advice on stage 2-3 car seats please - floundering with this.

[stressed2007]

My daughter is nearly 3 and weighs about 2.5 stone. Her sister is 1 and needs to move from baby seat to stage 1 seat so thought this would be a good opportunity to move my 3 year old to a stage 2-3 seat (even though she is not the recommended age 4 but she is the right weight and is tall enough for the high backed seats) rather then buying another lot of stage 1 seats.

To me most of the stage 2-3 seats seem to be little more then booster seats with a back and don't seem to me that they would offer much protection in a crash. The sales person in mothercare said at that age children would be expected to hide/protect themselves in the event of a crash and they don't offer that mch protection! This is the only point worrying me about putting my 2.5 year old in a 4 year old seat in case she did not do this. Even at 4 though this seems a bit much to expect. Can anyone suggest one they have and are very happy with? The all seem to be quite cheap and not very sturdy. Seen a Graco Logico Group 2-3 Car Seat on offer in Mothercare - anyone got any thoughts on this? Anyone know what came out well in the which tests? Thanks very much.

Thanks very much.

you can get something like the britax evolva 1-2-3 which has an integral harness in it. this is then removed when the child reaches a certain weight and the chair is used as a highback booster.

it's really a very, very good seat, perfect for what you want.

as highback boosters without harnesses go I believe the britax evolva 2-3 isofit came out top in Which tests.
followed by maxi cosi rodi, and the britax evolva 2-3 ultra (not isofix)

Only problem is we need 3 of them (3 seperate people do nursery pick up) so hoping not to spend another £300-400 on car seats but hey what price for safety.

the evolva 123 is reduced on boots.com at the moment

check kiddicare too, they often have reductions if you're buying more than one

My daughter is just four and two and a bit stone,she is in a rear facing Britax seat,the kind they sell to Sweden.It was expensive but worth it as they are much safer for smaller lighter children.In Sweden they use them until children are four or five.Maybe think about one of these for your daughter,there is advice on rearfacing.co.uk and there are other threads on mumsnet.