2.5yr old car seat advice please

[TheGracefulwhale]

Ds is 2.5yrs and weighs 17kg. He is 3ft 2.
His car seat can only be used with the 5 point harness up until 18kg. The seat itself goes up to 25kg but as a high back booster. The manual says the booster mode is suitable from 15kg/ age 3.
Ds is not yet age 3 but is approaching too heavy for the 5 point harness.
What would you do? Would you stick with the 5 point until age 3, at which point he may be more 'ready' for seat belt only. Or would you go by the weight?

For what it's worth, he's never tried to undo his car seat harness, but 2.5yrs seems young for seat belt booster.
Help!

Use the harness until he reaches 18kg then reassess

Hi,

If it’s an option, I would reassess his current seat and start researching options with higher harness weight limits now.

Either 25kg extended rear facing seats if you rear face, or checking out the joie bold (25kg harness) or Britax advansafix iSize/M iSize (21kg harness, but 102cm height limit) and ensuring they fit your car.

At his age, and presuming he hits 18kg by age 3, it is still very young to move to a high back booster and seat belt. This is due to children’s anatomical development and not weight related. Their hips and pelvis are still quite soft and round at that age and don’t cope well with the abdominal load of a vehicle seat belt. So he will be safer using a 5 point harness.

If a new seat isn’t an option, then you will need to stop using the harness once he is 18kg and convert his seat to high back booster mode

Hope that helps 😊

I would personally keep him in a harness as long as possible. We’ve just moved my 3.3yo into a Joie Bold, as this is harnessed up to 25kg.

Thank you for your advice. I think I underestimated how long it will take him to gain enough weight to be too big for it! It's the joie stages that we have. I'll keep him in the harness and regularly weigh him to make sure it's still safe. If it gets to a point that it isn't, I'll look into other options.
Am blaming dh for this with his strong, tall genetics!

Not too late to explore extended rear facing. We switched our son around 2yrs old to an Axkid Minikid which rear faces in a harness until 25kg. Yes, you’d have to buy another seat but you’ll get years out of it. I wouldn’t be confident with a child so young being restrained by a seatbelt.