To get a group 2/3 carseat for my almost 2 year old

[Whatismynameanyway]

DS is a very large almost 2 year old, he weighs about 20kg and is very tall. He has always been big, was 10lb9 at birth and has just continued to be massive 😂 he isn't overweight, just large.

We have the joie everystage fx carseat currently which I love but is very heavy and I usually leave it in his dads car (we are separated) as I don't drive so only need a carseat occasionally if going out with friends etc.

The straps for the everystage say maximum weight limit is 18kg, which would be fine if DS wasn't so big for his age. We have switched to the seatbelt as I am worried that the straps won't hold up in a crash if he exceeds the weight limit. I don't like this but feel it may be the safest option?

Now I'm looking to get a carseat to keep at mine, for when I have unexpected trips out etc but can only find group 2/3 high back boosters that cater to his weight/height. I know the general advice is rear facing etc until 4 but how can I do this when I can't find a carseat that will work safely with my son?

Would i be unreasonable to use a high back booster? If it is a bad idea could anyone suggest a carseat that will work for a 20kg almost 2 year old?

Thanks

I don't really get the passenger space issue as FF seats should have 55cms of gap before the seat in front anyway. So they don't take up any more space, if your FF seat is installed as stated.

Especially with seats like the TWE which actually brace on the seat in front so need to touch it - the passenger seat actually needs to be quite far back.

Hopefully @BertieBotts will see this and lend her considerable knowledge!

In terms of statistics, it's difficult to quantify because the only ones readily available seem to be your risk of dying in an accident, and not just being in one, and your child's risk of dying is partly linked to the safety of their car seat as well as numerous other factors.

In your lifetime, the chance of dying in a car crash in the UK is 1 in about 240, but on a yearly basis around 1 in 20,000. But obviously the chances of simply being in a car accident are much higher, and car seats do have some relevance as to the severity of the car accident (along with all the other factors, of course). Death isn't the only negative outcome of a car accident. There are varying degrees of injury from mild to severe, some of which might well be ameliorated by things like what car seat the child was in.

I'd wager that simply being in a car accident is a lot higher risk than a lot of the things we are quite safety conscious on generally as a society. And as the outcome of an accident could partly, to whatever degree you believe, rely on car seats, it seems like a good thing to spend money on if you can afford it.

How tall is he, OP? 20kg would put him over 4kg above the 100th centile for weight at 2yo. Are you sure he's 20kg??

I have a 25kg RF seat and don't do 80 on a dual carriage way lol!

Sounds like the TWE could be good. If you genuinely are interested in car seat safety there s excellent advice on FB e.g.
"CSFLO UK and europe"

If you do want to get the axkid move there s a lady who often has deals on her page called "rear facing toddlers"

You cannot look at American car seats and transpose those weights into UK car seats. They are designed and built to totally different specifications. It's not the same as a buggy - please DON'T do this!!

You need a 25kg harnessed seat. The cheapest one is Cozy n Safe Hudson which is £90. You need top tether in your car to use it.

Other forward facing options are:

Cozy n Safe Excalibur (About £120)
Joie Bold (my preference - about £140) needs isofix AND seatbelt AND top tether.
BabyAuto Dupla - about £140
Diono Radian 5 - about £180
Maxi Cosi Beryl - about £300 - the ONLY option without top tether.

I believe of all of these the Joie Bold has the tallest harness height on it.

You can also get rear facing seats up to 25kg as stated but these start at £165 at the bare minimum. Others have already advised on 25kg seats under £200 so I won't reiterate the same advice :)

The minikid is a nice seat but not everyone has £350 indeed!

If you do not have top tether, I would get the Britax Kidfix with the XP pad and the crotch guard, if it will fit in your car and the belt retracts. If that is not a fit I would get Besafe izi Flex Fix i-size. I wouldn't feel happy about either of these options, but I would do that over buying something you can't afford. I am not convinced by the idea that a young child's skeleton isn't developed enough to use a booster seat - it's better than nothing, but I would absolutely buy the best booster seat I could afford in that situation, one with absolutely bomb proof side impact protection and some form of anti-submarine strap. If it doesn't fit him when he's taller, you can then perfectly safely purchase a cheaper, more basic model.

Your chance of dying in a car accident in the US is 1 in 77

A) your chance of dying at all is 1 in 1, at some point in your life. Thats a sensationalist way of presenting a statistic. It is more meaningful to most people to consider the rate of accidents within the more narrow categories actually applying to them. E.g. you are far more likely to die in a road accident if you have been drinking, or are a teenager. Everyone else is less likely to die in a road accident.

We don't live in the US. And we are talking about children here. In the UK, something like 7-800 children age 1-9 die annually. From all causes. Cancer is the biggest killer. Other health issues (including congenital issues, neurological issues) are another big category. Accidents, including traffic, drowning, suffocation are a smaller proportion.

Road safety IS really important. But for a large 3 or 4 year old, a forward facing, well tested good quality seat is a safe seat. It may not be the absolute safest possible option, but it may be the best practical option.

The 55cm rule is stated a lot.

Yes you should have 55cm between the crease in the seat and the front seat for a forward facing seat. Why? Because the bare minimum legal standard is that a child in a forward facing seat must not come out of the seat forwards more than 55cm past that line. In a good quality seat which is correctly installed, has some kind of anti-rotation protection and a child who has the harness on correctly and is not too big/heavy for the seat, the actual distance they will come forwards in a sudden stop is less. If you have bought your car seat from a supermarket, or your children have outgrown harnessed seats and are in boosters, you definitely want to leave that space, or further if at all possible.

But this is not bigger than "every" rear facing seat, or in fact any rear facing seat. Rear facing seats typically take up around 70cm of front-to-back space, even on the most compact installation. I have no idea where this idea has come from, that forward facing seats take up more space - they don't. Of course no you shouldn't have the front seat right up close to the child, but unless you have been into a car with a tape measure and seen how far 55cm is in comparison to any rear facing seat I don't understand why people keep repeating this as though it is fact. It doesn't pay to simply blindly repeat what you have been told in a facebook group.

I would also note: While the new i-size regulations have introduced a minimum age to forward face (15 months), there is NO minimum age to use an i-size booster. These still go on physical size - at least 15kg for an R44-regulated booster, or at least 1m tall for an i-size booster. I wouldn't recommend using one before three, but legally it would be an option.

Bertiebotts

Thank you for clarifying re fwd facing seats. I've been our measuring ours as honestly the rear ones we looked at definitely took up more space!

We all want to make a safe choice. But there has to be an acceptance that with current car design limitations, children cannot rear face forever.

LoveIsland - I agree with many of your points, I don't think it's helpful to be dogmatic about which car seat is best, what age to rear face to etc. If nothing else you can't reach everyone and it stands to make a much bigger difference if you can get a forward facing 8 month old out of a supermarket/argos car seat into even something that will allow them to RF until say 2 and then turn around, than the difference in safety between a 3yo either continuing to use a larger RF seat vs a good quality, well fitted FF one. Also, unlike many ERF fans I believe there are factors to consider in car seat choice/fitting other than safety.

But what I think is important is accuracy in information - and it is possible to fit RF seats in small cars with large drivers/passengers (although there does come a point with that particular combination where you would probably have to compromise somewhere - comfort or safety. - Just as you might consider changing e.g. a 3 door car after children come along, or a car that you can't easily fit 3 carseats in the back - these are normal situations where you might change a car.) Here's some info including pictures of older children and tall passengers. The blog I'd usually link to is down.

www.flickr.com/photos/153076285@N05/albums/72157688410873514/

Bertie some very good advice. Side impact and anti submarine properties are good points re HBBs but if at all possible for £40 more I would get the Two Way Elite or Joie Bold for a 2 year old.

