Good Car seat for Tall baby (other than the Britax Marathon)

[sonnynyc]

Hi all,

So other than the Britax Marathon, is there a (cheaper) convertible car seat that will work for tall babies???

Thanks,

Sonny

[jjordan]

Lots of seats work well for tall babies. How much does the baby weigh? How much are you looking to spend? Any other concerns/requests/wishes?

[sonnynyc]

i've read ealier about people touting the shoulder height on the Britax Marathon for longer use for tall babies.

No real constraints. I guess I want to understand what the other convertible car seat options are and what tradeoffs I am giving up by not buying the "ideal" seat Britax Marathon (as recommended by many people in the forum).

[elektra]

You might be able to get a Radian for cheaper, depending on the deal. The Radians are taller, but are more expensive than Marathons depending on the model you get.

You could also go for the MyRide 65. I am not certain but I think that is also taller than the Marathon, and cheaper.
The TrueFit is also a bit taller and cheaper usually.

[Joolsplus2]

LOL, Roundabout 50? :)

Seriously, all larger convertible seats are pretty nice now, all are tall enough to get kids rearfacing to at least age 2 and forward facing to 5ish.

What's nice about the Britaxes tends to be super, super easy install, nice high quality LATCH, or lockoffs for a seatbelt install (not on the RA50), rearface tethering (to prevent rebound and possible injury to larger toddlers rearfacing... also available on the Radian, or the First Years True Fit Premier which has an anti-rebound bar). Britaxes also have very easy maintenance...covers are super easy to remove for handwashing (or the handwash cycle). They have 2 stage release tethers, to prevent excessive force on the neck and chest of forward facing kids (Radian has a similar function with the Safestop device for kids forward under 40 pounds). The new Britaxes with the 70 in their names have been substantially redesigned to have better crash test results (they had what looked like poor results with very heavy dummies in very high speed crashes in Transport Canada research, though they still passed, it was fairly alarming, and the new design should perform better).
Contrast these seats I'm mentioning with the Evenflo Triumph or Graco My Ride 65 or Safety 1st Complete Air...they are all nice, safe when used properly, fit kids just as long, but have pitfalls...Evenflo's harness and chest clip are not replaceable (super gross puke incident or harness damage of any kind? The whole seat is trash). My Ride is kind of tight for wider kids, and extremely reclined for forward facing kids. No rebound management for rearfacing. Complete Air has harness straps set extremely close to the child's neck...it CAN harness a kid to a very tall height, but the kid will be miserable from the neck rubbing. Also very hard to install the non-LX models rearfacing.

Radians are the closest second to Britaxes, but you have to be up for a possibly challenging installation, they are pretty hard to learn and can eat up so much front-to-back space when rearfacing that it makes the front seat passengers eat the dashboard (Other seats can be 'tweaked' to have more or less recline as needed, but the Radian has a huge 'boot' that makes it reclined no matter what). What car do you have? It might just as easily fit in an instant and leave you with plenty of room :)

Oh, I forgot Recaros. Nice seats, but really way, way, way lacking in legroom for taller rearfacing kids (and even forward facing, the seat depth just isn't there for leg support). I've seen way too many kids turned forward facing well below the maximum limits because it's SO cumbersome to load their kid into these seats. I even returned mine when I found the sides to be so high that I couldn't even hand my 1 year old something in the car when she was behind the driver and I was in the front passenger seat. Safe, but the convenience trade off was too high for me. And no rebound management (rf tethering or anti rebound bar).