Head falling forward in carseats?

Lately I have noticed that both DCs heads fall forward in their carseats when they fall asleep. DD is usually worse and her head will be almost completely over with her chin way down. Today they were both very tired on our way home from having lunch with friends and they were both hanging over. The carseat straps are adjusted correctly and I tried stopping and putting their heads back up. They have good head control except when they sleep I guess. It worries me though because if we are in a car accident, their heads would snap back up and would really hurt them. What can I do though?

 

Do your carseats have a little level on the side? If they are positioned right, their heads shouldn't do that. I'm not sure if this is the "right" thing to do to remedy the situation, but I had to roll up a towel and put it in the crack of the seat, so that the seat would sit flat.

 

I would double check the recline position and/or otherwise check the Babycenter Car Safety Board. Sometimes a pool noodle (they say pool noodles are better than towels) can help with a little recline too.

 

I have this problem w/ my DD, but her head is falling more to one side rather than forward.

I usually will roll up a burp cloth or rec. blanket and stick it on the side where she is falling to, my car seat also has a head support that I need to adjust too.

Depending on how long I am planning on being in the car; if my trip is short I don't worry about it too much, but
if I am going to be over 20-25 minutes then I will pullover and adjust her as it looks terribly uncomfortable.

 

Maya, especially, seems to do this when she is tired. We were driving for about 30 minutes the other day and she fell asleep (after her screamfest since she hates her car seat, it seams), and her head was just dropped down and she looked terribly uncomfortable. Everytime I tried to move her head back up, she dropped it down again. Since she wasn't blue or anything, we just left it. Everything is adjusted correctly on the car seats, I think it's just when they go to sleep like that, they lose muscle control.

We have this pillow that goes under their chins, (kinda like a neck pillow for the airplane, but it goes in front), but they don't like it.

Erica.

 

I checked the seats today and they are level so I guess it is just the babies. My friend said her DD does this too. It usually is more to the side and that makes them able to lean it even farther down. DD does it more than DS. It just scares me that they do it. No matter how many times I adjust them, they drop it back down. I try to keep them awake in the car by talking to them or singing but it doesn't work. Hopefully they will grow out of it.

 

My DH who is an police officer and is trained to install car seats said that if you must you can use a pool noodle to help with the head leaning down while sleeping. If you have the bases to the seat just slide it under the base and you never have to worry about it again or just slide it under the seat if you have no base.

And while we are one this topic, please don't place the toys that attach to the car seat there while you are driving. Don't use the mirrors that allow you to see your child in the backseat. DH won't allow anything like that around the kids while driving. If you get into a wreck at say 60 MPH then that little mirror can slam into the babies at the force of about 60 lbs I believe. I tried to block it out so I will have to ask him again what the math is exactly.