I know essentially nothing and want to make good choices, lol. I have been able to get away with free car seats for a while.
Once we forward face at 2 years are there more options in car seats? In other words, would I want to buy a seat that only FFs and then converts to a booster later?
Post by londoncalling on Oct 9, 2015 14:03:53 GMT -5
You *may* want to buy a combination FF harness/booster seat e.g. if you have an expiring car seat and don't need the seat to RF, want to hand me down a convertible to a younger child that you want to RF, etc.
Theoretically you could use your convertible seat FF until: 1) it expires 2) child outgrows the seat 3) child is developmentally ready to booster.
If the car seat is about to expire soon, I'd go with a harness to booster seat. I believe the minimum is two years old and 25 lbs. I wouldn't bother with buying another convertible. I also don't think the benefits of the harness/booster seat are so great that I would buy one unless I needed to. In our case, the car seat was expiring and DS had outgrown it.
Post by penguingrrl on Oct 9, 2015 15:35:55 GMT -5
So, it's up to you when you want to turn FF. 2 is the minimum recommended age, but the benefit to RF never goes away.
Of you need to buy a new seat and your child is already 2 and you plan to FF anyway then a harness to booster seat is definitely the way to go. My son just turned FF yesterday because he got too tall in his radian and we got him a britax frontier since it has a really tall harness, which he may need. If your kids are shorter or at least not as long waisted a frontier is likely overkill (although the clicktight feature made installation so ridiculously easy that I highly recommend it for that feature alone).
If you're looking for cheap, I love our safety first convertible. It's around $70-90 and we will use it from 12 months-6 or 7. She can rear face until she's probably four because she's on the smaller side, but it goes to 36" and 35lbs rear facing, then 50lbs and 45" forward facing with the harness, 80lbs and 52" as a Booster with a back. Her sister is almost 8 and could still use it. Backless boosters are around $10-20. Harmony defender goes from forward facing, Booster, to backless Booster. I liked mine, though, because I could rear face her longer...she is two and not at the minimums yet for our seat. There are some pricier seats that go all the way to backless Booster, but I preferred just buying the backless booster separately because they're pretty inexpensive.
Thanks all of you. I know I have asked this before...every time a good car seat comes up for sale at BRU I wonder if I should buy it and that makes me think through our options.
We bought a harmony defender for DS1 and I love it. It's very easy to use (this is the first seat that DS1 can fasten the buckles by himself) and you don't have to undo and rethread the straps to adjust the height, to whole back is adjustable with a lever on the headrest. Plus is narrow and inexpensive.
Car seats bought. I picked up two Britax Marathons today. I didn't get the Clicktight because the regular ones were $100 off...the Clicktights are $50 more to start with so just the $150x 2 seats + tax = $340. They cost over $500 to start so I took the savings.
We tried installing the Safety First Air whatever today and couldn't get it to work properly...it moved too much left to right (like more than an inch). Anyways, we will keep it, and the Cosco one we have, for next fall for a second car (if we get one!).
The Safety First is good through 2017 but it looks like the latch clips are installed incorrectly (they should point the same direction but don't). Not sure what we will do with that in the long run, my friend used it for like 5 years so I am sure there is a way to make it work.
The Cosco is good through 2016, so if we use it, it will be for 4 months!
So tomorrow we will install one Marathon. Other one will likely be installed by Christmas since DS is already 27.5 inches and it is only good to 30.
Car seats bought. I picked up two Britax Marathons today. I didn't get the Clicktight because the regular ones were $100 off...the Clicktights are $50 more to start with so just the $150x 2 seats + tax = $340. They cost over $500 to start so I took the savings.
We tried installing the Safety First Air whatever today and couldn't get it to work properly...it moved too much left to right (like more than an inch). Anyways, we will keep it, and the Cosco one we have, for next fall for a second car (if we get one!).
The Safety First is good through 2017 but it looks like the latch clips are installed incorrectly (they should point the same direction but don't). Not sure what we will do with that in the long run, my friend used it for like 5 years so I am sure there is a way to make it work.
The Cosco is good through 2016, so if we use it, it will be for 4 months!
So tomorrow we will install one Marathon. Other one will likely be installed by Christmas since DS is already 27.5 inches and it is only good to 30.
The strap could be twisted?
ETA: You can always use the seatbelt, of course.
That's what we thought but it isn't twisted!! And it can't be adjusted so it seems like it was a manufacturers error? We will use the seat belt when we install.