# Anyone ever installed a baby car seat or seat for there Baby/Toddler on Tractor



## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

I know you guys are probably thinking really... im a one man operation when it cones to small square bales 5k to 6k a year. I'm trying to keep up now that im a dad. Its been tough balancing. My daughter just turned a year old and loves being on tractors. Theres has been a lot telling me she is to young, but its not like im goinvto have her with me on hills or stuff like that. Ive been considering buying a used baby bike seat and bolting it fast inside the cab of my oliver and having her wear ear plugs. Anyone ever dovthis for there kids or am i just rushing things/off the wall thinking this is ok? Thanks all


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

My bother's son was in the combine, at about one year. The MF410 had a 2'square behind the seat he a carrier of some sort and he would ride along and sleep back there most of the day he was a lot of fun for everyone


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## SVFHAY (Dec 5, 2008)

I had a car seat bolted in a 6410 Deere cab. The girls rode some but don't seem to have any fond memories. Lot of things to watch, I had to keep track of drinks, gummy worms and so on. No one ever had to bribe me to ride when I was a kid but mine never looked forward to it. My wife was never really crazy about it so that didn't help any.

On a 6420 that had a factory training seat my youngest got her arm caught between the door glass and door handle twice in the same field. Both times I had to stop and loosen hardware to free her.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

I grew up riding on open deck cotton pickers-- heck I had the job of crawling under the thing to clean the back doors out and pulling tie vines off the snouts in weedy fields. With cabs on tractors nowdays it's a lot cleaner and safer.

If you're going to take a kiddo along, make sure that safety is absolutely job one. I wouldn't even consider taking a kid that little on an open-station tractor-- yeah, you might have a seat bolted down, but bolts can work loose or break or other unforeseen stuff, and there's no "backup" like there is inside a cab. Too much dust, heat, and noise on an open deck as well IMHO. Earplugs cut down the noise (which should already be safely tolerable inside a cab) but they don't eliminate it and can be uncomfortable and troublesome to keep in kid's ears, plus they're more vulnerable to hearing damage at younger ages (IIRC). I'd say unless you're running a cab tractor, forget it til their older. Even then, I would only allow them to ride doing certain jobs (not shredding or mowing or disking or baling-- anything that could result in flying debris or requires your undivided attention).

Even in a cab, they need to be "belted in" to some kind of buddy seat or whatever. From a rollover standpoint, the driver is technically supposed to be seatbelted in to prevent being ejected in a tractor rollover. Those windows are the first thing to go, and anything tumbling around loose in there (including the driver and/or kids) can fall out the window hole and be crushed as the tractor rolls over). Yeah, I know it's probably a very remote possibility, BUT, it CAN and DOES happen... better safe than sorry! Again, for certain jobs, like mowing or baling that basically requires your undivided attention (and mowing can result in thrown objects from disk mower bars possibly shattering the glass and flying through the cab-- again rare but NOT unheard of!) I'd leave the kiddos at home.

The other issue is, when you inevitably have to stop and get out of the tractor to fix something, make an adjustment, etc, BE AWARE that leaving a kiddo in the cab is a RISK! Kid's love to "imitate dad" and may start moving the levers or pushing buttons at just the wrong time, with possibly catastrophic and tragic results. I know even as a bus driver I had that happen one time-- we were required to "walk kids across the road" on main highways for kids that lived on the left side of the road from the buses' direction of travel, and one morning while walking across in front of the bus to get the kid from the mother who'd escorted her to the middle of the road, I heard my air brakes being "fanned" (someone stomped the brake pedal). I rapidly glanced over my shoulder into the windshield and saw a kid dart back into his seat, so know who did it. Despite the bus being in neutral (bus automatic transmissions don't have a "park" slot) and the spring brakes set (park knob pulled out) I read the kid the riot act, because we were parked on a slight incline back down to the bridge over the creek, occasionally with other cars pulled up behind the stopped bus. I told the kid that if he moved the wrong lever or pushed the wrong button, he could have either run over us or turned the bus loose to roll back and crash into cars behind it, or roll back down the incline and off the bridge into the creek. OF course I wrote the kid up when I got to school and he was kicked off the bus for the rest of the year. Fortunately nothing bad happened. Others haven't been so lucky-- a friend of my Grandpa used to get out of his pickup with it idling to open the gate into his pasture, and one time the dog knocked the thing into gear-- the truck ran him down and hung up on top of him, and cooked him to death under the muffler. If a kid left in a cab were to pull the powershift lever or pop the tractor in gear, or raise or lower the hydraulics or shift the PTO in gear while you had your hands in the machine or were up under it, it would be a VERY bad day! I wouldn't consider getting out of a tractor with a kid left in the cab without turning the engine off and having the key in my hand-- just not worth the risk.

