To expect someone to have produced a high back booster with 5 poi t harness past 18kg with isofix and recline...

[cfc]

Hen's fucking teeth my friends.

Unless I want to pay £600 for a Britax special needs seat! Argh!

So, what does your 4 year old sit in?

i think safety standards in the US are higher than here.

We'll just have to let them know that there is a demand then! Campaign anyone? :)

I'm in!

DH going to vegas in August, could get it delivered to his hotel. Am thinking Brritax frontier 85. Not sure about the recline but you can remedy this with a recline cushion thing they sell. Could live with this...

Thanks all, I really, really appreciate your time with this.

That's great cfc. Just be aware that the latch system on it is different to isofix. I think it should still work but apparently it isn't legal here. Not sure who will be checking though!

DS is in a two way elite rearfacing it goes upto 25 kg with a five point harness. He's quit small and i think its going to fit him until he's about 8 years old. I know its not isofix but its a good seat.
we had to put dd into a high backed booster at 4 1/2 couldn't adopted two elites. but I got a Jane it had an alloy shell unlike most boosters which don't and is isofix as our second car has the fittings.it does recline a bit but not much and she certainly doesn't sleep a well in it.

Hi there,

We have moved this thread to car seats now - we think you will get ore relevant advice here than in AIBU.

From what I've read, isofix and latch are the same thing as far as the bottom anchors go. What you do need to verify is that you also have a top anchor point in your car. The US car seats are designed to have three anchors - 2 lower and 1 upper. You can always do the seatbelt thing to anchor it but latch/isofix is easier.

If your DH wants to "sneak" it through customs, he could also get a big car seat bag/backpack to put it in.

I bought it new from an ebay seller. I contacted him and he agreed to mark it as a "gift" for customs purchases, although I did still have to pay a customs fee- i can't remember why but it was something to do with the value of the seat

we don't have it installed right now as DS2 is still in his ERF seat, but when we do it will prob be a seatbelt installation as our current car doesn't have ISOFIX (although we're thinkiing of changing it)

You've just given me food for though, OP. while I'm aware of DLA etc surely things like that, being a couple of hundred pounds, should be heavily subsidised. It's not as if you're going to buy one for the hell of it or because it's bought on a whim.

IIRC the higher weight harnessed seats stemmed from people with ordinary sized children (mainly CPST parents) buying the Britax Husky which was a higher harnessed weight seat for 'husky' children.

The Husky came about because as obese children can also be much taller for their age than is usual, some children were being forced into boosters at 40lbs/18kg when they were ~2y (US seats used to harness to 40lbs mainly and used to have low top slots) but they just weren't old enough to be booster trained and weren't safe. The Husky also had tall top slots as well as safety tested to higher weights so younger children could be harnessed before they were of an age to use a booster. It also meant tall but slim children could be harnessed for longer and not forced into boosters before they were even at the lowest weight limit.

As the seat got so popular they renamed it the Regent and it became pretty much main stream, where Britax leads in the US others tend to follow - hence the profusion of choice for higher harnessed weight seats with tall top slots. The Regent has was superseded by the Frontier (retired) and then the Frontier by the Frontier 85.

I used to go on the US car seat boards in 2006 and people were buying Huskys in drives then as they were on sale due to the name change (retired in 2005).

Laraeo, they are definitely different for the frontier 85. You can see them here

the actual bit that connects to the car is the same though, it's just that the US ones are on a kind of fabric strap, which you then tighten, rather than the whole thing being rigid

Tiy, I think it was you I was speaking to about this last year. I didn't realise you got one. Do you like it?

Like thisisyesterday mentioned, I was referring to the actual metal bits in the car which are the same for latch/isofix. Not whatever type of clip system each car seat uses.

The old Britax Marathon I had (US one) had those types of clips but the system was still tightened by adjusting web straps. One adjustment thing for the base, one for the top. So you click the carseat in to the metal latch on the car and then tighten by pulling on the web straps.

What is important, is that if you want to use the latch/isofix with a US car seat, you verify you have an upper tether to attach it to.

bumbley, yes it probably was!

we love it, have used it a bit for DS1, but it's really DS2's for when he moves out of his 2 way elite which I've said he can do when he is 5 in October

I'm very jealous :) I'm hoping they'll bring one out over here on time for DS2 otherwise we'll be making a trip to the US! :)

Sorry laraeo, I misunderstood your earlier post about the latches.

yes, i was slightly gutted as DP was due to go over to Houston on business so we had it all planned that he would get one out there and just bring it back as part of his luggage allowance

sadly that was cancelled, so I ended up spending a fortune on shipping one over instead

Hmm. I wonder if we have any friends/relatives coming to visit.... :)