Carseat options?

[lotusdebi]

My 3 year old (4 in March) broke his Britax convertible carseat today during a tantrum. We would prefer to wait until he's 4 to put him in the highbacked Graco TurboBooster that we have. He's currently 40 inches tall and weighs 40 lbs. What are our other options for carseats that don't involve spending $200 on a carseat that we'll only use for a few months?

Thank you!

[chickabiddy]

Evenflo Maestro, $75ish.

[leighi123]

Or the graco nautilus, which is around $150.   It harnesses to 65lbs and converts to a nice booster afterwards.   Many 4yr old are not mature enough for a booster, so you may want to wait another year or more (esp if they are having tantrums bad enough to break a carseat, how did he manage that???)

Here is the checklist to determine when your child is ready to switch from a harness to a booster:

http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=38893

[lotusdebi]

Thanks for the recommendations!

He broke the foam that's over the plastic but under the cover. I don't know how. He tantrums HARD and LONG! I put him in the carseat in order to keep him safe during his tantrum (no place to hold him safely or lay on him to keep him from hurting himself where we were at). I'm glad the carseat got hurt, and not him, but still irritated.

He has a difficult time with self-regulation, so the tantrums are a bit more extreme than I think many 3 year olds have.

[an_aurora]

Replacement foam is available on Britax's website :)

[sunnymw]

Like a PP said, you can just order replacement foam... but I'm not sure that the height of a Britax convertible is going to be enough to get him to a MATURE booster age, if he's tantrumming that hard at almost 4. DS1 still has tantrums like that at times, and it's going to be a VERY long time before I think about even starting to booster train him on short rides. 

[lotusdebi]

The tantrums themselves aren't enough of a reason for me to avoid the booster. His older brother also had major tantrums (he has autism), but he was able to sit properly for a booster seat at 4. My younger son's tantrums aren't about the carseat, they're about transitions and inflexibility. He wants things to go a certain way, and when anything veers even slightly from the way he envisioned it, he seriously freaks out.  He's already able to unlock the chest clip on his carseat, but he doesn't do that when I'm driving.

We'll be checking out various carseats today. My husband read that we can also just tape the foam back on until we get replacement foam. We'll figure it out.

Thanks for all your help!

[lotusdebi]

My DH got all "OOOH! SHINY!" over the Nautilus, so we bought that (in spite of the $$$).

Thanks for all the help!

[sunnymw]

Awesome! We love our Nautilus, although I wish I had waited until the black one came out!!