I'm all for kids doing stuff on the farm and being involved, but we have to make sure that THEY stay safe and don't get hurt, and that they can't inadvertantly hurt us or anything else. (and it's not just kids-- my BIL's Dad, who just turned 90, nearly ran me over with a gravity box while I was reaching up inside the open door, scraping down piles of wet corn from the corners with a 2x4... He climbed in the cab to pull the tractor up to unload the rear wagon, WHILE I WAS STILL NOT FINISHED WITH THE FIRST ONE! I instantly jumped rearward out of the gravity box door when I felt the powershift pop into gear, and started hollering at him, but he had driven over the corner of the swing-away auger and nearly upended the swing-away and cleaner before he realized he had screwed up! Gotta watch some of these old timers just as close as little kids-- they really want to help and be involved, but there comes a time when they just don't think as clearly or appreciate the dangers like they should-- one day I was running corn screenings from the cleaner up to the barn alley to spread it out to dry on the floor, and when I started back to the cleaner, I saw Grandpa fiddling about with a roller chain driving the auger and cleaner screen, turning at full speed! I held my breath hoping he wouldn't get his hand pulled into the chain before I got back down to the bin!) There's a LOT to be said about "age appropriate" activities!!!

Just remember to THINK SAFETY and "don't rule anything out"-- even stuff that seems highly improbable or unlikely, usually have consequences too terrible to contemplate. I've seen, heard, and read about too many accidents that were, tragically, for the most part, preventable. I read about a guy combining somewhere a year or two ago who had the kiddo in the cab with him-- the kid liked to lean up against the sloped combine cab front glass and look down into the header, and the glass popped out or broke, and the child fell into the header, and was killed before he could get the machine stopped. Another friend of my Dad's knew a neighbor whose little boy fell off the tractor while riding with him and went under the Bush Hog before he could get it stopped and was of course killed. Just don't take ANYTHING for granted!!!!

Later and good luck! OL J R


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

Be careful a neighbor had children and youth come out because somebody seen one of the kids riding in a cab tractor . My kids are on the tractors all the time just never out by the street.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Make like UPS and shut the tractor/bus off anytime you get out/off. Which personally on the part of UPS I think is asinine, I'm standing right there, hand me the package and motor on. FedEx is almost as asinine, can only deliver to the house instead of the shop.


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## Blue Duck (Jun 4, 2009)

When my son was about one I took him out in the tractor and combine with me. Both had good sealing cabs and was not very loud. I used an infant car seat until he was way to big for it because it had a handle and a detachable base. The base stayed in the cab and all I had to do if I needed to make a fast exit is grab the handle and pull a latch. My biggest fear of having him with me was if I had a fire.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Last year I could tuck both the 2 year old and 4 year old behind the seat in my CIH 5120 cab tractor. They are getting a little too big this year..


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## TJH (Mar 23, 2014)

Be careful that some dope not minding their own business doesn't see you and turn you in. With your daughter one year old you could be in a world of hurt. It's a different world now.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

My son rode in car seat strapped into jump seat for a couple of years, he would usually fall asleep right away.

This other method didn't work as well:


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## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

Thats exactly what my daughter likes to do. Climb on the steering wheel haha. Unfortunately i dont haveva completely enclosed cab, no doors on or back window. I cant afford a nice quiet cab tractor.


