Can I get DD1 (3.4) a booster seat and put DD2 (14MO) in her car seat?

[aliceinlalaland]

I don't know why because the car seat is meant to fit children up to 4 or 18kg I think but for some reason getting DD1 into her current Britax car seat is really tough - there doesn't seem to be any way to loosen the straps. DD2 has def grown out of the baby seat so I need to move her into a car seat anyway but want to know if 3 is old enough to go on a booster seat (it seems daft to buy another car seat for 7 or 8 months).

Have looked at all sorts of info online but for some reason none of it seems clear. DD1 is will be 3.5 this month and weighs 16 kg. Any advice v welcome, thanks ladies.

ooh, just read another thread about booster seats and it sounds like at the very least i should be looking at high-back boosters. Any advice on what you have for your 3YO v welcome. I should add DD1 is tall for her age, about 95th percentile I think.

In a sense it's not just whether the child is physically ready to use a booster but are they developmentally ready to.

Is your DD1 capable of understanding that she is responsible for her own safety when she sits in a high back booster? Because in a HBH the child has to understand they can't reach for a dropped toy/drink, they can't wriggle about, reach over to poke their sibling or undo their seat belt as if they do they just aren't safe in the seat. With a harnessed seat the parent is responsible for ensuring the child is appropriately restrained but with a booster it's the child themselves that has to take responsibility for it.

If she's not ready (and most children aren't at 3 more like 5 or 6) then she needs to be harnessed until she is.

Also, if you can't loosen the straps on her seat, how will you tighten them to fit her sister? Is the harness/tightening mechanism broken or can you just not locate it? What seat is it and how old is it?

On an additional note, is the seat forward facing or rear facing? If it's forward facing is your DD2 is a bit young to go ffing, and yes, I know that it's common practice to ff from 9kg/9m but it's not best practice - that's rf until 4 years/18kg.

You can raise the straps at the back of the car seat if your Dd is tall we had the same problem when ds was this age so we went to mothercare to buy him a booster but were told he was far to young so they showed us how to alter his straps instead.

ds went into a high backed booster at age 3 as he was 18kgs and too heavy for his other seat. We have the maxi cosi rodi xr and it is sturdy and comfy - dd is also in one at age 7. They are heavy enough for a high backed booster if they are over 15kgs.

Sorry got tied up with work and only just had a chance to get back on here. Thanks v much for your feedback. TruthSweet - that's a v v good point about understanding their own responsibility for safety, to be honest I hadn't appreciated that about the high-backed boosters. I would really doubt that DD has the maturity at 3 to not wriggle etc!

Re tightening straps for DD2, firstly they're not all that different in size, DD2 is really quite big for her age! But anyway, I can tighten them but not loosen them, they seem to be have reached their upper limit if you see what I mean and that is too tight for DD1, which seems weird because she is not unusually large although as I said she's pretty tall for her age. We bought the seat when she was about 10 or 11 months so about two and a half years ago (from John Lewis).

The rear-facing thing is a whole new idea for me (only found out about this morning on this forum) we had DD1 in front-facing from when she was 11 months as I said, I had no idea they did rear-facing for toddlers - I suppose it does mean she and DD1 could look at each other, which might be nice! But if we were to get rear-facing I'm guessing she wouldn't fit into it for very long and we'd end up needing to get a new front-facing one in a year or so.

Ho-hum, still rather a lot to think about?

Dlythan sounds like I need to go back to John Lewis and see if they do extra-long straps for tall 3-year-olds!

Alice - Rearfacing seats go up to 18kg or 25kg depending on model. 25kg seats are Britax (or Volvo for 1/2 the price) Multi-tech, Britax Two Way Elite, Maxi Cosi Mobi and perhaps one more that I can't think of right now. Rear facing is for children too

Definitely the Multi-tech and the Two Way ELite would fit a bigger child as DD1 who is 20kg & 113cm fits ffing in a TWE (would fit rfing if we had a 7 seater), and the Multi-tech can be used as a high back booster for a child of 6 years too so it has a tall back for a harnessed seat. The TWE can be used harnessed forward facing to 25kg too whereas the MT is only to 18kg harnessed ffing.

No sorry the straps aren't longer they're just threaded through higher up I'm probably not explaning this very well and will see if I can find a link. Although I would imagine that anywhere that did car seat fittings will be able to show you (we didn't get the car seat from mothercare originally we just went to them to buy the booster.)

If you have the same problem as we did then the straps will be to tight it will be really hard to clip the buckle up and the straps will not loosen any more. Does that sound the same or am I way off ?