Which Forward Facing Seat For Tall, Lightweight, Only Child?

[Yandi]

I've been perusing my Baby Bargains book for suggestions, but most of the info is on convertible seats. I'm not sure I want a convertible - do I?

Our 10 month old daughter is on the long and skinny side. She will be 1 year old way before she will be 20 lbs. So we have a while before she will go forward facing (I need the time to research!). She will also be the only child - so I don't need to take into consideration any sibling use in the seat after her.

I think I'd like a seat with a higher weight restriction (just to keep from buying another in a few years), but I also need to take into consideration her length - she just might beat the length restriction before the weight restriction of the seat (is there a length rest. on forward facing?).

We have a 2002 Mazda Tribute with LATCH. The latches are in the back seat on both passenger sides, but not the center (I can't figure out why), and there are three places to latch in the roof near the back of the vehicle. We rarely carry any other passengers in the back seat, so I guess how much space our daughter's seat takes up is almost irrelevant.

Baby Bargains really touts the Britax Convertible seats - just wondering what the popular opinion was. Thanks so much, I have a lot of work ahead of me.

[Joolsplus2]

At ten months, it is likely that she is already way too tall for her current infant seat. You don't want her head to be closer than one inch to the top of the seatback (or taller than 26 inches...unless you have a seat that goes to 22 pounds and 29 inches?). If it's sneaking up on the top or poking over, you probably want to go seat shopping tomorrow.

See the link in my sig for why rearfacing well beyond a year is optimal for safety, too.

Your Mazda's not alone in not allowing the middle LATCH anchors to be used, it's only very few cars that have middle anchors (most car companies built to the minimum government standard and didn't think about parents wanting their kids in the middle :P ).

Since she's your only, and you have space, and she's tall, you will get the most bang for your buck with the Marathon. It's easy to install, easy to use, and fits even tall kids to age 5 or 6 easily (it expires in six years anyway, so you can just about use it for it's entire lifespan...even at full price, that's about 10 cents a day...can't beat that with ANY other piece of baby gear :) )

If your infant seat fits in your car well enough (ie, you aren't crammed into the dashboard) the Marathon will really fit just about the same. It looks huge, but takes about the same front-to-back length as an infant seat.

Anyway, that's not the only seat you should consider: There's the new Britax Decathlon, Wizard, Marathon, or Evenflo Triumph that are also fine choices and good seats. Even the Safety 1st Intera makes a nice tall convertible seat.

You can try seats out in your car at Babies R Us, and if you need a blow by blow instructional account for installing a seat rearfacing with a lap/shoulder belt (one plus for the Britaxes is that they have built in lockoffs, and you will never have a tippy seat or need to use a locking clip with them, due to seatbelt issues).

Hope I don't sound like a Britax salesperson or something...if you read my posts, it's not the only brand I recommend...but given your situation, the Marathon, Decathlon (on a FEW BRU shelves as of today...very exciting!), or Wizard would just be nice safe choices for a long lasting seat.

:)
Julie CPS Tech and mom to 2 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx