Booster seats vs booster cushion for skinny 3 y.o.

[derelicte]

What are the rules/recommendations regarding carseats for older children?

If we can use a booster cushion rather than a whole great big seat, we might be able to avoid buying a bigger car. DD is a bit of a shrimp though, and I obviously don't want to compromise her safety. She's 13.6 kilos, but fairly tall.

Whaddya think?

Booster seats with or without backs are suitable for children over 15kg, so your dd is still a bit small for one yet.
It's a bit drastic to have to change the car to fit a seat in, have you had a look around for narrow seats? I'm presuming you're trying to fit three seats in, britax tend to be narrow.

car seat types. According to this website the high back boosters have a minimum weight requirement of 15kgs so your lo is too light for one at the moment anyway. We use a britax hiliner for dd but I think they were discontinued and replaced with the britax evolva 2-3.

Thanks for that info!

We've got a Mamas and Papas Viaggio infant seat and two Britax Renaissance car seats. The latter were the only car seats in Mothercare that fitted!

I'm 99% sure we couldn't fit them all in the back (although I haven't actually tried it). Our car is a Seat Leon - DH loves it and will be bereft if we have to trade it in for a bigger family car, so if there was any combination of car seats that we could use, we'd go for it.

By the way, this is all a bit academic at the moment, and is phase one of my negotiation for DC3

cant u put the viaggio in the middle of the back seat with the other two on either side?

I don't think so. I've tried sitting in the middle of the two seats and can barely squeeze in (I'm fairly slim).

She needs to be in a Group 1 seat at the moment - she can be that until 18 kg but shouldn't be in Group 2 (ie with just a seat belt) until 15kg.

I'm intending to keep both DS and DD in high back boosters for as long as possible - I think a child needs to be about 22kg to be in a cushion type one.

I thought this wou;d prob be the case. This means that we either a) abandon all hope of dc3, or b) get a bigger car...which we can't really`afford to do. Arse!

couldnt you try different seats?
i have an mg zr whih is about the same size as a leon,and can fit 3 seats in.
could you not put her in one of the highback booster types with a harness,as they are quite narrow,with another on the other side once the lo is big enough,and maybe get a smaller baby seat than the m&p one,to go in the middle?

But by the time you had another baby your dd would be bigger, wouldn't she?

the car seat law states that if theres no room for a booster in the middle(because there are already 2 car seats in the back)then they dont have to use one so long as they are over 3yo.