Putting 2yo in front seat of car???

[dontcomeatme]

I've discussed this multiple times on MN but we're at the end of our tether right now.
My 2yo DS is severely travel sick. Has been pretty much since he was born, we could never drive for more than 40mins to an hour at max and he would projectile vomit. We had to forward face him at 2yo which we desperately didn't want to do but he was choking on his sick rear facing and being in the laid back position.
We're now at the point where even a 20-25 minute journey is making him sick. We are washing the car seat that often we have bought a spare to use while one is in the wash, and as soon as one is clean the other is dirty 😭 I sit in the back with him primed with sick bags but it makes him hysterical just to look at them so I feel like I'm making him worse!
We've been to the GP multiple times now but they just say its one of those things 🙄 I'm ringing on Monday and I want an emergency appointment with a different GP, this level of sickness isn't normal. It is projectile! Comes out of his mouth, nose, absolutely covers him. He goes grey and feels like sh*t for the rest of the day 😢
Do they prescribe anti sickness meds for kids or do we have to buy them? Most of the ones I've seen online are for 4yo plus and I'm hesitant to give him them.
I am seriously contemplating putting him in the front of the car, with the airbags off. Is that insane? AIBU to think this is the solution?!?! He's 28months, 99centile height and weight. We seriously don't know what else to do!
We've started walking and getting the bus everywhere just to prevent the sickness but this isn't sustainable, we missed a hospital appointment last week because the bus didn't come on time 🤦🏻‍♀️
Any suggestions at all? What worked for your DC? Can the doctors actually do anything ? Do you think front seat would help? It always helped me as a child but this was the 90s, my parents shoved me up the front without even a booster seat.
Any advice is appreciated 🙏

Sorry if this has been mentioned earlier but does the car have cruise control?

DH drives a 2021 Kia e-Niro and I can instantly tell when he's got the "vomit button" depressed!

(I was often car sick as a child).

We've just bought our forever home! We thought it was quite central, just off the main city centre, it's about a 20 minute drive to the main city, which we didn't think was bad but he can't even handle that! Luckily the school he'll go to is within walking distance! That's why we picked here, it's an amazing school. Can't win can I 🙄

Yeah multiple DC, it would be a pain to move now we've just bought our forever home in the best school catchment!
He was rear facing until 2yo but had to be put ff recently because it was just too much x

I'm unsure, but even if it does we've never used it 😅

I’m not surprised it’s a Citroen Grand Picasso, we had one for about a fortnight and the suspension was so soft we were bouncing around all over the place. Does the centre rear seat have a top tether attachment? I’d avoid any forward facing harnessed seat without one (or a support leg if no tether). The Joie Bold is a good shout. Or the Joie I-irvana max, which harnesses up to 25kg/125cm. The Bold r44 has no height limit.

This seat is not isofox and goes rf until 4 not sure of safety rating.

Car seats don't go by age. The harness is only suitable to 18kg, it's completely unsafe to use past 18kg and the OPs child is already very close to 18kg

Are you sure I can't find anything on weight just a height....it's the upgraded extended fit version

This is the manual from the Graco website for the R129 version. I think a lot of retailers are really misleading with the age recommendations unfortunately

https://dl.gracobaby.eu/instruction-manual/extend-lx-r129-manual.pdf

Sorry about the image quality when I uploaded it - added the manual pdf as well in case that's easier to read

Thanks everyone for the car seat recommendations. I'm definitely not RF again that was too traumatic for everyone involved.
We trialled DS in the front last night with his car seat and air bag switched off, we wanted to try it, 1 to see if it actually helped, and 2, if not I needed to swap all the car seats back round haha.
We did a 35 minute round trip with 1 break in the middle, he had the window fully open and we were looking for all the cars out the window, he wasn't sick and his colour looked great throughout the whole journey 🥹 I'm going to keep him up front for now, ring the GP and ask about medication and then hopefully he can go in the middle in the back 🤞 x

Plus I need to order a 18kg+ FF car seat 🤦🏻‍♀️ x

If he's Forward Facing in the front the airbag should be ON
They are off for rear facing babies so they don't hit the back of the child's seat, causing whip lash type injuries.

