3 year old ready for next car seat up. Which to go for?

[helpmeihaveatoddler]

My 3 year old is fast approaching the cut off heigh limit of our joie 360 spin so I need to update our car seat. He's over 100cm and cut off is 105.

Any advice what to go for or the best websites to look at please?

I went for the Joie bold because it's isofix and has an extended 5 point harness. If you want extended rear facing I've heard good things about the axkid ones

Joie Bold here too.

If you would consider ERF join the Extended Rear Facing Car Seat Safety Facebook group. They give good advice. Also consider visiting an 'in car safety' shop for an assessment of the best seat for you.

There's a car seat sub board on here that is helpful. The advice is that they still need a harness until they're about 5 because they might muck about with a seatbelt one at that age. Hence I've also gone for the Joie Bold as the harness fits up to 25kg whereas most others are until 18kg only (my 4 yr old is heavier than 18kg already).

(The Joie Bold can also be used as a seatbelted booster so should last them until they don't need a car seat any more).

Yes we've also got the joie bold

@wouldyoupleasem Yes I'd prefer to keep him rear facing as long as possible. His legs are so long though!

Tall children are a pain when it comes to car seats. My eldest outgrew her 18kg seat at 3 so we got a 25kg rear facing. That did her until 41/2 and started to get uncomfortable. There is no way she’d have managed until 6/7 so be aware you might not get a huge amount of time. It was expensive but felt worth it and the difference in maturity between her as a 3yo and a 4yo was huge.

Annoyingly my other child is tiny so probably will just be able to stay in the 18kg seat until school.

If you are on Facebook, the group Car Seat Advice U.K. is very good.

I would shortlist a few and then go to a specialist retailer to try them out and get advice in person, see www.carseatadvice-uk.com/specialist-retailers.html

What car do you have? I think it is possible to install the 25kg ERF seats with decent legroom for the child but it depends how much cabin space there is in the car (and how tall/short the adult in front is!)

PS if you want FF it sounds as if the Joie Bold is a pretty unanimous choice! If you want RF I would recommend the Britax Max Way Plus, it's passed the Swedish Plus Test and it's an excellent seat, better value than the Axkid Minikid IMO (plus we tried them both and DS was comfier in the Max Way Plus). You would need to check it fits in your car obviously.

We have the Axkid Minikid and really like it. I have a small car (Renault Clio) but it gives plenty of space. DS is 18.7kg, age 2.75, and I'd say around the 100cm mark (I haven't measured him September and he was 94cm then) and I still feel like we have plenty of time left in it.

Whilst it's recommended that they shouldn't use a seatbelt until they can sit correctly and safely with one, it does put an extreme amount of force on to the neck when FF in a harness, as the harness pins the body back into the car whilst the head gets thrown forward, so if you are open to the option of RF for longer, I think an Axkid Minikid, Britax Maxway or even the Britax Two Way Elite are good options. The TWE isn't plus tested but it's very spacious. We have that in my mum's tiny Fiat Panda and my son has loads of space in it.