Car seat dilemma- too long for Rock-a-Tot

[Tissy]

I wonder if anyone can help? My dd is 7 months old and getting too long for her rear-facing Rock-a-Tot car seat. When she is strapped in to the front seat of my car her feet are up against the car seat back, with her knees bent. As she can sit up unaided, we went out and bought a Britax Trio (forward facing) then read the instructions which said she must weigh 9 kg. After a hasty visit to the HV we have discovered that she only weighs 6.9kg, and if she stays on her current growth line won't reach 9kg until she's over a year old! We've passed the 48-hour deadline for taking the seat back to John Lewis, so will have to hang on to it until she grows into it, but what do I do now? The Club Class seat by Britax looks like the sort of thing we'll need- fits a bigger child, but can fit rear-facing, but I'm not looking forward to shelling out another £100!
Anyone else have this problem, are there any good but cheap group 0-1 seats out there? Or will I just have to sqeeze her into the Rock-a-Tot for a few more months? Funnily, her height is only on the 9th centile, and there's plenty of room for her head, so maybe she's just got very long legs!!

Hi Tissy. I have a similar problem to you although ds is just about 9kg now, but not the 9 months that they also state. I went to look at car seats in Mothercare to get an idea of what we needed, and they said that as long as the head was still fitting into the seat then it didn't matter about the feet - can't understand that really, as it doesn't look that comfortable for long journeys. Will be interested to see the replies that you get.

Tissy, can't offer any advice but I used a Rock a Tot and then bought a Britax Club Class, which is now way too small for nearly 5yo ds. Do you want to borrow it for a while (until the Trio fits)? It's never been in an accident or anything but could do with a wash. Where are you? If you're interested, email me at [email protected] and I'll let you have my phone no. I can get it to London or Chippenham (I'm in Devon but go to both regularly). I'll only need it again if I have another, so prob long way off!!

Thanks very much for the offer, www,,much appreciated, but I'm in SW Scotland, and getting it to me would probably cost almost as much as a new seat!!

tissy where about in sw scotland i am just outside edinburgh and have a klippan classic 0-4 years car seat in perfect condition which you are welcome to borrow until dd fits in her new one.If you are interested let me know and ill give you my e-mail adress to sort it out.

Just one comment which is i am surpised that you only have 48 hours to return the car seat to John Lewis - that doesn't seem right to me as presuming you haven't used it yet - surely you could exchange for more suitable car seat like the rear facing one you mentioned. doesn't sound like very good service to me and i though John Lewis were quite good at this sort of thing. My ds is in next car seat now and he is not quite 9kg (8.8)- went to Britax roadshow and was asked how much he weighed and said nearly 9kg and he said that as long as he was sitting up well. However only weight 6.9kg might not be the same -i would go back to John Lewis and ask to exchange it.

let us know how you get on.

Manf

We had exactly this problem with ds - he was actually tipping the Rock a Tot seat forwards in the car by kicking with his feet. I asked HV if he could go in next seat and was told that the assistants in John Lewis would be able to give you advice and tell you if your seat would be ok. I think that it is ok if they can lift their head securely, especially if it has flopped forwards in an emergency stop.

Tissy, we couldn't be further away from each other (in the UK anyway) if we tried! Hope you get something sorted.

Go back to John Lewis. I've always found their service to be fantastic. I used to practically live them when pregnant and when ds was tiny as they were so kind. Always doors opened and seats provided. Sigh, that takes me back. BTW have you tried just putting the front seats forward a bit to give her more room? My ds was fine in his rock-a-tot until 10mos and he's quite a big, chubby lad!

My ever-so-long- 6 month dd is also getting too long for the Britax, the advise I was given was not to rush to get the next seat since the rear facing chairs are so much more secure than the forward facing ones. I don't know if this is good advice though

It's the weight of the the child and theor head that is the main indicator of child seats, not the lenght of their legs. Those are pretty unimportant in a crash in comparison to a head and the weight that is carried there.

It's obligatory to keep children in rear facing seats until they are about 2, here in Sweden.

It's my understanding that if a child is too light for a next stage car seat, then the inertia reel belt may not work in an accident and the entire seat+baby could be damaged. Babies often have their legs tucked up under them, anyway, so I don't think it is uncomfy for them to sit like that - at least, none of mine ever showed any discomfort.

Thanks very much for the offer, Loobie, I'm really touched that you (and www) are prepared to lend your car seat to a complete stranger. Dh has found a work colleague who can lend us a Club Class subject to his wife approving, but I'll certainly get back to you if it falls through. I'm in Kilmarnock, BTW, but we travel across to the Borders quite often, so go past Edinburgh on the way.

I'm going to try John Lewis again when they open, but don't hold out much hope of an exchange. We have opened the packaging, to fit it in the car, so I suppose they have no way of knowing whether or not we've used it, crashed the car, then attempted to return it! I'll understand completely if they turn us down!It was my own stupidity, really, not to get dd weighed before we bought the seat.

that's interesting about Sweden Malmomum. I must say I have always understood that rear-facing seats are safer. The Club Class you mention Tissy may well be ideal - it can go rear-facing as well as forward and is classed as suitable from birth (tho i'd hesitate to put a tiny newborn in it!). We had one for DS, now transferred to DD (14mo), but she still goes in the Rockatot if need be, mind you she is quite petite. Interestingly, when we bought DS's current seat (he's 3 and it's one of those that uses the regular seat belt and later splits up to be a booster seat) we noticed that it said suitable from 9 months (he was 2+ at the time). The assistant at our very good local shop said yes, a 9mo-old could go in it, but he reckoned it would only suit about 1 in 100 ie one who sat very well, was quite sturdy, and not liable to escape from under the seatbelt. I think the point is to consider your own child and how they are as much as the guidelines for the seat itself.

