Car seat options for a 3yo?

[meitaimama]

I've been wondering what to do for a new car seat for our dd when the new baby arrives.... dd will have just turned 3 and is 15kg, average height but almost outgrown her hipod convertible, which we'll use for the new baby. She's sat in her friend's booster seat but isn't tall enough yet to use it with just an adult seatbelt. I read this thread http://forums.naturalparenting.com.a...ar+seat&page=2
but I don't really want to go for a maxirider, as it seems she won't be able to use the 5-point harness for long and will then be just using it as a booster.... so I'm thinking we could go for a cheaper booster with a h-harness. I don't want to compomise on safety but from what I've read the maxirider doesn't perform better than cheaper seats in this regard, when used as a booster. What are h-harnesses like though? Are they easy to use/comfy/a pain to get in and out of? Any booster recommendations?

Thanks!
Sarah

[Nooshie]

I'd recommend going to a baby shop and getting her to sit in the maxirider. This is what I did with DD1 yesterday as she needs a booster too. I also didn't want to spend $200 more than necessary if she was going to grow out of the 5 point harness soon, so I got her to sit in it and did it up, and there's still quite a lot of room for her to grow before she'll outgrow it (she's 4.5 and about 103cm). 5 point harnesses really are the best options if they're available.

THere's also another brand (forget what it's called) that's the same as the maxirider but a bit cheaper, but the arm rests don't come up and I thought this might make it a bit harder for her getting in and out.

[Nyree]

My just-turned-3 year old moved to a booster about 6 months ago. She's not very tall for her age, but is about 19.5kg now.

We got a Hipod Barcelona which is for 14-26kg. The headrest is adjustable as they grow, it still tethers to the anchor point for added safety & uses a normal seatbelt. There is a clip that holds the seatbelt in place, so it is always the right height relative to the child's height. I don't know if you can use an H-harness with it though. It's also the one that performed best in the Choice research. Not overly cheap (I think I paid $226 at Target), but we're happy with it.

[emd]

When Billy was born, we had Jools (almost 2, 11kg) and Sophia (3, 14.5kg) and we drive a Ford Falcon.
We tried a high-backed booster seat with lap-sash seatbelt, but I wasn't happy with how secure Sophia would be in an accident. The Minister for Household Finance wasn't keen on buying an expensive Maxi-Rider, and we couldn't fit a Maxi plus the two existing convertible boosters across the back of the Ford anyway.
So I went to our local Kidsafe office, and they came out to the car to try things out.
Our options were to fit a H-harness to the lap-sash seatbelt for use with a high-back booster seat. But we happen to have one of the few models of Ford with seatbelts too short to fit the harness properly. Or a convertible compact in the middle for the baby (which is what we did). Everyone fits for now... I'm working on the Minister for Household Finance to knock me up again one day so I can buy a van and have more seating flexibility by the time Sophia outgrows her seat.

[LDHmummy]

We have the SnS Pegasus booster seat with an H harness and it's great. DS can stay in it until he's 26kg, then use the harness on a regular seat until 32kg. He went into this seat when he was around 3.5years as he outgrew the max weight on his convertible seat.

http://www.britax.com.au/Websites/Bu...0Seats-Pegasus

The Pegasus is around $125, and the harness is around $30 I think.

[LDHmummy]

Just found a photo of DS in his Pegasus when we first got it. He was, and probably still is 19kg.



You can't really see the anti-submarine clip in this pic because of how his hands are, but it hooks onto the seatbelt and makes it pretty similar to a 5pt harness.

[Marguerite]

That pegasus looks great.

We have both girls in the maxi rider. At 4.5 G is still short enough to be using the included harness but we have the h harness in the cupboard ready to when she is tall enough.