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Home › Articles › Baby Gear › Car Seat Confinement

Car Seat Confinement

How Long Is Too Long in a Car Seat?

By Lisa A. Goldstein

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There's something about car seats that makes many babies happy – so happy that they're left there for long periods of time. In addition to running errands, parents have been known to confine Baby to the car seat while making dinner, eating at a restaurant or even watching television. But does this hinder development?

Conducive to Sleep
"I do think utilizing the car seat has become an easy way to not only transport but contain a baby to make life easier," says Debbie Thompson, a neonatal specialist at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. "Many parents have a great deal of things imposing on their time during the day, and keeping the baby in the car seat makes things easier and transitions from car to home to appointments easier. But I think we need to look at how [that affects] a baby's development and interaction with parents and the world."

Babies do like it in their car seats when it enables them to look around and have access to toys and mobiles in front of them when they are at a young age, Thompson says. Their alertness and need for interaction are greater than their motor skills, she adds. There is no harm in having your baby sit for 30 minutes in his car seat interacting with family or developmentally appropriate toys. However, "being placed in a car seat for extended periods of time will limit or replace tummy time, family interaction and parent holding," Thompson says. "These are all things the infant needs to have routinely in his schedule to thrive."

Sometimes babies just sleep better in the car seat. Hayden Goldsamt of Gaithersburg, Md., is one of them. He won't sleep in his crib during the day. His mother, Stacey, has to put him in his car seat, drive around and/or walk to get him to fall asleep. She then leaves him in the car seat but won't do so for more than three-hour stretches. If they're home and he's still asleep, she unbuckles him. After all, Goldsamt says, "babies like being upright and the young ones don't mind being confined since they were for nine months prior."


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