two rear facing seats?

[LotisBlue]

This is probably a daft question, but can you have two rearfacing car seats in the back of a car? We currently have dd (3.5) in a britax two way elite, BUT we can only have it behind the passenger seat because it has to be wedged in behind the front seat, meaning you can't move the seat backwards and forwards (and DP and I are very different heights, meaning we can't drive with the same seat position).

When our baby moves up from his baby seat in a few months, does this mean that we will have to get dd a new forward facing seat to go behind the driver's seat? Or are there other rear facing seats which don't have to be wedged against the front seat?

[AliceMum09]

The Two Way Elite is the only one that has to brace against the back of the driver/passenger seat. Most other seats may lightly touch if they need to, or can have a gap. So take your pick!

I would buy a new seat for the baby, and keep your older child in the Two Way Elite. Then buy a high backed booster for the older one later on and the younger child can go into the Two Way Elite at that point if they need to. Of course you could end up with a petite child like my DD2 who only weighs 14kgs aged almost 4 1/2 years old. She has a Britax Multi Tech II because when I bought it over 3 years ago it was the one that fitted my car best and there wasn't the choice of seats that there is now, but the 25kgs weight limit is never going to be needed, she would have been fine with an 18kgs seat!

[LotisBlue]

Thanks Alice, so pretty much any other rear facing seat would do?

We've had ours a couple of years and I don't remember there being much choice when we bought it

[AliceMum09]

Yes, obviously not all seats fit all cars, but there are a lot more seats now. I bought mine over 3 years ago and like you say there definitely wasn't the choice there is now.

The high street shops do have a pretty good selection of ISOFIX seats, but you still need to seek out the independent shops if you want another seatbelt-fitted 25kgs seat.

I've just been having a quick flick through this table and it looks like the Joie i-Anchor might be a pretty compact seat. The version on sale now is actually the I-Anchor Advance, but I expect that it's pretty much the same size. It's often on offer with the base for free, but if you're buying an ISOFIX seat you just need to check that low down ISOFIX points in your car and sloping rear seats aren't cancelling out all of the recline of the child seat.

I think the Britax Max Fix II looks a really nice ISOFIX seat. I wish I'd hung on a bit when buying my seat, I have a Multi Tech II but there has been the odd occasion when my older two children have accidentally unbuckled the seatbelt holding it in. An ISOFIX seat would have been better, but there were hardly any available back then, I think Britax were just about to bring out the original Max Fix.

[Hedgeh0g]

We have a besafe Izi combi which doesn't need to brace. I was slightly surprised to find that we are actually struggling to fit an infant seat in behind the driver - my OH isn't particularly tall but has had to put the driver's seat quite upright to fit the cabriofix in behind. So you may need to see what physically fits in your car. That said, I think we actually have more room with the besafe than the cabriofix because the cabriofix is more reclined.

[LotisBlue]

Thanks. We may get an isofix this time, when we bought our first one our old car didn't have isofix, but the new one does.

[iamtheurbanspacemanbaby]

You could try a Joie every stage? That would do as a rear facing seat till 15kg (or whenever the older child outgrows the two way elite) then you could move the baby to the two way elite and use the every stage as a high back booster.

[eurochick]

The maxi cosi 2 way pearl is rear facing and doesn't need to brace.

[LotisBlue]

iam that is a great idea, thanks

[That1950sMum]

We have twins so had to have two of every stage seat! We couldn't use Isofix as my husband is tall and he needs the driving seat back too far, but we still had quite a good choice of seats that fitted well.

[Mol1628]

I have two in our Zafira.

Besafe izi kid ISO fix on passenger side and a Nuna Rebl behind the driver. The besafe leaves very little space for the front passenger but there's loads of space with the Nuna. Id get another Nuna to replace the besafe if it wasn't £400!

[lucy101101]

We changed from a two way to a hi way - this man is super, super helpful and advised us:

Håkan Svensson
[email protected]
//www.carseat.se

[iamtheurbanspacemanbaby]

The every stage is rear facing to 18kg not 15, must have been having a moment when I wrote that post. It's a great seat the only pain is lifting baby over the seatbelt but you can tuck the belt under the side impact shield till you put baby in then take it out once they are in place which makes it a bit easier. Ds is 13 months but 13kg already and I can get him in and out no problem.

[LotisBlue]

OK so DP wants an isofix seat, so we're thinking of the joie I anchor. They stock it at halfords so we're going to pop down there at the weekend