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

Never had the pleasure of having a son, but I did manage to get four daughters (2, 8,9,10 now). Some days I have to watch the 2 year old and it sure would be nice to have a seat. I thought about bolting on a seat as well, but never did it...just to many unknowns. The safest thing the tractor companies did was put in a buddy seat; we were doing it anyway so they minds well provide one.

My daughter quite comfortable on our old chopper.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Both my sons have been in a car seat in the tractor. I never strapped the seat to the tractor though. Even the training seats aren't set up to safely buckle in the car seat. They just aren't big enough. It seems to me with our tractors that its safer just to have the car seat on the floor then using the trainer seatbelt. I tried that and the car seat was very tipsy. All our tractors have cabs and I never have taken them where the field is that bumpy. We also don't have any hills that would cause a tractor to tip. As my oldest has grown he still rides, but enjoys the trainers seat for awhile, but then usually ends up sitting on the floor. In the hay swather he usually lays on the floor and takes a nap. When I was a kid the swathers were pretty interesting to watch. With the reel and the auger pulling in the hay. Now with the disc swather it's not nearly as interesting. Newer tractors are fairly safe to have older kids riding. With all the safety features. But still it's best to shut off the tractor or simply take it out of gear as well as a parking brake. If the kid knows how to put it in gear and operate a clutch it's time to have the kid drive.


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## bluefarmer (Oct 10, 2010)

I know this is kind of getting off Topic,But when I started riding it was backwards on a B John Deere square Seat. While grandpa was raking hay. It had That support right in the center that I would straddle. And then I would sit on a square Fender 2010 while he was cutting hay.


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

When I was a kid I would ride on top of the fuel tank on our old Ford 900. I was just thin enough to fit down in the compartment with the tin work open and it was a really safe spot. (You would have to know the tractor model to know what I am talking about).


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

When I was a kid my 5th grade school teacher told my mother I was a good kid but that I had a lot of fantasies. My mom exclaimed that I was almost honest to a fault and that was when my teacher said, "Well he talks about driving a bulldozer all the time." And my Mom was like..."He does!"

We always cut wood here and so we had a John Deere 1010 and I would drive it from the woods out to the yard, take off the trees and drive it back. That was all I did, but then again it was a bulldozer. They move at a whopping 4 mph and any kid can pull back on both steering levers and stop it.

(As for fantasies, well I still have a few about about Tiffany Amber Thieseen, but that might be off-topic!)


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## central va farmer (Feb 14, 2015)

When I was a baby dad and my granddad bolted a bass boat seat to the fender of a ford 5200 (5000 rowcrop) and would tie me in with a old belt. I had the best sun tan of any baby around lol. When I was born dad bought a new 8600 ford and he said the main reason was for the big platform so I could stand and ride behind the seat. They would probably lock you up now for that.
We still have both tractors 
I'm wondering what I will do as my wife and I are due to have a little boy June 20th. We have cab tractors now but really nowhere for a car seat to go, the only buddy seat we have is in swather.


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

There really is a deeper issue here and that is what does a farmer do today where expenses are high, day care is even higher and yet children are a part of farm life? Like many have suggested, in years past we rode around as kids, but today liability and child endangerment laws are getting strict.

It is a tough nut to crack because even my own darling wife who is a stay-at-home mom sometimes has a hard time understanding that this is my job. Don't get the wrong impression, I am a good Dad and do a lot of things with my family, but at the same time my farm-time gets taken up by watching my 2 year limiting what I can do. It can be frustrating for both of us; her struggling to do things with 4 daughters and me wishing I could get more done if I was not watching them.


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

By the Way: Some people say that children are the future of a farm, but that is so, so, so wrong. Children are part of the farm *RIGHT NOW*! I know farming is not the iconic picnics in the back forty and petting zoo often depicted; it is full of stress, worry and plenty of busted knuckles, HOWEVER, while children do not need to be on a farm for it to be a farm, if they are on one, they are a huge part of it.


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