Easily moveable RF seat for 20 month old

[FreddieRocks]

Argh, please help me before my head explodes. We currently need to move my 20 month old’s car seat several times a week, between my car and both Grannies, who help with childcare. We currently have a BeSafe Izi x3 which doesn’t stand up to being moved well and my husband has had to replace the panels several times. I now have the heebie jeebies about whether it’s definitely safe, although he is confident it is (and I have a tendency towards anxiety 😳).

I’m trying to work out whether we need one new seat, which is better designed for being moved regularly, and/or to buy a second seat for the Grannies cars, which will be moved less often. They are only doing local journeys of 20 minutes max, although I appreciate you can crash/be hit turning out of the driveway. I can’t say money is no object, but obviously safety is paramount.

Huge thanks in advance.

I had the Britax 2 way Elite back in 2014, was a good seat

Any of the Joie seatbelt fitted seats are good for this, and are inexpensive enough to work well as a second seat, so you could potentially have both. I would get Joie Tilt or Joie Stages. The Tilt is cheaper, lighter and more compact. But worth noting - it's fairly small as ERF seats go, so if you have a larger than average child it might be no good. It is also prone to forward anchorage in some cars, which is a problem with fitting where the seatbelts are positioned more forwards in a car and allow the child seat to move around too much and prevent a secure fit. So if you have either of these problems, the Stages would be better. Also, for both of these seats the child's position is fairly reclined and you do have to "post" them under the seatbelt to get them into the seat, although at nearly 2 possibly you could get them to climb up into the seat by themself.

Another option though as myfavouriterain says would be to look at rear facing seats which go up to 25kg. These tend to be big and bulky, so not hugely easy to fit/move, but not significantly bigger than the Besafe seat, plus you can put a spare set of tethers in each car which does shorten things somewhat. The big plus point of a 25kg seat is that long term it will last your toddler a good 2-3 years longer than his current seat regardless of what weight he is. Useful for any child but especially so for children who are larger than average. I also think they are better designed in terms of comfort for children aged 2 or 3 years+. The Britax Two Way Elite is probably the lightest and fastest to move, but is an older seat and is only available in the UK from the In Car Safety Centre (you can order online) or to import from Ireland via Tony Kealy's. There is also the Axkid range of seats, the Move which is their budget one or the Minikid which has a couple of features designed to make moving it between cars a bit easier, but that one is expensive (£350).

How tall/heavy is your 20mo at the moment, and/or do you know which centile line he is on?

Thanks so much for both your replies. She’s my third, so I have no idea what she weighs or what centile line she’s on 😳 but she is pretty average sized I think. Fits consistently in 18-24 month clothes. Based on my eldest, I suspect she’ll be under or around 18kg at 4. Unlike my middle child, who is tall and sturdy, and we’ve had the 25kg rear facing conundrum - we got one of the Britax ERF seats, which was fine to move between cars, but we had such trouble keeping the 5 point harness straps from twisting all the time. It was a complete PITA and just didn’t feel safe.

Axkid have had that problem with theirs too. They have just recently changed the design of their buckles to reduce the twisting issue.

I have a feeling Joie Stages might do it too. I know people complain about the Joie 360 doing it, though, and I have that and it doesn't for me.

Which would you say is a more universal fit between the Tilt and the Stages, Bertie? We need to buy a car seat to take abroad with us this summer and we are getting a hire car so can't be 100% sure what car we will be getting (and I'm not hiring one of their seats!).

DD will be about 18mo by then and is a bit of a chunk, so I wonder if one of the 25kg ones would be a better (albeit pricier and bulkier) investment as we have a Britax Dualfix at the moment as our main seat so we will need to shift her to a 25kg one at some point anyway as she will outgrow that before 4 for sure.

Stages defo more universal. Tilt sits further back so is prone to forward anchorage. Although if you're in a hire car it's likely the car will be less than 2 years old so shouldn't be a problem.