Car seat dilemma

[Pinktractors24]

My son will be 3 in July and has been using a Joie ispin 360 since birth. He's still rear facing. My in-laws were recently in the back of the car with him and commented that he seemed cramped - I know he's absolutely fine as he is but they later transferred us some money to go towards buying a new car seat and have asked about it a couple of times since then.
We are having another baby in October so I thought about perhaps using the money that they gave us to buy a new car seat for my son and using the Joie for the new baby. He isn't big enough to have a group 2/3 seat so I've been looking at 1/2/3. Some of the seats that I've been considering are Joie Fortifi, CosyNSafe Excalibur (I like the idea of having a harness for longer) or the Britax Advansafix - though this is more expensive.
However, the more I've looked I'm starting to wonder if we just keep my son in his Joie until he outgrows it (hopefully another year) and buy a new seat for our new baby, possibly another Joie ispin unless there are any other recommendations? And then just get a stage 2/3 for my toddler in a year. I've done so much looking I feel like it's information overload at the moment so I'd appreciate any advice!

Change at 4 or thereabouts, we kept DD in her 360 until she was too heavy which came just after she turned 4. We then went to a belted Britax Kidfix i-size.

You could look into an ERF seat that would keep him rear facing until he meets a safer FF age of around 5/6 years. This would give him more legroom which will be more comfortable as he grows.
A great option would be to look at a from birth ERF seat such as the BeSafe Stretch B (0-36kg) or the Avionaut Sky 2.0 (0-25kg), both are up to 125cm. You could put your newborn in either of these, then swap them over when your eldest outgrows the i-Spin. This would be a better option for your newborn too, as the i-Spin doesn’t always give the best fit for a newborn.

Thanks, I really like this idea!

@Pinktractors24
Apologies, I should have said that the BeSafe would be a better option if your son is higher centiles for height, as the Avionaut has a short shell.

If you can keep your toddler rear facing whether that means a larger rear facing seat or keeping him in the Joie until the baby outgrows a longer-lasting infant carrier (Cybex and Britax are good for this) that is the safest option, and it's OK for his legs to be bent. Agreed he would have more leg room in an ERF seat like the Axkid ones though and this might reassure your in-laws that continued rear facing is OK, if they are concerned about this.

If you did decide to look at a 123 type seat which is forward facing, I would only get the extended harness if your DC is likely to outgrow the usual harness too early, because these seats tend not to perform as well for safety, and be aware that the performance on 123 seats is hugely variable with some of them scoring poorly and only a few getting a reasonable score (bearing in mind forward facing seats all do worse than rear facing anyway). The better-performing forward facing ones are Britax Advansafix/Evolvafix, Maxi Cosi Titan i-size (all of the i-size versions) and Silver Cross Balance is also good and there is Recaro Tian if you need something without top tether. However, in general, car seats do better when they have one job to do, so long term, a high back booster which is just a high back booster is usually better than one which has been converted from a harnessed seat. There definitely is a place for this kind of seat, but if you have the option to avoid multi-mode seats, then it's worth doing that.

In terms of cost, the larger rear facing seats are quite expensive starting at £245 for the Axkid Move. Sometimes there are offers taking another model down close to that or even lower. The models which cover the newborn stage as well are more expensive. Although the Joie i-Spin 360 doesn't give a perfect fit for a newborn, I think it's one of the better spin seats for accommodating newborns and it's reasonable.

The decent 123 seats are in the £200 region, sometimes you can find an offer around £170-ish.

If you wanted to keep costs down lower than this, £150 will get you Graco Slimfit R129 or Joie Every Stage R129, which both do rear facing up to 105cm and then convert to booster seats. They are OK in terms of safety score. Not the best, not the worst. And as you have found, the 25kg harness 123 type seats are in the £100-150 region too, so a more reasonable option for higher centile children if ERF is out of your budget.

If you want to keep your 3yo in the Joie spin and get a cheaper seat for the new baby to tide them over for a year or so, you could look at Joie Juva, Britax Baby-Safe Core, Graco Snugessentials i-size, Recaro Avan is on clearance in a few places and there is always an older Cybex model on offer somewhere - all of these are long-lasting, with good safety. The Britax, Recaro and Cybex seats are compatible with most pushchairs if you would like that as a feature (it is quite useful with 2 children IME) while the Joie and Graco seats are cheaper.

Long term, if you go for the infant carrier option, you will definitely need 2x high back boosters later on as your children will be in this stage at the same time. Whereas with a 123 seat or ERF seat, it's possible that you'll only need one HBB later depending on how quickly they grow and how long your chosen seat lasts.

Thank you so much for such a detailed and helpful response. I'm torn now between 3 options.

