ERF help please!

[Something20]

My LG is 8 months and we intend to keep her rear facing for as long as possible and will be buying an axkid minikid when she grows out of her infant carrier which is all fine and well however...

OHs parents have bought a car seat for her even though I told them about ERF and explained we would be getting a minikid and we can buy tethers for their car so we can just swap it across.

Anyway! They've bought the Joie everystage which I believe is classed as ERF as it rear faces until 18kg but I have a 98th percentile daughter. If she follows this she'll be 18kg by 3yo and I do not feel comfortable having her forward facing at that age. I then found upon researching the everystage that once they reach 18kg the harness can no longer be used forward facing so she would have to use the seatbelt however seatbelts and high back booster use isn't recommend until at least 4yo. So basically is this car seat just not suitable for high percentile children? Does anyone have any further info on this?

If all this is actually the case I'm going to ask them to return it and use our minikid like originally suggested or if they want one of their own to get the axkid move.

Thanks x

Hi yes that's right. A seat where the harness can be used until 18kg is not usually sufficient for a child on higher percentiles especially if you don't want them in a high backed booster just with the adult belt at 3yo. Some very heavy/tall children even reach the limit before 3 which I definitely wouldn't recommend. There's actually no legal minimum age for a HBB but certainly it's a good idea to wait until children are a bit older, more sensible and more physically developed.

It's nice that they've bought a seat but actually it will probably be less practical if you're happy to swap the Minikid over, because the seatbelt placement in the every stage crosses the gap at the door for getting the child into the seat as well as the age issue. It also takes up a lot of space front to back and in general just isn't the most practical ERF seat. Whereas the Minikid is easy to swap as long as you've got tethers in place.

If they are able to return it that would probably be the easiest thing to do.