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Nurseries and Baby Gear
badbridey
member
Convertible Car Seats? Recaro?
badbridey
member
We REALLY need to get a convertible car seat. LO is almost 11 months and just about at the limit for her infant car seat. But there are so many convertible car seats out there. Besides safety, my main concern is size, since we'll have this and an infant car seat (and potentially a booster as well) in my CRV.
Right now I'm leaning towards the Recaro, does anyone have this seat? I'd love to hear if you like it or not. It has really good reviews on Amazon, but then so do all the other convertible car seats I've been researching. Thanks!
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Re: Convertible Car Seats? Recaro?
The Recaro is not a very recommended seat because it sits very high, has no leg room and has cramped shoulder room. For the money you can get an easier seat.
Here are a list of seats that will last longer rear facing.
Diono R120 (no head wings)
Diono RXT (head wings)
Graco Size4Me 70/MySize 70/Headwise 70
Safety 1st Complete Air 65
Maxi Cosi Pria 70
Evenflo Triumph 65
Pipsqueak born 6/9/14
How tall is your DD?
I love our Recaro high back boosters, but I'm not impressed with the height limits on the Recaro convertible. I've also read that they don't allow much leg room rear facing, and because the shell isn't that tall, they are outgrown earlier rear facing than other convertibles.
We just bought a Graco MySize70 (also called the Size4Me or Headwise), which I'm really loving. It rear faces to 40 lbs with an adjustable head rest, so it should get DD2 to almost 4 years. DD1 is 51" and still fits (barely) in the seat forward facing.
We have also have a Sunshine Kids (now Diono) Radian, which is a good seat. We have the XTSL version that rear faces to 45 lbs, although DD2 will outgrow the limits by height long before that. There are 5 harness positions, which is nice because you're more likely to get a good fit. DD1 outgrew this seat around 5.5 years forward facing. (She's also 97th percentile for height.)
The First Years True Fit is another nice option. It rear faces to 35 lbs. DD2 was comfortably rfing in it with plenty of leg room at 2.5 years, 32.5 lbs, and almost 38". DD1 outgrew this seat at 4.5 years ffing, mostly due to her torso height.
Charlotte Ella 07.16.10
Emmeline Grace 03.27.13
She's about 75th percentile for height, so any of these seats should work well. DD1 started outgrowing some of her seats rfing at 40", and that would put your DD at about 4 years assuming she stays on the same curve.
The Diono Radian is the narrowest. It does take up a lot of room rear facing, so you may need the angle adjuster. We have one, and it makes a ton of difference.
The Graco MySize is also relatively narrow. I'd say it takes up about as much room rear facing as the Radian w/ adjuster. (When we took the TrueFit out, we were able to move the passenger seat back a few inches.)
I love this site for all carseat information: https://www.car-seat.org/forumdisplay.php?f=61
The link above has measurements for all the seats. The Radian is 17" wide. The MySize is 18". The TrueFit is 19.5".
Charlotte Ella 07.16.10
Emmeline Grace 03.27.13
We have the Recaro and we bought it because it is good for tall babies. We got the MySize70 first, but because of where the strap to tighten the harness is, we were unable to tighten it with it installed correctly in our car. I'm not really too concerned about leg room for LO--no matter what seat you get, they are eventually going to have long legs and not have a lot of leg room rear-facing. It's not a very wide seat (I think it might take up less room than our infant seat did). It is a taller shell, but I was able to scoot the passenger seat back into a comfortable position (and was unable to do that with the infant seat or the Graco we tried).
Also, some of the colors are a lot cheaper on Amazon--and Buy Buy Baby will price match the Amazon price for the color you are getting if you want to get it there.
The information I found on amazon.com said the seat only rear faces to 37.5", which really isn't great for tall kids. DD1 was 37.75" at her 2 year appointment. The manual gives a seated rear facing height limit of 22.5" or not less than 1" to the top of the shell. I don't know how that compares to other seats since I can't find the measurement for shell height anywhere. Plus the rfing weight limit is only 35 lbs.
I really wanted to love the seat since I like the Recaro brand a lot.
Charlotte Ella 07.16.10
Emmeline Grace 03.27.13
That's a great website, after looking at the measurements and reviews on that site, I think the Radian will work well for us. It was really helpful to be able to hear from people who have the same car as me, about how the seat fit, ease of installation, etc. Great resource!