Car seat help for my 5½-year-old with additional needs

[Clark20]

I’m really hoping someone might be able to help or share some experience, because I feel like I’m going round in circles with car seats at the moment!

My son is nearly 5½, around 108 cm tall and 19.3 kg. He has autism and learning disabilities, so his understanding, communication, and awareness of danger are quite limited.

He’s been in a Cybex Pallas with the impact shield for the past year, but he’s now too tall for the shield. I’ve tried using it as a high-back booster with the seatbelt, but he keeps managing to get his arm out.

I’ve been looking at the Joie Bold and the Cozy N Safe Hudson, but I’m getting so confused about what’s actually suitable. I read on the Halfords website that the Joie Bold’s 5-point harness only goes up to 105 cm, which might already be too short for him.

Ideally, I’d like something that keeps him safely harnessed a bit longer — but that’s still comfortable (impact shield worked for that reason) I’ve also seen people mention Crelling harnesses with high-back boosters, but I’m not sure if that’s the right route either, and been told they only suit certain HBB but can’t find what ones.

I’ve contacted local disability centres and even our OT helpline, but the only advice I got was to try social stories and fidget toys — which doesn’t really solve the safety side of things!

@BertieBotts I’m so sorry to tag you directly but I’ve seen you give amazing advice to others or if anyone has been in a similar situation or has experience with seats that work well for children with additional needs around this age and size, I’d be so grateful for any guidance.

Thank you so much for reading — from a mum who’s been falling down the car-seat rabbit hole every night lately 😅

Look at the in car safety centre, Milton Keynes. They can advise on SEN carseats.
We used the britax traveller which was 5 point harness to 45kg.

@Ncforthiscms thank you. I’ll send them an email now.

How do you find the Britax traveller?

I had mine shipped from the USA, its called the voyager on the in car website.
It did the job well for us, but it is very heavy so ideally fit in the car and leave it. The school taxi used the celling harness which also did the job but was no where near as comfortable or as easy to use.

The In Car Safety Centre do have some special needs restraints, they also give advice on the harnesses I understand - this company is worth looking at as well:

https://www.thomashilfen.com/car-seats

Bear in mind to get the special needs restraints you're looking at huge costs, usually upwards of £600. I don't know if there's a way to get this funded at all, I expect the companies who sell them might know about this. I believe the harnesses are cheaper. But honestly, I don't know much about it. The only thing I do know is that the safety standards are slightly relaxed for special needs restraints - meaning as a general rule of thumb, if you can solve your problem by buying a standard restraint, it usually makes sense to do this. OTOH, if it's likely that you will always need an additional level of restraint for him, it makes no sense to buy twice when they are so expensive, so it would make sense to look into the longer-lasting options. While the standards are slightly relaxed, they do still exist and there is still regulation of these products, which is a good thing.

In terms of standard restraints, importing from the US is less useful these days because they have changed their regulation so there are barely any extended harness seats on the US market any more - the longest lasting ones are only up to 65lbs and 48" which is close to the 125cm/25kg limits we have here.

For UK compliant extended harness seats, you can try to get hold of the older, R44 Joie Bold, which can be used up to 25kg without height limit. It's only the newer version i-Bold which is limited.

Joie also have a new seat out called i-Irvana Max which is certified with harness up to 125cm and 25kg. Someone on MN has one and I think she said her child is comfy in it. It has to be the Max version - the other one doesn't have the higher limits.

Since the i-Irvana Max appears to be out of stock you could also try Cozy n Safe Excalibur i-size which seems to have the 125cm harness limit but I have a feeling it's only 22kg or so on the harness, which is a shame.

There is also Cybex Anoris T which is an impact shield seat with built in airbag which can be used up to 115cm and 21kg - so not the longest limits, and it's expensive and doesn't convert to a high back booster (but you could keep your current Cybex seat for this, as they are excellent boosters.)

There are several options also if you are interested in looking at rear facing seats - several of these go up to 125cm/36kg and a couple of those can physically fit children much taller than the 125cm limit.

Thank you so much @BertieBotts for replying! Really appreciate it. That’s really helpful. Going to look at the joie’s now I know which ones are suitable. His understanding and speech is coming along and I always hold out hope in the next couple years this will continue to improve (though I say every year that he’ll be talking non stop the following year 😅) so by the time he grows out of one of those hopefully a seatbelt will then be doable! We can always hope! If not cross that bridge then!

The Britax Romer, with the seatbelt padded bit. Is that to help stop them getting there arms out as well as comfort? Does it make it a bit more restrictive or not really?

Thank you for the link also

My son is similar. I use high back booster with crelling harness and it works well for us. His school transport use the same.

If you need a specialist seat or harness, have a look at charity funding. There are lots of grants out there who can help.

If you are anywhere near Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation for Disabled People can help advise on seats/harnesses.

I don’t know which ones on the market currently it works with but some HBB can be used with a crelling harness.

DS1 is a teen now and has the Thomashilfen Hercules XL which is the previous version of what is now called Hercules prime. It would be too big for your DS, but they do smaller seats, which look good. When DS1 was younger, he had a Stingray car seat.

You could also look at Hernik’s seats. Lazarehab is excellent at advising on their seats.

Thank you @flawlessflipper @craigth162 that’s really helpful and gives me more to investigate. I’ve contacted crelling to find a list of compatible car seats. Hopefully they get back soon.

No, the padding on the Britax Kidfix doesn't stop them from taking their arm out. It's energy-absorbing foam as I understand it and it's supposed to absorb some of the energy from a crash to lessen the impact on the child. I don't know that it does much TBH. You could of course look for a shop that has one of those fake car seats and the Britax seat in stock to try it out and see if it deters him - but from what I've seen on the car seat FB groups, it mainly tends to annoy autistic children rather than deter escapes, and people end up taking it off anyway.

That is a point actually - have you used a Joie car seat before? They tend to have this weird, grippy almost "sticky" feeling gummy stuff on the back of the pads to help them grip onto clothing, and again some children if they have sensory issues don't like this. It didn't bother my children (we had a Joie spin) and I know the Joie Bold was much loved by MNers on the SN boards, so maybe it's less annoying on their bigger seats, but you might want to look at a Joie seat in a shop to see what I mean and if it's likely to be an issue, consider the older (R44) Cozy n Safe Hudson or Cozy n Safe Excalibur instead. (The non i-size versions have 25kg harness limit although don't go up as high as the Joie Bold does.)

@BertieBotts thank you for all your help. Really appreciate everyone’s comments 🩷

I use the axkid movekid for ds, he's 2 but the size of an average 4 yo the sides are low so he can climb in and out himself which saves my back and its rear facing which I feel better about as he's still so young. Not sure if it's what you're looking for but it goes up to the size of an average 7 yo.