What Carseat does a 3 year old need?

[WhyTheHeckMe]

Just planning ahead. Ds is 2 and has used the Joie 360 spin since he outgrew his group 0 seat. We love it, it's a brilliant seat but quite pricey. By the time my baby needs to go into this next stage seat I think ds will be around 3. He's still rear facing.
I'm trying to work out if I should invest in another 360 for baby despite the fact that my eldest will potentially only be in it for a few months? Or at this point would he move to a different type and if so, what kind?
I've googled it but the different group numbers just confuse me to be honest!
He's currently about 13kg and only just 2.
Thanks!

My 3 year old dd is in a high back booster. She was 17.8kg in November when she turned 3 so I switched her and she's been fine.
We don't drive much though and she doesn't ever nap in the car.

It's safest to rear face until at least 4. If you can get to an In Car Safety Centre they are amazing. There are plenty of excellent seats that would give you more than a few months use but keep your dc rear facing for longer if that's something you want to explore.

Okay great thanks! Yes we want to keep him rear facing for as long as possible, but when I just said to dh about ordering another 360 we worked out that our eldest will potentially only be in it for around 9 months more till he hits 4 once baby switches to the same seat, so ideally we would like a good seat that will see him beyond 3 but still be safe! It's a minefield :-)

If you want to keep him rear facing longer than 4, you could look at the Britax Two Way Elite and put the baby into the 360. The TWE rear faces to 25kg and is currently £185 from the in car safety centre (just bought one!)

High back boosters aren't recommended before 4 as a minimum, even if they meet the 15kg weight limit.

The Facebook group 'car seat advice for mummies and daddies' gives excellent advice if you can join that.

Where has this sudden new obsession with 4 as a minimum for high backed boosters come from? A 3yo is fine in a booster as long as the belt fits them well and they can be trusted not to take the seatbelt off. While I am fully supportive of the evidence for rear facing longer, I'm not at all convinced that extended harnessing is evidence based at all. In fact some schools of thought seem to suggest that a forward facing harness is worse than a seatbelt, because of the strain to the neck. (Racing drivers usually have separate neck support).

Quote:

4 is the absolute bare minimum for HBB. This is because a child’s bone density generally strengthens at this age. Furthermore, before this age, there is a real chance of a child submarining under the seat belt. Finally, it’s unlikely that a child under 4 is mature enough to sit correctly, bum back, no slouching, no leaning; however, as always, rear facing is always safer for as long as possible.

Every step up in a car seat is a step down in their safety so the longer it is avoided the better. If a child is going to be 18kg before 4, then a 25kg (ideally RF) seat would be required

I'll find the sources today.

Quote:

By law you a re allowed to use a HBB from 15kg (not 13kg!) but skeletal maturity is low in children under 4 and you risk submarining and lower abdominal damage as well as the child mentally not being ready for a HBB so will in most cases not follow the rules. A HBB is the last group in the car seats, for each group up you take one step down in safety, which is why all car seats should be used to the maximum. Just because the child is 15kg, it's not time to switch seat until the child has outgrown it's harnessed seat either by weight or hight.

Please see these links for more info:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.345787928925458.1073741842.151654968338756&type=3

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.414443542032834.1073741882.282362311907625&type=3

http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2002/wp29grsp/InjuriesinnFFCRSfinal.pdf

I would purchase a rear facing to 25kg seat for you DS and put baby in the Joie 360. We've just ordered the Axkid Minikid for our DS who is just about to outgrow his baby seat but the cheapest and one of the longest lasting is the Britax Two Way Elite.

We have the axkid minikid. Love it. My responsibility to keep my boy as safe as I can for as long as I can so he will be rear facing until he’s 25kg and too heavy. We tried the britax TWE and would have gone for that (better for my wallet!) but the fit wasn’t as good in our car so chose this one. The in car safety centre fit it for us. Brill all round

My 5yo is still in a 5 point harness because he's small, and will be in one for some time. All depends on your child's size, really.

The Minikids are excellent if you can stretch to them. We've got 2 as our main seats.

Axkid actually recommend rear facing until at least 6. They're a Swedish company (lowest child injury rates from car crashes in Sweden) and rear facing until at least 4 is the norm there.

Thanks for the links. I've had this discussion on here before. The Facebook group post isn't very compelling to me I'm afraid. It's one woman with an obsession with this iliac crest, something I've never seen any basis for except for random Facebook posts and infographics created by the same people who seem to regurgitate information they have 'learned' from each other. The crash test picture is alarming but there's nothing to go on apart from her word that the dummy in the picture apparently suffered head injuries - which would TBH bizarre considering this is supposedly the basic 30mph test, and companies like which and ADAC have tested that same seat with a 15kg dummy at 40mph and it has passed. Lastly, she keeps insisting it is about the risk of submarining, when that crash test dummy has clearly not submarined in the slightest, the lap belt and dummy's hips are perfectly held in place, it is the upper body which has moved.

The PDF you linked talks about harnessed children, not children in high backed boosters. It also states that all but one child restraint was loosely fitted (harness or seat to vehicle fitting). This is actually one argument I'd make for HBBs - there is a MUCH smaller margin for error in fitting as seatbelts tend to be self tightening around movement of a passenger's body, especially when compared to belt fitted harnessed seats, which are rarely tightened sufficiently, plus the risk of a loose harness in isofix seats, especially bearing in mind there are no 25kg limit isofix harnessed seats, because isofix does not support this weight - and these are extremely common and easy to make errors, which should be taken into consideration when advising parents about which seat to choose.

