Advice on 5 point harness vs seatbelt

[HerculesMulligan]

My almost 5yo is 106cm, whcih seems to be the threshold for swapping from one to the other. She is currently in a newish John Lewis car seat which has plenty of cover above her head, and she is extremely hypermobile so I prefer the idea of her being in a harness rather than a 3-point seatbelt.

I don't know her weight but it'll be fairly average for her height, she's a very standard sort of build. I tried her in her big brother's HBB (the Britax Romer Kidfix) and thought it looked all wrong and borderline unsafe, even though it says she can go into that from 100cm.

I can't decide what to do. We kept her rear-facing until she was 4.5yo so this is new territory. Opinions and expertise both very welcome.

Hi OP. She might be safer continuing to rear face if that’s something you’re willing to consider? There’s plenty of ERF seats on the market now with 125cm height limits which would give you another couple of years before you could move to a HBB.

I would weigh her - I would guess she is probably over 18kg, if she's over 105cm. If your seat is i-size then it's likely that 105cm is the boundary of the top of the harnessed mode, arguably the weight limit is more important - I did continue using our i-size seat once DS2 was over the height limit - but he was under 18kg. I would not want to push it over a weight limit, especially for a generic type seat.

If you don't feel she's safe in a high back booster with seatbelt then you can get forward facing harness seats which harness up to 25kg, those are the only option really for older children who need the harness. You could go back to rear facing, there are some very long lasting rear facing seats, but if you prefer forward facing then I'd look at these ones. You do need top tether for them.

Joie Bold
Cozy n Safe Hudson
Cozy n Safe Excalibur
Enfasafe Event FX
Puggle Safe Fit & Gro

The last three are all the same rebranded generic model.
For the first two, you need to avoid the i-size (R129) version because those have the 105cm/18kg limit on them.

Thanks, both.

@FamilyAreEverything, I understand exactly why you say that, but I really felt like we'd pushed ERF to its limit for her. She gets horribly carsick facing backwards and so I felt like 4.5yo was a reasonable compromise, particularly as she can now articulate exactly how much grottier it makes her feel, even on short journeys, and was beginning to become distressed at the prospect of a journey. Now we've turned her, she'd be mutinous to go back.

@BertieBotts, you're absolutely right, I need to weigh her and make a plan as if she's over 25kg I need to get her into a new car seat immediately! I'll do that in the morning. Thank you so much for the helpful list.

I think it was just a typo in the previous reply but just to clarify, 18kg is the maximum for a lot of seats with the 105cm limit - I am not sure offhand what the limit of the John Lewis seat is, it should say in the user manual.

25kg is the maximum for the 5 point harness on the 5 seats I mentioned. They don't have a height limit for the harness, just that the child's shoulders shouldn't come higher than the straps, which of course you can move up as they grow.

It's very unlikely she is over 25kg, but she might be close to or over 18kg, if she's 106cm tall.