"tall" carseat for RFing

[swebster]

according to this FAQ on the Britax website, dd has outgrown her Britax roundabout for rearfacing. This is kind of confusing since the picture in the manual has an illustration showing that a child is ok RFing until the tops of the ears are even with the top of the seat. yeesh.

so, assuming that I need to buy a new seat to keep dd RFing, what seat do I buy? I really really really don't want to have to buy a third seat when she reaches the 33lb mark that the Britax seats seem to all impose. She's currently 33 inches tall (mostly torso I guess ), nearing 30lbs and growing too fast to keep in long pants.

I've spent all day searching, reading archived threads etc, but can't seem to find what I'm looking for.

any help?

[angie3096]

I think it's outgrown FORWARD facing when the tops of the ears are even with the shell. It's outgrown rearfacing when the top of the HEAD is even with the shell. But I'm not a tech. Someone will be along shortly to check my work, I'm sure!
Roundabouts are very short and are outgrown rearfacing pretty quickly.
An MA will last you a lot longer. I'm confused about your question about needing to buy a 3rd seat at the 33lb mark. Is that because you want to keep her RF until 35 pounds? If so, the Safety First Uptown is a popular seat that rearfaces to 35 pounds. However most techs don't have a problem turning a kid at 33 pounds. Then you could use the MA forward facing until it's outgrown, which for most people's kids is kindergarten.

[Anastasiya]

you should check out www.car-seat.org. They are SO helpful for these kinds of questions.

[alegna]

You could get the boulevard- we love ours (I never suggest the roundabout for exactly the reason you're facing now)

The Radian will rf to 35lbs. If you can wait a bit (though it sounds like you can't) Recaro is coming out with new seats in the next couple of months that will rf until 35lbs.

-Angela

[Kleine Hexe]

RF to 35# really? Oh, I'm excited!

[swebster]

so it sounds like 33-35lbs is the absolute limit for RFing, since there are no seats that currently have higher allowances? am I correct? DD will be 2 in a few weeks. I suppose that her weight gain has slowed while she's sprouting up, but it's hard to imagine her not gaining more than a few lbs in the next year or two.

is there a big height difference between a marathon and a boulevard?

I don't regret the roundabout purchase, as it was the best seat that we could fit in our '89 oldsmobile, but we'll be purchasing a '96 honda crv from the in-laws in a few weeks so will have a little more room to work with.

Speaking of which, does anyone have that carseat/vehicle compatability website handy?

Also, any non-britax seat recs?

[thepeach80]

The BV and the MA are the same height. The Radian is a good seat and has a taller back than those as well. I'll see if I can dig up that website. http://www.carseatdata.org/

[alegna]

Recaro has new seats coming out that should be top notch!

-Angela

[angie3096]

My BTDT advice: do NOT buy a Radian for a pre-LATCH CRV. I have a 98 CRV and a Radian 65 as a spare seat--it takes me a very long time (and a lot of four letter words) to install the Radian in the CRV. The belt path is really narrow and it's really hard to get it in there tight enough. The MA installs in the CRV like a dream. I'm sure the BV or the DC would as well, they're all basically the same seat with different extra features.

You are correct that the absolute limit for RF is 33-35 pounds. But you will be shocked at how slowly kids gain weight after they turn two. You have LOTS of rearfacing time left, trust me!

[swebster]

Thanks for the replies!
I had just wasted a whole nap period researching the heck out of the radian seats and was convinced that that was my best option (will be doing lots of air travel as well....), but now I'm leaning toward a Marathon. I think I'll make a trip in the new car and see if I can do a practice install with both. Wow you can really find a lot of information on this site if you know what to look for! Thank you all....

Too bad I can't wait until august for a racecar seat....