Spare seat for GPs to use for 2.5 year old

[AuntieMaggie]

I'm looking for recommendations for a spare car seat for GPs to use for my 2.5 year old. Going by weight they could use the one they already have for my older child as they're over 15kg but I'm not comfortable with them only using the cars seatbelt so want something that isn't very expensive with a proper harness. Can anyone help?

Money's tight so don't want to spend too much on something that will be used very occasionally.

How much does your 2.5yo weigh now?

Do you want a forward facing seat or rear facing and do you know if they have top tether points in their car?

16kg and in a rear facing seat in mine and DHs car at the moment so would prefer rearfacing but depends on cost... I have no idea about the tethers but it's quite an old car so think so....

OK so it sounds like something which harnesses up to 18kg will be no good for you. You can rule out most seats advertised as up to 36kg because the harness limit is almost always 18kg on them.

In that case if you want rear facing up to 25kg, the cheap options are Britax two way elite, hard to find, a bit tricky to fit, old fashioned style. Britax hi way 2 can sometimes be found cheap too. These are about £160. Or the cheapest up to date easy to use one is Britax Max way plus which is about £215 at the moment.

For forward facing up to 25kg you could look at cozy n safe Hudson which is about £100 but all the forward facing 25kg seats need top tether. That's not usually found in old cars so you might struggle.

There is also baby auto dupla, which does rear facing up to 18kg and then forward facing up to 25kg, for about £140, but again it needs top tether.

It would definitely be worth checking for top tether points in their car.