Skeletal/spinal/pelvic development info here btw:
csftl.org/why-rear-facing-the-science-junkies-guide/

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland - no one is saying children should rear face forever.....(How are you defining child out of interest? Age 2 and 3 are children by measure...4,5,6 too....)

To me saying that the only valid choice is ERF until children outgrow the largest possible seat, is like saying that breastfeeding is the only valid choice because it is nutritionally superior.

Is RF safer than FF? Yes. Is BF more optimal nutritionally than formula? Yes. But you don't make either of these decisions in a vacuum! You've got to factor far, far more into both of them than that specific factor. I appreciate that for some people, safety (and/or nutrition) is the most important/only factor worth considering and I'd always support them to make the safest choice/BF as long as possible. It's important that information which supports those choices is available and people aren't put off by myths about leg room or sleeping through the night or whatever. But I also think it's vital to respect that others might make another choice and that's valid too.

Frankly after reading the smart motorways thread the other night I reckon if I was still in the UK I'd probably have my DC in a booster seat as soon as they are big enough for one if we were planning to do motorway driving. We don't, so that's not something I'll have to consider thankfully but I mean, give people the credit of deciding what works for their family, car, situation, budget etc.

Thats a sensationalist way of presenting a statistic What are you on about? It's a perfectly common way of representing probabilistic risk in both the literature and resources for the public. I could give you logic signifiers that took into account a multiple of variables and even modal possibilities if you are in the mood, but only a very small group of people can make sense of those.

I did recommend Joie Bold first :) The only reason I'd go to a HBB at that age is if the car doesn't have top tether, parent can't afford Maxi Cosi Beryl and is adamant they don't want to rear face. It's a last resort, basically, and a special case.

All cars since 2013 have top tether, no cars before 1997 I think have it, between those - potentially if it's high spec it might.

You know I did once read the entirety of an extremely long thread on PistonHeads where they discuss the merits of various car seats, and essentially the blokes' attitude towards it is: choose RF or FF, whatever, but don't go around making up random things to justify it, because nobody on the internet cares which direction your kids are facing.

It made me :o because a lot of people, on here, other mum-centred forums and the FB groups (which are 99% women) really, REALLY do care which way other people's children are facing and I think it's so unhelpful. It just puts people off asking for advice as they get scared they will get a lecture!

I don't follow your smart motorways and HBB point Bertie. Can you expand? Agree that smart motorways are scary!

@BertieBotts what do you mean about putting a child in a booster seat because of smart motorways? No being goady, I just genuinely don't understand what you mean!

I think the interest in which way other people's kids car seats face works both ways. I've certainly been interrogated by friends and acquaintances and family members about whether my kids legs hurt when RFing, do they get car sick, isn't it a faff to install, HOW MUCH did it cost? Etc.
All while wanting to somehow justify their decisions to take the easiest / cheapest option even if they do finally acknowledge it's not the safest.

Because it would be a hell of a lot faster to get them out of the car than untangling them from the straps of an extended rear facing car seat. Possibly. The thread being focused on the idea that sitting in the car is a time bomb and you need to get out and away from the road ASAP.

Bertie we don't just drive on smart motorways though.....

Bertiebotts

I completely agree with all your points. Being overly dogmatic isn't helping anyone.

We did ERF as long as we could fit, but decided given we don't actually travel much by car, it was not worth the relatively small risk reduction, to buy a new car in order to be able to have a tall 3 year old rear face. Our hatchback isn't that tiny, it's a 5 door and adequate for a family of four, but DH has very long legs! For me it's not a myth about leg room. We tried, it didn't work for us

I’ve got a 99th centile 2.8 year old and I’ve moved him from a Joie stages to a britax two way elite so he can rear face until he grows out of that one, should be about 3.5 if he carries on as per the growth charts.
I really like the seat, he’s comfy.

OK. Like I said, I don't live in the UK, so it's not something I've given a great amount of thought to, it was just a quick and somewhat flippant example of why someone might choose something different.