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I once heard a safety talk given by an employee of our Civic Centre who specialised in raod safety and the correct fitting of car seats. (as an aside, his Department actually has a sample of every model of car seat and will instruct you how to fit it correctly in your car and also if it is actually suitable for your car). The important criterion for changing from rearward facing to forward facing is that the baby can sit unaided for 30 minutes (implying their neck is now strong enough in the event of an impact). When asked about the problem that Tissy faces he said that it was safer to keep the baby in the rearward facing seat as in an accident the worst that could happen is that the child's legs would be broken ! This is opposed to a broken neck I guess. Not sure whether you will find this advice reassuring or not !

I've got a slightly different problem with regard to carseats. We don't own a car but as it's the law to have a carseat for the baby I popped into Mothercare on Monday to check out what's available. The first question I was asked is "What make is your car?" - then I explained about needing a car for taxi journeys or for when we hire a car, only to be told that as all car are different sizes she couldn't recommend a particular carseat. I rang the local car safety officer and got much the same response. I'm trying to be a responsible parent by ensuring that I comply with the law and keep my dd safe, but it's made really difficult because there is no standard size of carseat. Anybody got any suggestions?

Deborahf - really? I didn't know this. When I looked at car seats in Spain none had a "suitable for these cars" notice. As seat belts are all roughly the same I would imagine that any medium sized seat is fine in any car (or at least, better than no car seat), but you've got me worried I need to buy a new one now!

We were surprised when we went to buy the next sized seat for out little one that the one we had originally planned to buy was so ill-fitting in our car. We hadn't realised that they fitted so differently in each type of car. We decided on a different one altogether in the end after we got some really good advice from the advisor in Mothercare World. She wouldn't sell us a seat until she had tried it in our car and showed us how to fit it properly so we could try it in the other car as soon as we got home.

Hi Hatts and Lucy - thanks for the response. The lady I spoke to in my local M'care was very polite and tried her best, and then said that I'd best speak to the car safety people. Which I duly did and Caroline is very happy to advise, but the problem is that because car seat belts do vary in size, along with the depth of the back seat etc, it's really difficult to find a carseat that would be suitable for my purpose. However, I shall keep looking and will check with local car dealers to see what makes and models of baby seats that they recommend. Hopefully, I'll be successful, otherwise I'll be walking an awful lot

We had the same prob. with our 7 1/2 month old being too long for the baby seat yet to light for the forward facing seat. We often go on long journeys and our seats angle back so his legs were very squashed and he cried when we put him in his seat. I can't believe how common a problem it is yet so complicated to sort out. In terms of taking a child seat back I thought like with everything else in todays shopping world you have 28 days to change your mind, as for taking it out of the box, how do you see if it is suitable for your car and your child if you don't!

I went to mothercare looking for options and she told me my only options were to wait a while and see how his weight went (however at this rate he will be 14 months before he is 9kg)or to buy a 0-4 years seat which faces either way and is therefore bigger. The lady at Mothercare recomended their own seat which only cost £45. Even though we have short seat belts we still got it to fit, it was a battle to get it in as there is no slack in the seat belt but once in it was a very secure fit and because the seat is so much bigger he now has lots of space.

Regards a seat that will fit quite a lot of unnamed car, your best bet would probably be one of the ones that has alternative seat belt routings that way you have a choice of how to fit it depending on the car. There are also those boxes that go on the seat first and the car seat clicks in to they may well fit a lot of cars, but I don't know for sure.

Thanks Cariboo - I'll go check them out this weekend. It's such a pain! You'd have thought that the government would have considered this when they set the law - but then again that would require thinking things through

Since we knew we were going to need 2 car seats due to nursery arrangements we did the same as Carrieboo and got a Mothercare forward/backward facing seat to put in DH's car for long journeys but kept using the baby seat in my car. Our problem was more that DS used to make a massive amount of fuss (eg cry all the way to Cornwall) at being laid back in the baby seat than the length issue although that came into play a bit.

Then when DS got heavy enough/sat well enough, we turned the seat round and put it in my car and bought a Maxicosi priori for DH's car. I am a bit concerned though that the Mothercare seat isn't that big whereas DS is big. Ie I'm not sure it will last him until he is 4 and ready for a booster seat. Will probably end up buying a high backed booster and then an ordinary booster later and then I think we will have done the entire range of possible car seats!!

it does seem like not much thought has gone in to it. There is a new chair on the market called issofix it was supposed to be the first universal seat and universal system it attaches straight to the car (it doesn't use the belts). They were supposed to wait until it had been tested with a lot of cars, but for some reason it has been released early after only being tested on a few and there are already a few different systems again deffeating the point!!.

I've just read that back - I ment not much thought by the manufacturers not you Bozza!!!!!!!!!

I know what you mean by the range of seats, nothing ever seems to do the job for all ages/occasions. My friend has 3 car seats, 3 pushchairs, and it just looking at buying highchair number 2 and I have 2 car seats, 3 pushchairs and 2 highchairs. Crazy and expensive!

Don't worry Carrieboo - I understood. DH had to change cars (company rules) when DS was 16 months so we had to make sure the existing car seat would fit the new car. Will be doing the same for me this winter I think.