6 month old growing out of car seat - what to do?

[JimmyMcNulty]

ds2 has just turned 6 months but is really big - long and wide. It is getting to be quite a squash getting him into his current stage 0 seat and he seems uncomfortable in it now. But is it OK to move him into ds1's seat (forward facing, ds1 went into it at about 11 months). Ds1 is now 3.5 and prob ready to move into the next one up whatever that is.

I am just worried about whether ds2's head control etc will be sufficient at this age to make it safe to move him.

So what are you supposed to do with super-sized offspring?

no. rear facing for as long as possible. dangerous to move up at 6 months.
you could consider rearfacing satge 1 seat - up to age 4 eg britax 2 way elite.

have a chat to ladies at milton keynes in car safety centre for advice but WAY too early to turn forward facing

we bought a britax that can be used rear facing and front facing as both my two were big babies. I wouldn't go front facing this early even though HV said DS could at 5 months as he was the right weight

Ok, thanks, will check out those seats.

Looks like a new seat for both of them then - damn!

We're considering a Britax First Class for our first baby (due May). The backwards and forwards facing does sound extremely appealing to get as much use as possible out of it - can't afford a new seat every year, or less as the case may be

It's interesting though, because I've got tons of friends with babies between 4-6 months that are growing/about to grow out of car seats - was there something in the air in the summer?!?

Just been looking at reviews on Which and Car Seat Info and there don't seem to be many tests of the rear-facing ones. The Britax First Class is said to be great when forward facing but not so good when rear-facing.

I'm keen to find one that has been reviewed independently as there is a lot of variation between how safe they are and some on the Which? website are 'Don't Buys' due to lack of protection in accidents from various directions. Does anyone know any more sites that test and review car seats?

What weight is your ds? and how much room is left on the back of the seat above his head? Also, you said it is a squash to get him in- if you don't stick him in a coat until you take him back out ofthe car, you may find it much easier.

Which don't tend to rate the rear facers tremndously highly because "they may not be correctly installed by the customer".

He is just over 20lb.

Just tried him in the car seat in the house since he was still gurgling away in his cot, and I'd say his head is about half a cm from the top of the seat. Even without his coat his shoulders look tight in it.

This is the Britax First Class review, for anyone else who's interested.

I would check out the Milton keynes people to be honest. They have a well deserved reputation for giving sound advice.

OK will do. I notice there is a similar place in Essex which is slightly more accessible for us.

thanks btw!

Them too. good luck

Thanks for the heads up on the Britax. I'll keep looking too. Hopefully we'll find something between us! Good luck!

The ladies in Essex are brilliant - I'd thoroughly recommend them either in person (if you can get there) or over the phone.

Have you seen the www.rearfacing.co.uk website? There's masses of info on there.

Also, please be aware of the difference between a Grp 0+/1 seat (such as the Britax 1st Class and Concord Ultimax) and a RF Grp 1 seat - although the Grp0+/1 seats are tested to 18kg FF they have quite a low weight limit beyond which you have to turn them round (around 13kg), so from a weight point of view you don't buy any RF time over an infant carrier. They also sit differently in the car to a RF Grp 1 seat. When DD outgrew her infant carrier at 7 months we got an Ultimax, which was OK, but by 15 months she hated it - so we got a BeSafe IziKid. She's still in it now at 2 3/4 and thinks it's great. Our only regret is that we didn't go straight for the Ultimax, but at the time there wasn't so much information about and we were told (incorrectly, we now know) that RF Grp1 seats were illegal in the UK...

One of the things we found hard was that there don't seem to be any truly impartial tests of RF Grp1 car seats - certainly not in English, anyway. Even though Which have started including them in tests, the testers seem to be extremely biased against them and so they never score highly (the lady who runs the RF website has talked to them about it - apparently she's in a minority of just 1 or 2 adults in the UK capable of reading and following the instructions...). It hasn't dented my confidence in RF seats, but it has dented my confidence in Which.

i would recommend the britax twe as well. ds loves it at 21 months. so does my 6 yo mindee if he ever gets in it too! good luck.

We had a britax first class, which we bought intending to use as a forward facing seat - it was the only one that fitted our car. However, I then discovered it was safer to keep DC rear facing as long as possible and so turned it round to be RF. It was an absolutely pain in the arse because the seat belt came across the side of the seat, and it was a nightmare trying to squeeze DD in. We ended up having to put her in from the other side across the seats IYSWIM. In the end, we bought a Britax two way elite which we love, and so does DD(she's 17 months) Based on the advice from MNetters, I called the Essex car safety ladies (details on the rearfacing.co.uk website), and In car safety people in Milton Keynes. They were really helpful and both independantly recommended the TWE for our car, so I would definitely give them a call.

That's fab, thanks so much for all the info.

Which? are funny - they are spot on at testing some things (like dishwashers!), but seem to have odd blind spots for other things.