomechanics and a certified child passenger safety technician, puts it: over short distances, sleeping in a child car seat has more benefits than risks. But it still shouldn’t be done for longer stretches.

“Infant car seats have been designed and tested not only to protect your baby in a collision but also to ensure that if your baby does fall asleep in the seat, the risks of slumping down, chin to chest and blocking airflow, are low,” Thomas explains. “Still, car seats aren’t appropriate for extended, unobserved sleep.”

Perhaps just as importantly, if a child falls asleep in their car seat, while traveling, the parent can keep an eye on them. If they do so while at home, the parent may be more prone to slack on surveillance, on the grounds that they’re sleeping, so what harm could possibly come to them.

Children’s car seats were designed to be used under constant parent supervision: while the risk of suffocation on the road is small, it exists and can only be made null by a parent’s watchful eye. Moving a car seat out of the car and indoors also changes the angle of the incline, to a degree where it may put the child at a higher risk of suffocation.

In addition to those few, essential steps to make sure your child is safe when traveling in his car seat, you can now add another one: remove the child as soon as you can once the drive is over. Even if they’re asleep, risk waking them up to transfer them to a crib, bassinet or bed, instead of letting them sleep as they are, indoors.

“Once you remove the car seat from the car or stroller base, and it is not being used the way it was originally designed, the risk of respiratory issues and other problems increase,” Ben Hoffman, M.D., chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention Executive Committee, says.

Children’s car seats are a significant investment, so it’s understandable why parents would want to make the most of that money. Child-rearing is an expensive enterprise as is, so once you get started on it, you’re bound to end up trying to cut at least some costs. But a car seat is not the place to start, so don’t let your kid sleep in it for extended periods.