Hope you find a suitable seat for him.

You don't turn air bag off for FF. Seat back as far as possible

It will be in the car manual whether to have the airbag on or off. Either way it's not whiplash you're risking with an active airbag, an airbag inflates with a huge amount of force, it's like being punched, which can kill a child if it hits their head while inflating. That's why it's illegal in front of a rear facing seat, but children have also been killed by airbags because they were looking in the glove box, or before booster seats were in wider use, because their head is at adult chest height. This is why most countries do have a law against children travelling in a front seat. The UK doesn't, but it's still sensible to be cautious about it. Of course without an airbag, the dashboard itself is a risk which is why you increase distance and ensure the car seat is tightly/correctly fitted and harness belts are properly done up.

Sorry to be blunt. OP one thing I didn't mention is that seats conforming to the newer R129 regulation have a shorter tolerance for forward movement than R44, so this is beneficial as well. But the forward movement on the MC Beryl was good on the ADAC test, so it may be just as good in this respect.

It's worth reading manuals before buying as some seats e.g. Joie Bold do need the top tether and Isofix as well as seatbelt in the 18kg+ mode, but websites sometimes list these as being seatbelt fit because they are allowed to fit with just seatbelt in the high back booster mode. You can usually message a company for clarification too.

Thank you, I've been so confused reading car seats the advertising of them is so misleading. I had a look at the one I currently have, Joie every stage, and it says from 0 to 36kg, which is why I bought it, but it doesn't tell you that from 18kg it's only up to 36kg with the normal seat belt! But most I've looked at state in the description "from 0 to 36kg", its highly annoying. Think I'm going to order the argos one you mentioned for £120 and pop him in the back, our car does have isofix and top tether! Once he has medication that is.
I have his seat far back in the front and airbag off for now. I'm hoping this is just a temporary measure 🤞

@bertiebotts
I've just been looking at the joie bold r on argos and it says the seat attachment is isofix and top tether, but also states if its in the front seat to have the airbag off. Can it be fitted with the normal seat belt? Because most cars don't have top tether or iso in the front seat?

Some cars do have Isofix in the front seat. But it can also be fitted using seatbelt only, in the high back booster mode. That's the thing I was talking about, sometimes this isn't clear and people assume it can be fitted either way.

For the 5 point harness 18-25kg, Joie Bold R needs Isofix, seatbelt AND top tether.

I would also say be careful about taking things like Argos listings as gospel - sometimes those are just copied and pasted from a form somewhere and have errors. I don't have the Bold manual to hand but it could be that's a standard line that's been copied from a seat which allows rear facing by accident.

Joie i-Irvana Max is also worth a look because it's got the newer safety certificate and is also up to 25kg though they have the wrong manual on the website. Someone on here bought one recently and confirmed it's deffo up to 25kg/125cm. Similar price to bold, I think.

@BertieBotts which would you recommend out of those 2?
I'm going to check our front seat for isofix fittings tonight.
It's shocking how company's selling something as important as car seats can pretty much wing the description!
I'm worried about my 5 month old. He's 12.8kg already and 80cm, last measured. I will need the extended RF for him won't I? Thankfully he doesn't seem to be affected by travel sickness yet 🤞 it was obvious at this age already with my 2YO.

But he is close to the maximum weight limit for the harness of his current seat, and he is far too young to safely use a seatbelt instead of a harness. The FF seats with a higher harness limit require isofix and top tether. Does your front seat have isofix so you can continue to do this in future? Otherwise he will need to sit in the back seats in order to survive a crash. At 2 he will not be safe in a crash FF with a seatbelt.

Sorry just saw this has already been addressed. Glad you're on the ball looking for a replacement seat

@intoFolklore I know, I'm hoping if he isn't sick a few times his anxiety around it will dissipate slightly, plus a prescription medication, should mean he can try going in the middle in the back again with the bigger car seat properly fitted. For now he's still just under 18kg so I'm hoping this plans works

Thank you ☺️

In your last thread you were advised to use Kwells.
Have you done so?

I was hesitant because they're foe age 4+ and he's only 2. The GP couldn't advise either way so I felt unsure x