To be honest, the prospect of being written up is not really a very potent threat to a F/A. I heard it 10,000 times at work. They threatened to write the CEO if they didn't get their meal choice...
What I recommend is, like the pp did, before things get heated,
ask for the purser. Sometimes it helps just to talk to a new face, and usually the purser is more experienced than whomever you were talking with in the first place. I did this when my seat was taken away on Lufthansa. Didn't do me much good but at least it made my point. Oh, and by the way, I used a similar line "You're forcing my child to fly unsafely..." and the purser
agreed but said his hands were tied by the rules. I DID write the company but they never responded.
Perhaps it did some good (and/or I wasn't the only one since they're code shared with UA) because now, Lufty accepts FAA approved seats. On my last flight, they decided to check the labeling during boarding. I'm all "Thanks a lot!" After a lot of fuss, and I
never do this, I said "I'm a former Flight Attendant and you
bet I have a seat that's FAA approved!" Couldn't they have done that earlier??
All F/A's have to have their manuals with them. Good work asking for it in print. They don't have to memorize all the information but it's right there in writing. Ask for it. Like I said, I think the CARES harness is being mistaken for the Baby B'Air which is banned by some airlines and can't be used for take-off and landing by any. Now
we think it's miles apart but to a non-parent 20 something F/A, we shouldn't expect them to know the difference...
Often yes, the new hire F/A's are often better informed that the more veteran F/A's because they have just been through training. Our recurrent was every 6 months but it's easy to miss new information.
I wouldn't accuse them of "making stuff up" but just confusing the rules. I think she was told way back whenever that the Baby B'Air is banned and years later, sees another contraption and confuses the two. My airline hired a lot of people from other companies, some foreign. I found some of my new coworkers, which I appreciated having new-hires who knew better what they were doing in the aisles, often would mix up the rules. I found one French coworker telling a passenger to remove a baby from a car seat for take-off!
So always;
1. Get the F/A's name
2. Ask for the purser
3. Ask for the rule to be clarified in print (ask them to find their manual).
Bringing printed material yourself is a good idea. There's a picture of the CARES harness right there on the FAA website;
http://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/crs/
P.S. I recommend sending complaints on old fashioned paper with a stamp. Emails sent from the airlines' websites can't be saved so if you opt for that, send from your personal account instead OR copy the text and back it up with a paper copy sent in the mail. You actually could do a combination of the above. I couldn't retrieve my Lufthansa letter since I sent it through their site and couldn't pursue it further. Dont make my mistake!