YY it's absolutely about the size of your child, and I certainly don't believe we should be whipping children out of their current seat as soon as they reach 15kg! But if a child is too large for a standard group 1 harness plus over 15kg, or the seat is needed for a younger sibling and the older is over 15kg, it is unnecessary to spend out more on purchasing a group 2, FF harnessed seat over a decent booster.

If you want to continue rear facing - fair enough, as there is evidence to here his provides greater protection. But when happy to forward face, there is no evidence I've found for the claim that a high backed booster is so much less safe (or even indeed any less safe) than a forward facing harnessed seat.

AXkid Minikid no contest. You spend a lot at the outset but lasts for ages

I've tried to search for the 2 seats (Britax 2 way and Axkid Minikind) but can't find a single UK stockist of either?! Am I doing something wrong?
Really appreciate all the advice, ds loves being rear facing. I'm always shocked at the amount of other parents with kids the same age that seem shocked he's rear facing still at 2!
I just wish the Joie 360 lasted longer than 18kg as it's a brilliant seat

Thanks Bertie, I'll have a read. You can absolutely accuse me of repeating what I have read on the FB group but I find their advice and recommendations very good, particularly compared to the advice you'd get at mothercare, Halfords, etc

I know the HBB vs FF harnessed debate but I don't know much because TBH, I'm not sure why they're even still selling forward facing seats when the evidence for ERF is so overwhelming.

As for why would you buy a group 2 seat- why would you not buy a 25kg ERF seat, either for the younger sibling or for the one moving out of the group 1 seat? For me, we'd go without Christmas, birthday, take aways, treats, trips out etc before I would make that compromise.

I got our minikids from carseat.se and I know the TWE is only available from the In Car Safety Centre in the uk. Again I got mine from their website.

There are lots of videos showing installation and it's really easy. Obviously better to be able to get to a stockist and let them fit it but if you really can't, watching the videos helps a lot.

If you go on that Facebook group they'll be able to tell you who you're nearest stockist is.

Pretty sure the only UK stockist for the two way elite is In Car Safety Centre (or it was a few years ago when we bought ours) but you can buy online you don't need to be close to them. Also if you email them your car make they will confirm if it's suitable.

It's a huge seat and my large 3.5yr old will be in it some time I think, and we will likely buy another one when DS 18months grows out his current one

www.axkid.com/retailers/

incarsafetycentre.co.uk/product/2-way-elite-cosmos-black/

Just looking at the 2 way elite on that link (thanks liskee) and seen this comment

PLEASE NOTE - THE MAXIMUM WEIGHT ON THE 5-POINT HARNESS HAS RECENTLY CHANGED FROM 25KG TO 18KG (FORWARD FACING). SEATS PURCHASED BEFORE 25/05/17 ARE NOT AFFECTED. REARWARD FACING WEIGHTS ARE NOT AFFECTED

So does this mean that if we purchased this seat he would have to stay rear facing after 18kg, we wouldn't be able to turn him?

Yes they changed the buckle on the TWE so it's still rear facing to 25kg but only FF to 18kg. I think all 25kg FF seats now have to top tether.

We’ve ended up with 4 car seats (2 in both cars), and have 3x Joie stages which last until 4. You can normally get them for around £130.

Sorry to hijack the thread but can someone just confirm that it’s absolutely safer for toddlers to be rear facing until at least 4? Got into a bit of a debate with SIL the other day and she was adamant it was dangerous for my 2.5yo to be rear facing because she might brake her legs.. that she’d done her research and all the rear facing evidence is really old!? She must have looked at different research to me but did make me question myself some what.

Yes it's absolutely unequivocally safer.

Simply ask her if she'd rather he had a broken leg or a broken neck in a serious car crash.

www.rearfacingtoddlers.com/faq.html

Fair enough. I agree that the advice on those groups is generally good, and I think most of their advice is spot on. There are a couple of car seat things which I can't find good evidence on, though, and those are:

• So-called "expiry dates" on European car seats. Not a thing. Though there are good reasons not to use older car seats, and you may want to use the expiry date idea as a rule of thumb.
• Supposed benefits of forward facing harnessing over HBB after 3 (actually, there's no evidence for it after 2, but it would be a rare 2yo who would fit into a HBB so let's say 3)
• Lie-flat seats for newborns, especially full term newborns. There are a few scenarios where they may be beneficial but mostly I think they are a gimmick.

I do highly suspect that the first two are getting mistranslated from North American car seat advice, which is different because US/Canadian car seat regulations are very different from ours.

RF is definitely safer. It's safer for everyone except for obviously the driver! In fact, if we could reliably find a way for the driver to be able to navigate safely while RF, it would be safer for them too. There is no age or weight cut off where RF becomes less safe or equivalent to FF, however, the risks of travelling FF are much higher the younger a baby/child is because of their heads being so large in proportion to their bodies. When you look at crash data the highest incidence of deaths (sorry) occurs at around a year of age. This is part of why the new regulations stipulate 15 months minimum RF, and parents should be aware that this is the highest risk point. Personally, I find that the risk drops acceptably after this point, especially after 18m/2 years if you can stretch that far, so I'm not personally too worried about FF after this point. BUT, I do agree that it is safer to RF, and if safety is your only or #1 concern, then absolutely RF is the way to go, for as long as you feel it is necessary or indeed as long as you can!

Also, the fear that children will break their legs seems to be unfounded and based on a poor understanding of physics - perhaps based on anecdotes about passengers having their feet up while in a forward facing position, which would almost certainly lead to broken legs (or worse) in a frontal crash, especially when they are resting on a panel with airbags inside.