Looking for a recommendation

[winterscents]

DD is nearly 3 and approx 16 kilos. The max weight for current car seat is 18 kilos.

I'm looking for group 2/3 (I think?) to move into next. I appreciate this may not be for a while and we will wait until she reaches 18 kilos before moving.

Can anyone make a recommendation? There's so much choice. Budget wise we aren't looking to spend more than £250.

Oh and must be forward facing.

Thanks

we have a lionelo car seat and it is great. they have several options, but i can't remember if we bought direct from them or if we got it from preciouslittleone x

Following!

Joie Bold goes to 25 KG harnessed x

A group 2/3 seat is usually a high back booster using the adult seatbelt, is that the kind of seat that you want?

I would recommend Joie Trillo LX. It scores really well for safety and it's a very reasonable price.

If you have tall children you may wish to look at the Diono high backed boosters. They adjust up really high, some boosters you have the problem that once the child gets to about 7/8 years they are too tall for the headrest and you can't adjust it up any more. These ones managed to fit my quite tall then-10yo over a year after we'd abandoned his own high backed booster seat for this reason.

Another option to look at might be a seat with the extra crotch strap that hooks over the seatbelt to act as a kind of extra point of safety. The seats which have this on on the market at the moment are the Besafe Izi Flex Fix and the Britax Kidfix range. I like the Britax ones.

But as ever the best seat is the one that fits your child and your car. I think I'd wait until closer to the time (you'll have a while in that seat I think, maybe a year unless close to the height limit) and go and try some seats out in a shop, possibly with the Joie, Besafe, Diono and Britax brands in mind. If you have any friends with older children aged about 9 or so it would also be useful to rope them in to test the seats for longevity :)

As PP said if you want to stay harnessed past 18kg you could look at the Joie Bold. You'll need top tether for this seat though as it must use isofix, top tether and seatbelt. :)

Either way you will easily find a seat you like for your budget. I don't think there are any high backed booster seats which cost much more than that, most are significantly less.

I did a fair bit of research this year using Which? for testing/recommendations. This one came out as a Best Buy, safety tested very well and was reasonably priced.

Cybex Solution M-Fix SL Group 2/3

@BertieBotts what is top tether exactly??

Because my little one is likely to meet 18kilos before 4, I would prefer a harness to 25kg. So either Joie bold or easy n cozy excalibur I think

Top tether is a way of fixing the car seat to your car. It is what they call a "third point of anchorage" ie it's not used by itself but in conjunction with either isofix or seatbelt in order to stabilise the seat and reduce forward movement in the case of a crash.

If your car is newer than 2013, you will definitely have it. If it's older than 2009, you almost definitely won't. In between those dates, it's possible but not guaranteed. You want to look behind the back seats in the boot , it will either be on the back of the seats themselves or sometimes on the floor of the boot, occasionally off to the side, but usually in the centre line of the seat. It should have a symbol which looks like a ship's anchor hanging over the back of a chair. If you're not sure, check your vehicle manual. You can't retrofit top tether points, and it's not safe to use luggage tether points, they have to be certified for car seats.

If you don't have any top tether points but you want to keep your LO in a harness past 18kg, you have the choice of Maxi Cosi Beryl (which is quite expensive) or a rear facing seat up to 25kg. The rear facing seats are safer and they fit in almost any car because they are fitted with a seatbelt and lower tethers, which don't need any specific tether mounting point. They usually fit onto the front seat's rails.