Rear facing option for 4y4m on holiday?

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My 3 year old is currently RF in a Britax Maxway, we’d like to go abroad when she’ll be 4 years 4 months and take a seat on a plane ( packed well for the hold ) and rent a car.

I’m not keen to take the Maxway not least because of having to use tethers in an unfamiliar car ( do all cars ‘allow’ tethering? Is that a silly question? )

The alternative would be to FF in a HBB which my elder child didn’t do until quite a bit older

Can anyone suggest a RF seat for a 75% ish percentile 4.4 year old without tethers? Or suggest any alternative? Thank you

What's her weight and height now, and how long until you travel? At 4y4m on the girls' centile, 75th centile for weight is about 18.5kg and for height is about 107cm, so it's likely she'll be over the limits of most portable options on the market but if she's currently lower on one or the other side then you might just about get away with it.

I believe all cars do allow tethering but the rails are not always easy to access in all cars so it might take a while to get that sorted which might not be the best after a long travel. OTOH I know people used to take the Britax Two Way Elite on holiday frequently and that is tethered too.

Do you have a budget? Tinyseats 2 would definitely work, but it's a lot of money to pay out to only use it once.

If it's possible she'll be under 18kg but over 105cm, you could use Joie Stages. Or if she is under 105cm and up to 21kg, you could use Graco Slimfit R129 (Or Joie Every Stage R129, which is the same). These are decent options as belt fitted and not too expensive.

Or if forward facing with a harness would be an acceptable compromise you could look at Cozy n Safe Hudson? It's budget friendly again and fits using isofix and top tether. The harness can be used up to 25kg without height restriction.

Thanks so much for such a comprehensive reply I’ll look into these options, still a year away so it’s hard to guess if she’ll be under 18kg.

If we have to FF I’ll be going with the HBB option rather than a harness but would like to RF if possible

OK, then I suppose probably the best thing to do is keep an eye out and look to purchase something around 2-3 months in advance of when you are going as you'll have a much better idea of her weight and height then. I'm not sure if the Joie Stages will still be around, but it's such a popular spare/travel seat, it's quite likely you'll know someone who has one, maybe it's worth asking around?

So a couple of other options, in case there are some incredible discounts or something over the next year -

Joie i-Prodigi/Axkid One /Axkid One2 are all rear facing isofix seats up to 125cm/22kg, similar to Tinyseats but not folding.

Axkid are meant to be bringing out a tetherless seat at some point - Minikid Core, I think this will have the higher height limit as well. Not sure what the price on it will be.

Or maybe someone will come along and say tethering on holiday is fine and you don't need to worry

Hi OP,
We’ve taken a tethered ERF seat abroad twice and fitted it into a rental car. No issues either time in a Citroen or Renault that we were offered. I’ve also had a couple of hire cars from the garage here in the UK and tethered into those. Worse case scenario, if you can’t tether under the rails, you can tether through the front seat easily.
Overall, way safer to take your own seat providing you pad it well with lots of bubble wrap. Certainly better than the backless booster seat we were offered for our just turned 5 year old recently 😢