Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Car seats

Confused about car seat regulations? Find baby car seat advice here. For Mumsnetter-approved essentials, sign up for Mumsnet Swears By emails here.

Advice for car seat for large 2yo!

5 replies

sazzt · 29/08/2023 14:25

Hoping that someone might have advice / recommendations for this situation:

We’re looking to get a new car seat for our just turned 2 year old (big for her age, approx 14.5kg & 87cm tall). We currently have a maxi cosi 2 way pearl. Our car is a small hatchback (Skoda fabia). We now use it forward facing as she gets very car sick and won’t tolerate rear facing.

We have two problems with the current seat:
⁃ the main one, the harness doesn’t fit her well and the straps fall down from her shoulders however much you tighten it.
⁃ secondary issue is that it’s hard to get her in through the door as the seat is high & she’s still too little to climb in.

It seems likely the choice is between a Grp 1 seat up to 18kg that we may only get a year or so out of, or a harnessed seat with higher weight.

In which case Joie Bold seems to be the only FF one. I’m told it’s quite big, anyone have any experience using it in a smallish car?

Can anyone think of options I’ve overlooked?

And if we did decide we just need to take the hit on getting a grp 1 seat that won’t last very long, any thoughts on seats that might be suitable?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
BertieBotts · 29/08/2023 16:00

Yes you probably do want the Joie Bold. The size of it shouldn't be a problem in a Fabia - it's mainly an issue if you are trying to fit 3 child seats across.

Have you moved the headrest up on the seat you have? This is supposed to be done as the child grows and should help the harness fitting issue :) As she won't be anywhere close to the top limit of it at 87cm tall, but will be too tall for the lower setting which might be where you're having the issue.

She isn't on too high of a centile for height, if you did want to take the hit on a shorter lasting seat you might want to look at the rotating seats? Britax Dualfix M Plus lasts up to 20kg which might be better for you, especially if she slows down in weight gain. Or Maxi Cosi Axiss is a bit smaller and lower down in the car due to being belt fitted. Only up to 18kg though.

Def try moving your car seat headrest up - this video shows how to do it :)

Maxi-Cosi | Pearl Pro & Pearl Pro 2 i-Size | How to install your child and adjust the headrest

Maxi-Cosi | Watch this video to learn how to install your child in the Maxi-Cosi Pearl Pro i-Size car seat and how to adjust the headrest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW4pAdKXYbw

sazzt · 29/08/2023 19:12

@BertieBotts thank you so much for such great advice! At the moment it seems not so much that the seat is too small but as if it doesn't fit her body shape well and her shoulders are too narrow for the straps! Will check out the headrest position and see if it helps.

The Dual Fix M plus looks interesting, I will see if my closest baby supplies store stocks that one.

I've also been looking at cybex - do you know anything about the Pallas G, Pallas S or Anoris T?

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 29/08/2023 20:05

I know a little bit about the impact shield seats. First of all, you have to take the safety claims with a pinch of salt, the manufacturers like to claim that a 5 point harness used forward facing is terribly unsafe, which just isn't true. We know that forward facing is less safe than rear facing, but although the impact shield reduces the neck loading compared to a forward facing seat, it's nowhere near as much as rear facing reduces it.

OTOH rear facing advocates have been going in the opposite direction and pointing out the flaws with impact shield seats - they have higher chances of ejection, especially in rollovers (which are more common if you drive an SUV style car) or in a frontal offset crash, which are a fairly common kind of head on crash. They are also known to have higher abdominal loads compared to a 5 point harness.

So overall, they aren't any safer than a 5 point harness seat used forward facing, but they also aren't any worse. It works out about that the extra risks cancel out any potential benefit (statistically, according to real life crashes).

What they do tend to be really good for is reducing misuse, because they are really simple to use and hard to make mistakes with. They can also be good for persistent escapees, and they tend to be quite light and fast to fit so good for people who swap cars a lot.

In terms of the three you mentioned, the Pallas S is the bog standard impact shield > high backed booster seat so all of the above applies. It has an 18kg limit on the shield, so probably won't last long enough for you.

The Pallas G is approved to the newer regulation and works slightly differently in that it has to be fastened using isofix and top tether and then you affix the shield onto the front using clips and tighten it. Because of all this, it's slightly less easy to use than the basic one and has more potential for misuse, but OTOH the newer regulation did include some guidance about ensuring that the forces from the shield are directed towards the pelvis, which might reduce some of the abdominal loading and might also ensure a tighter fit reducing the ejection potential, but this is all just speculation and guesswork because it's the only model like that on the market and that is too niche to show up in any statistics or research studies. It does have a higher weight limit of 21kg, though a height limit of 105cm for the shield.

The Anoris T has the newer regulation too, so all of those "possible" benefits, but the main thing about this one is that it has airbags inside the shield, which work the same as airbags in the front of your car and help protect and support the head and neck in an accident. It also uses a support leg instead of top tether which makes a lot more sense for this type of seat. The crash test data that has been released is superb, it's a really impressive seat, but it does have a hefty price tag, again, it's up to 21kg (but 115cm this time), it doesn't convert to booster seat and it's much too niche to have any real-world data about it, so we don't know if the ejection/abdominal loading issues are reduced. It's likely that it's safer than a normal forward facing seat, but I'm not sure it's really the safest ever, as Cybex claim.

Going back to your current seat, car seat straps should go over the shoulders either side of the neck. It would be really unusual for her shoulders to be too narrow for the straps, as the gap between them is generally only a couple of inches, if you look at where they are attached to the seat. Therefore, I think it's most likely that the headrest is set too low - this causes the straps to sort of lean out to the sides. The picture on "Step 2" here is how they usually look when you have the harness set too low. (I'm using harness/headrest interchangably, because in these seats they are joined together and adjust together.)

https://www.goodeggcarsafety.com/blog/5-steps-to-strap-your-child-into-their-car-seat-correctly.html

5 steps to strap your child into their car seat correctly

Although strapping your baby in might sound like an easy task, the truth is, it is one of the most common misuses on child car seats. The harness on a child’s car seat is there to restrain your child, and to absorb the energy from a collision – this b...

https://www.goodeggcarsafety.com/blog/5-steps-to-strap-your-child-into-their-car-seat-correctly.html

sazzt · 30/08/2023 21:01

@BertieBotts you were absolutely right, used the seat today with adjusted headrest position and it is so much better! Headrest is nearly as high as it will go now, poor girl has probably inherited my long body and short legs 🤣 Will investigate the joie Bold again if the Pearl doesn't see her as far as the 100cm requirement for the next size up!

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 05/09/2023 19:49

Bless her! Glad she is more comfortable. It is normal for them to be nearly on the top setting at age 2. The top setting usually does about 3 - 4yo and the next but one does from about 2 - 3. Because they grow so rapidly in the stages from birth to 2 they rocket through loads of settings but then they stay on one for ages.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread