Which Joie seat?

[PumpingRSI]

I’be had Joie seats and found them dependable and good valuable but I’m lost on what to buy now.
past child, tall, 12 months and heading towards the limit of baby car seat. But there are so many and too many crash tests to see what I should be looking at.

Spin option seems a good idea, but doesn’t HAVE to be as didn’t have it before - is it a game changer? Big Volvo car so shouldn’t have difficulty fitting in whatever, isofix, good safety ratings and ideally RF to 4ish years and then forward facing but doesn’t need to go too old as happy with booster when necessary. Price - I’d like it to be under the £300 mark.

What are my options - or other brands if that makes sense?
thanks

I have the joie xl 360 and love it. In our spare car we have one that doesn't spin.i would definitely recommend a spin seat however it's best to figure out what is actually suitable for your specific car and go from there.

In general I would not recommend trying to combine too many stages into one, so not getting a seat which has the booster mode included as well. It makes for a very high up, heavy booster when the time comes, the seatbelt positioning isn't great on most of the combo boosters, and it's better all around IMO to just get a separate one, which also won't have had snacks ground into it for 3+ years (everyone says they won't feed the kids in the car; it doesn't last.) HBBs are coming down again in price and it's easy to find a decent one under £100 now.

Spin option is genuinely useful with toddlers, especially when you can't just get them into the seat in the house as you can with the baby seats. It makes it much easier to check the straps are all even and correct and at the right height etc. However with a high up car, bear in mind the extra lifting to get the child into the spin and it means they are less able to climb into the seat on their own.

Joie seats are good for the price, however if you have £300 to spend then you don't need to stick with Joie. You could look to import the Joie i-Soren (carseat.se have it) which lasts longer than their spin seats, up to 125cm/22kg, and costs under £300. This is an excellent option for the price.

For a Joie spin seat you only really need to spend £150-200 - look at the i-Pivot, the i-Spin 360 or the Graco Turn2Me i-size (which is basically the same seat as Joie Spin 360 GTi).

You don't need to ever forward face with harness if you don't want to. If you're happy to RF up to age 4ish then you can go straight from that to a high back booster.

Other seats for a £300 budget which are worth looking at IMO are the other spin seats (Cybex Sirona Gi i-size, Britax Dualfix M Plus, Maxi Cosi Mica)

or you have the ERF seats up to 125cm - these aren't usually isofix, but should benefit if you have a taller child because they last longer - every other seat mentioned (except Joie i-Soren) has a 105cm height limit. If you follow your baby's centile line you can roughly estimate what age they will reach 105cm. Plus with being lower to the seat, they are much easier to get children into, they have much better leg room than the Joie i-Soren (particularly the Axkid) and toddlers can often climb in themselves from age 2 or so. Easy to install in Volvos, as they tend to have tether loops in place already.

Up to £300 you could look at Axkid Minikid 2, Avionaut Sky Q, or the Britax seats SafeWay M or MaxSafe Pro.

If you like the idea of a spin but also the 125cm limit, you could also look at the Avionaut Stardust. It's a bit overbudget, but I thought I'd mention given that it is really the only seat with both these features. It also has the high back booster mode which it converts to later on. I have seen some ERF experts review it and they seem happy with it in HBB mode, so it's possible that my general dislike of combining HBB with other seat types is wrong on this occasion. (I haven't seen it IRL to say).

I would also say possible reccomendation for Britax Swivel - it has the booster mode built in, but due to this it seems to have a very tall allowance for the child's shoulders even in the harnessed mode. I don't know how it performs as a HBB, but it may be worth keeping just for the RF/FF stage because of this extra shoulder height. I understand that the height limit of that mode is still limited to 105cm - I've also seen Britax say it's OK to keep using the harness if the child fits into it and they are under the weight limit. That is extremely anecdotal, and probably not an official line.

Anyway - sorry, that is quite a lot of seats to look at, but hopefully something there is helpful.

Wow, that is a comprehensive answer, but v helpful. So I think a 360 could be useful, but I didn’t have one with older children so I could do without. And with a big tall car, it could make it too tall with the spinning base.

so if I just wanted one to go to 105cm and not spin - the world is my oyster. But and spin and to 105cm is also a good bet moving to a separate HBB later on.

Oh and I’m not sure I want one that only does RF. My 2nd child was horribly car sick and we had to turn it round earlier than I’d have liked due to screaming and vomiting which as a driver made the safety benefits of rear facing null and void as I scrabbled to find tissues and bowls.

Oh god, I’m deep into the car seat rabbit hole now. I see ERF don’t do FF, which makes sense - why would they?? (except if your child is car sick and you end up with an ERF you can’t use…). But I think we’ll hit the weight limit first at before 3 years. So we may have to do ERF and take the risk otherwise she’ll not be 3 before we have to buy another car seat.

Yes unfortunately, there aren't any seats on the market which do ERF to 125cm and also FF - well, only Besafe Beyond, but that ends up costing about £700 because you have to get the base too, so might as well just get a cheaper ERF seat (Axkid Minikid 2 / one of the Britax ones) and then if you do need to FF later, cross that bridge when you come to it? There have literally just been two brand new FF 125cm harness seats released, so in a couple of years' time, it's quite likely you'll have more choice in that category if you end up needing that.

Avionaut Stardust 360 might be worth a look as well, although I have a feeling it's only 105cm on the harness when FF, possibly RF as well.

What's the limit on your baby seat/how tall is your 12mo? 105cm tends to be reached a little bit later than the old 18kg limits, so it might not be prohibitively short depending on where LO is at the moment.

Thanks - she’s 75th centile for weight and height, although health visitor thinks weight centile will come down now she’s on the move. I think you’re right, 105cm / 18kg is just a bit too short as I reckon she’d be not quite 3 when she outgrows and I’d like her to be more like 3.5/4 before she FF.

Do any of the ERF have different upright positions? At the moment I’d like her to still by quite reclined but by 4 she’s going to want to be more upright.

At 75th centile you're looking at the limits being met round about the fourth birthday, not three - so you would probably be OK with a 105cm limit, especially if it has a 20kg rather than 18kg weight limit. OTOH it might be quite tight and you could end up wishing for just an extra 6 months or so in the seat. But if you're happy with FF around age 4 then you could always opt for a FF harness/booster combo seat at that point, there are a couple with higher weight/height limits. Not always easy to find, but they exist and I expect they will still exist in 3 years' time.

My younger two have also been on higher centiles around 12mo but by 4 they were much closer to average. My just turned 4yo I was worried would be too tall and he was over 17kg a few weeks ago so I was sure he was about to bust out of the seat (though ours goes to 105cm/21kg) but then he seemed to drop back down to 16.6kg and at his recent check up he was only 104cm, so I think he'll be OK for a little while longer before I switch him to HBB.

Most ERF seats have a range of recline settings. The spin ones generally have a few different positions, Joie's seat also has an extra angle reducing wedge which can still be used at 12mo. I think their i-Prodigi has this too, not sure about the i-Soren, because one reason it is cheap is that it doesn't include the insert for younger babies.

The Britax Max Safe Pro has a wedge which makes it more reclined for younger babies which can be removed for older children. Other than this it doesn't change position I don't think. Avionaut Sky also doesn't change. You can look up reviews to see how different aged children sit in the seats.

Axkid seats have a choice of recline position but this can't be changed easily - you have to partially uninstall the seat in order to change it. So you would have it more reclined, but with less leg room for a younger toddler and then once they get older, you can make it more upright and also increase leg room if you want to, using the front to back space you gain by the more upright position.