Pre-School and Daycare
NSL
member
Need carseat advice
NSL
member
My 3-year old has outgrown his Roundabout, and I feel woefully unprepared in terms of carseat research for a 40 in., 31 lb kid. Anyone care to recommend their seat to help me narrow the field?
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Re: Need carseat advice
My 3 year old is 41 1/2 inches and 36 lbs and still fits comfortably in his Britax Boulevard Convertible Car seat. He's been in it since it was 8 months old.
Graco Nautilus. It's the last car seat you'll need.
Can keep them 5 point for a LONG time (65 lbs) and after that things detach to make it a seat belted high back booster and then a seat belted bottom only booster. (max weight 100 lbs, max height 57 inches with the back on).
I plan to keep mine in a 5 point until they're in middle school and being teased by their friends about it so this works well for us (just kidding of course).
I'll warn you that the straps will feel cheap to you after a Britax but that's kinda true of pretty much every non-Britax car seat.
Total score: 6 pregnancies, 5 losses, 2 amazing blessings that I'm thankful for every single day.
DD1, Kathleen 9/15/2007
My kids are 6 and 10. 10 y/o DD just stopped sitting in a belt-positioning booster. She weighs in at a tall, but slender, 65 pounds. She is the only 5th grader still sitting in a carseat, I'm sure! She just got to the point where a booster seat was so uncomfortable that she couldn't sit in it anymore. Her height made it difficult for her. My son weighs about 50 pounds and he'll be in a booster seat for a while.
The one recommendation I'd make is that sometimes seats that used to be a 5-point harness and then convert to a booster are less comfortable for bigger kids. We had one 5 point seat that technically converted to a booster, but some of the straps and buckles could not be removed from the seat, which meant that the kid was sitting on a lumpy buckle -- not comfortable for a child nearing the 60 pound mark! Also, if you want your kid to sit in a carseat for as long as possible, you want the carseat to look less like a "baby" seat and more streamlined -- or an older child will give you grief about it.
You might want to decide if this is "the" carseat you'll be using until the child is nearly middle school age, and in that case make sure it will really, truly work for an older elementary school kid. Or, you might want to invest in a more traditional 5 point seat, then ditch it down the road and get a taller, lighter booster-only seat. FWIW, that's the route I ended up taking with my kids.
This is what we've got, just waiting to make the switch from the convertible when DS2 needs it. I like the Graco car seats. Affordable, safe, and a good brand.