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Moozilla11
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Car seat for 3 year old?
Moozilla11
member
We are shopping for a new seat for DD who is about 2.5 years old. We are wanting a new seat for when she turns 3 because she is a little to tall for her current seat (Head is right at the top).
What to you recommend? Is there a good site to go on and put in your LOs info for it to suggest seats?
TIA
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Re: Car seat for 3 year old?
What seat is she currently in and is she rear facing or forward facing? A seat is outgrown for height RF when there is one inch of hard shell above the head, it is outgrown for FF either when the shoulders go above the top harness slots OR when the tops of the ears are even with the top of the shell.
What's her height, weight and torso height (have her sit criss cross straight up against a wall and measure at shoulder height for this)? All of these are important to picking the right seat for her.
Finally, what vehicle are you in? Do you need or expect to need 3 across one row a car (3 carseats, any adults, boosters, etc)? This will help figure out if certain options (mainly the frontier because it's huge) are out of the question!
She is down for the night so I will have to measure her in the morning but she is FF and her head is right at the top when she isnt sitting up. She manages to somehow even though we keep the straps tight, to slump down and relax. But when she is fully sitting up the top of her head is a little over.
We are in a 04 Chevy Blazer. Would be nice if we could fit 3 seats in the back but with that model its impossible lol.
Get back to me with what she's outgrowing and her height and I'll see what would work best for her.
The diono radian is the narrowest seat on the market and fits 3 across many vehicles. But it's a convertible seat and if she's FF you're losing out on half it's utility (which is silly since it's an expensive seat). I'll poke around and ask about narrow combination seats (harness to booster). www.car-seat.org has great forums where people will give you great info! Just a warning, though, that most on that board prefer kids to RF until a minimum of 3, preferably to 4, so they may give you a hard time about having her FF.
When I was researching I remember a brand called Radian/Sunshine Kids being great for taller kids!
I would normally still have her RF but she is abnormally tall for her age and with her hips she cannot frog leg comfortably to still sit RF. Thanks for the help
I will get exact measurements when she is awake though 
We will probably buy what ever one is best when we find a convertible seat for DS. He is awkwardly shaped as well and is growing out of his infant seat.
These kids grow way to fast!
I understand tall kids! The diono radian has a 17.5 inch top harness slot and gets most kids to 5.5-7. My daughter outgrew it right at 4!!! My younger one still just barely fits RF in it, so we'll be turning her soon
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The nautilus is a good seat. If you didn't want to have 3 across available I would highly recommend a frontier given how big your daughter is since it has the tallest top harness slots of any seat on the market by far (20" versus 18" for the nautilus, maestro and securekids, which means about 2 extra years of harnessing) but it's a huge seat so it won't work if you want to be able to get 3 across.
I would look into the evenflo securekids line. They are harness to booster seats and have the same top harness slot as a nautilus but I believe they're slightly narrower, which may help for 3 across.