1. Get something like the Axkid Move and put newborn in Joie 360. I am a bit worried now though about whether this is safe, although I always felt like we had an ok fit with my first in the Joie.
2. Get either the BeSafe Stretch B or the Avionaut Sky 2.0 for the newborn to go into for 6 months while my toddler stays in the Joie, then swap them over when toddler outgrows the Joie. The Avionaut is more in the region of what I want to spend but I've seen people say that it's a shorter shell...my toddler is around 50th centile for height though so not sure if this is an issue for us or just for taller children.
3. Get an infant carrier and keep my toddler in the Joie for another year then move him to a HBB when he's big enough. I wonder though if this seems like a cheaper option initially but will work out to be more expensive by the time we've bought an isofix base and have to buy another seat in a year.

People are very obsessed over the newborns not fitting into 0-4 year seats, but honestly I think the Joie is fine for this, especially if you're fairly confident with using it. It was certainly the best out of all the ones where I used to work for newborns. If it was OK for your DS, then it will likely be fine for your next baby. I don't know about you, but we barely really went anywhere in the car in the first 6 weeks or so anyway and then after that they do tend to fit much better. The angle can be an issue in some cars, but again if you didn't have problems before, then it might be this is fine in your car.

I don't think the height restriction of the Avionaut is likely to be a problem, but I would look at some pictures of older children (3+) sitting in it. It is roomier than the Joie Spin, but it isn't as roomy as some of the other ERF seats up to 25kg+. I will see if I can find some comparisons.

You don't necessarily need a base for an infant carrier, and if you did get one of the cheaper ones like the Graco, then it's only about £160 with the base, or £100 without. You're looking at closer to £200 (or over) if you want a base and pram compatability. I do think this is likely to be a cheaper option long term, because you're just buying a HBB which you would have had to buy eventually anyway, and you're likely to need two. But if you did end up with a long lasting ERF seat and you have an approx 3.5 year gap then potentially you could keep the younger one in the ERF seat until 7ish and then the older one might be OK without a booster/on a backless booster. But OTOH, you might not want to RF until 7+ years, and may end up with a second HBB anyway even if it's just for holidays etc. So - difficult to predict the future. Might be best to just consider what would meet your needs best in the short term.

Comparison with Minikid 2 here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=244853434394193

https://csftl.org/avionaut-sky-european-car-seat/

You'll probably find better photos if you are in any of the FB car seat groups.

@BertieBotts hope it's okay if I jump on this thread to ask what you think of the Britax Safe-way M, which is currently on offer? I've a similar dilemma to the OP (though without grandparental interference), in that I've got a 3-year-old who is still RF in his Joie Spin,but I've also got a 7-month-old who will outgrow his baby carrier probably before he's one. I'd like to keep DS1 RF for as long as possible, but the main issue I'm anticipating is that he'll notice all his friends are FF and stop cooperating at some point. So I don't want to spend more than I have to only to end up with massive carseat battles - though I can obvs use it for DS2 if it doesn't work out for DS1 for some reason.

Hi,
I can’t give you personal advice on the Safe-Way M, but I just wanted to pass on my recent experience about RF an older child. I currently have a 6 1/2 year old who still RF and we plan to continue until he outgrows the seat. We have just purchased a HBB for him for my husband’s car as he needs to do some school runs soon. He had his first journey in it this week and he complained that he couldn’t see as much as he can in his ERF seat.
I’m not aware of any other child in his year group (or below) who still RF. He is definitely aware of this but has only
questioned this once. We simply explained to him that mummy and daddy had decided that the seat he had was safer for him
than a FF one. I recently had one of his friends in the car in his own HBB and they wanted to travel in our son’s seat instead of his own.
Ultimately, you’re the parent and you get to decide how your child travels, but personally we’ve never had a battle about it.

Thank you, I really appreciate your detailed responses, it's so helpful 😊

Thanks @FamilyAreEverything - I'm probably catastrophising as my DS is very focused on what he perceives to be milestones (based on what his nursery friends are doing) and we've often seen a deterioration in behaviour about specific things whenever he thinks he is ready to move on! E.g. stopping using a highchair, stopping using a bib, moving out of the cot to a big bed, etc. But he currently enjoys giving us a running commentary on what colour car is behind us, so I've been talking about how we'll get him a new seat where he can still see that...

In general I trust Britax, and reviews of the seat seem positive - sorry I can't really help other than this, because I'm a bit more out of the loop than I used to be, and I don't know the seat very well.

I think all the retailers who have it on offer have other seats too so you could message whoever is your closest one and ask their opinion and whether you can make an appointment to see it in person.

TBH in general I think if you get to 3 (especially in a spin seat) without them wanting to FF, escaping, struggling with car sickness etc, then it's not generally a problem to keep them RF. IME it is more often the parent's preference to FF that causes it to happen early, and they project that onto the DC in terms of looking for signs that the child is unhappy, so if you're committed to RF/not constantly looking to interpret everything as a sign they are unhappy, you are unlikely to have problems.