Graduating to belt-positioning boosters??? Help...

[juliasdad]

(I also posted this in the Toddler forums)

Hi, all-
Starting in Sept., our little one (12 month) will be headed off for daycare while mommy and (hopefully) daddy return to work.

We're currently in a Britax RA in the Odyssey. Here's the upcoming situation:
1) Since Mommy's a teacher and her work hours are early, Daddy will drop off DD at daycare and Mommy will pick her up. Hence, we'll need a car seat in both of our vehicles.
2) DD will be at daycare two days per week. Two other days, she'll be at Grandma and Grandpa's house. So we'll need them to have a seat. The fifth day of the week, she's at Aunt P's house (a friend and stay-at-home-mom to 4)... hopefully, Aunt P has some sort of seat.

So, at a minimum we're looking at 2 more car seats if we don't want to fuss with reinstalling and moving them from car to car!

Since she'll be a year old, and especially since she's way off the charts size-wise (she's over 50th percentile for an 18-month-old), I'm thinking the best option would be belt-positioning boosters for the "extra" seats... we could then use them as her full-time seat when she outgrows the RA.

Would someone please check my thinking on that? Does it make sense? And are we really looking at buying 2 of these??? I can't think of another good solution. We also need to be careful with spending, as Daddy's been part of the high-tech unemployed for the last few months and we're *assuming* that something will come along soon.

If this kind of booster is what we're looking for, what are the top picks? I know the Ultra CarGo gets good reviews... others?

Thanks,

-dan

[Joolsplus2]

Well, call them "harnessed boosters", and yeah, that's your solution (the belt positioning part is for when she's 40 pounds and at least age 4, but the harnessed part is good now).

The Cargo (Ultra or Platinum, NOT Treasured) is generally easy to install and easy to use...and I believe are on clearance at Target.

The Evenflo Express or Chase are nice seats if she's in the second slots...if she's still in the bottom slots, it probably won't get tight enough (due to the on harness adjuster), plus, these are often very low priced, like $40-$50.

Check BigLots for a $39 Evenflo Comet, also a pretty nice choice.

Here're these seats and why they are top picks (bottom half of page) http://www.car-safety.org/carseats.html

Ugh, I hear you about high tech and unemployed...dh has been out of work for the better half of 2 years now, and it's hard to feed the family on optimism alone! (at least headhunters are calling again...fingers crossed.... :) )

[juliasdad]

Thanks, Julie-

Sorry for confusing my terminology... I did indeed mean the boosters with 5-pt harnesses!

I'll check our local Target; the Ultra CarGo seems nice. I wasn't crazy about the amount of padding in the Comet, though otherwise it looked nice as well. I'm tempted to take a bit of foam padding and add it myself under any of these seats.

-dan

[Joolsplus2]

well, i'd be tempted, but i wouldn't do it ;) (seat not tested with it, might fail, etc, etc....) I think youll find the cargos quite well padded, though...my fingers are crossed you can find them and on sale :)

[KathyO]

Hi Dan -

You can disregard what I said in the Toddler section then... I wasn't sure either if you meant toddler-booster or belt-positioning booster. Happy hunting! For what it's worth, my friend's 4-year-old seems to like the Comet fine, and she's a real skinny mini, so she would definitely complain if there wasn't enough to cushion her bony little butt!! But all those suggested options sound great.

And in the growth department, odds are good that your Galloping Growth Girl will slow down quite a bit sometime soon - won't it be wonderful to start getting a little more wear out of her clothes?

Cheers,

KathyO

[juliasdad]

>Hi Dan -
>
>You can disregard what I said in the Toddler section then...

Ooops... too late! :-)

>And in the growth department, odds are good that your
>Galloping Growth Girl will slow down quite a bit sometime
>soon - won't it be wonderful to start getting a little more
>wear out of her clothes?

Maybe I'll actually get to learn her wardrobe, since up until now
she hasn't worn many items more than a few times each!! The growth charts have been great, though. Wonderful for predictive situations, like hitting the clearance rack and finding clothing for next spring. She's tracked the 90th percentile weight curve and (imaginary) 99th percentile height curve with incredible accuracy.

Thanks again,

-dan

[luvbeinmama]

Dan,

I think you've got a great idea. Consumer Reports did a testing back in May I beleive, and the ONLY harnessed booster they would recommend at all was the Cosco Summit High Back Booster.

Here is the link:
http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detailv2.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=304371&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=295617&bmUID=1060749377876