Large baby 21lbs at 4.5 months -what baby car seat? Help!

[Lara1981]

At a size uk 8-10 I was amazed when I finally gave birth to an unexpectedly huge baby. He was 10lbs 8.5oz! He was off the scale in length at birth so clearly will always be big (though not fat).
He's healthy and does not overfeed, yet at 4.5 months he already weighs 21lbs!
I'm concerned about the car seat I should have him in now. He's clearly too big for the Babystyle Oyster seat he's currently in but not sure what the next seat up should be as he's still so young and cannot sit up himself yet so don't think he should be in a forward facing seat...
Please advise?..anyone!

no he shouldnt be in a forward facing seat, my ds4 was 10lb 13oz and also very long at birth, he is now 4 and still big, just tall not fat.

he stayed in a rear facing carseat until he was over the weight limit, 15kg?

you will have to look at a carseat that is either rearward facing till an older age, harder to get hold of but plenty of threads about them on mnet with links :)

or a carseat that can be rearward and forward facing so he can stay rearward facing for longer, up to 18kg i think? again info easily found on mnet :)

No he shouldn't be forward facing. Have at look at rearfacing.co.uk

Maybe a Britax two way elite.

The weight limit for your current seat is 13kg (28.6 lbs) so unless he's too tall you should continue using it. When he's too heavy the safest option is to have him rear facing in a group 1 seat. As he's a big chap you might want to consider a rear facing seat that goes up to 25kg.

There are loads of threads giving advice on where to buy one and what seats are good. We have a Britax Maxway but it's important to get one that fits properly in your car.

I have a britax one that goes rear facing and forward, tgey're quite big but I have a ford galaxy not sure they'd be good in a small car so may be worth seeing if there are any websites to say which seat fits which car.

Wow - we have the opposite problem as my DS is only that at 2 years and 2 months! We have that Britax one that is rear facing and front facing and it fits ok in a Ford Focus. We still have it rear facing for safety.

I was told that when you aren't sure whether it's time to get a bigger car seat, don't. It's a lot safer to have a baby in a seat it is too big for than a seat it is too young/small for.

Are you sure he is too big for the seat? Have you removed any newborn inserts? What is the upper weight limit for the seat. I'm fairly sure that infant car seats are only too small when their eyes are level with the top of the seat

Looney that's forward facing.

Rearfacing it's when head is at top of seat.

Sorry. My mistake, lagoon is correct its head level with the top, eyes is indeed the next level of seat, it's a little while since I moved dd2 (I didn't need to move her until 14 months though)

Lara - is the issue that he is too long or too wide ? Watching this with interest - My almost 4 month old is 20lbs and although fine on the length end of things, he is starting to look more and more squashed into the maxi-cosi, even after removing all inserts etc.

The seat I will always recommend is the two way elite as it gives you the choice of rearfacing (both if genuinely outgrown carrier as well as extended rearfacing 4/5/6 yrs old) as well as forward facing if necessary.

At £200 for a seat its reasonably good value considering the costs of a decent forward facer and a decent highbacked booster that many people (me included) have already spent out on before the TWE would be outgrown (harnessed to 25kg and shell is quite high so good on tall children too.

Plus as mentioned previously rearfacing is five times safer.

You only need to look at the links on rearfacing.co.uk or www.joelsjourney.org to see why forward facing is not the safest option for young children

www.joelsjourney.org

www.rearfacing.co.uk

Looney- its easily confused. Even the strap positions are different depending on direction of travel!

The Klippan Kiss is a great rearfacing seat suitable from birth until toddlerhood. It has a newborn part that can be removed and carried round like an infant carrier too. It's a bit more expensive than the two way elite, but has more features and the option of fitting with isofix (incredibly simple) or seatbelt. It has also passed the most stringent Swedish safety tests, which not many seats have. The two way elite is also great.

The Klippan kiss looks fab - sadly we have storage boxes and although the swedes fill them with phone books etc to get around the prop issue Im a bit reluctant to do so. Plus I would need a physical fit with that one and no local stockists..... :-(

Ah yes, storage boxes are a pain. In our first car that and buckle crunch restricted our choice massively. In our second car we found the foot prop fitted in front of the storage box happily, so that worked. The latest car we made sure we chose one without storage boxes

Yes pesto the most useless idea ever. Which car did the prop miss in please?