Booster Seat Dilemma

[sneumann]

We are having my dh's brother and family visit in June and they have a 5 y-old who needs a booster seat when he gets here. I have a 3 1/2 y-old dd (40", 31 lb) in a Britax Marathon and a 13-month old ds (32", 26 lb) in a Roundabout. My DD fits in the Marathon great but ds is already in the top slits for the shoulder belts in the RA. So I was thinking that I would get a booster that our nephew could use while he is here and then dd could move to it when ds outgrows the RA (probably by September). I hope that all makes sense!! I need a few good suggestions for boosters. Do any still have a five-pt harness or is that a car seat feature? Is there a convertable booster that will still be a car seat for dd but nephew could use as a booster? Thanks!

[Joolsplus2]

There sure are :). My favorites are the Graco Ultra or Platinum Cargo or the Evenflo Chase/Traditions/Generations. You can try them all out at Babies R Us and see which you prefer.

As a general rule, I don't recommend Cosco/Safety 1st/Eddie Bauer seats because they have LOW top slots, and you don't get much use out of them. But Graco and Evenflo seats are fine as boosters and harnessed.

How heavy is the 5 yo? He might still fit harnessed in the seat if he's under 40 pounds, and then you wouldn't have to go through the hassle of removing the harness bits and pieces for him, only to put them back on when you give the seat back to your DD. Or, it might just be easier to get 2 seats...one harnessed for her, and a dedicated booster for him and for her later, like the Graco Turbo or Cosco Ambassador/High Rise/Auto Booster just so you don't have to mess with the harness on one seat (depends on how confident you are in taking seats apart and putting them back together ;) )
Julie CPS Tech and mom to 2 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx