second car seat help, PLEASE!

[sal799]

ok, I am looking into buying a nsecodn car seat for DH's car, and there are too many choices!
thsi is our situation- DB is outgrowing her snugride at 10 months. till now, we alternated the snug ride between cars if hte need arose. but, with swisthcing ot convertible, i think it will be a pain to install/uninstall. DB is MOSTLY in my car, but does occasionally go in DHs. also, all long car trips- to my ILS about 2 hours away, or anywhere long, we go on DHs car, since he usually drives. in my car, we have a marathon, but cant really afford another one, plus dont think its necessary for a seat that will get limited use.
so- i need a convertible car seat for a second car- he has a camry, but no LATCH, so someting that is realtively easy to install. ould like to spend under 100-150, but obviously want somehting safe and user friendly- really user friendly. oh, DD is 50% in height.
the ones i looked into were the cosco scenera and graco comfort sport. any adivce? or do you think i should wait 2 months and get a nautilis? and switch marathon back and forth till then? ugh, need advice.

[o_mom]

The Scenera is a good inexpensive choice. Even though it seems less padded than the Marathon, most kids don't seem to mind. The ComfortSport is not one I would suggest. It has the lowest top slots of any convertible, a low, 30 lb, rear-facing limit and generally is not very easy to use.

The Nautilus is a seat for older kids who are ready to face forward. I know the 1 and 20 rule gets the most press, but that is the absolute bare minimum for turing a baby forward. The AAP recommends that kids stay rear-facing to the limit of their convertible seat, usually 30-35 lbs. It is up to 5 times safer to have a baby rear-facing to age two and older. Here is some great information on that: http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/stayrearfacing.aspx

I think another choice you may have overlooked is the Evenflo Triumph Advance. It is $130-160 depending on the extras, but even the cheapest model is very plush. It rear-faces to 35 lbs, very tall so it will last and forward facing can be used to 50 lbs.

The downside to any of the inexpensive seats is that they don't have lockoffs, which can make it harder to install rear-facing using a lap-shoulder belt without the seat tipping. This isn't a huge deal, but can mean that you would need to learn to use a locking clip. The Marathon and the First Years True Fit both have rear-facing lockoffs that would take care of this, but they are a bit higher priced ($199-209).

Hope this helps you! Please post back with any questions! :)

[ha98ed14]

We have a Britax Marathon RF in our Saturn. Saturn is a 2001 model, so no hooks in the seat. (Is that what is referred to as LATCH?) Our car does have the tether hooks in the back window area, but it is RF so we don't use it yet.

When DH installed the seat (I wanted no part of it b/c I knew I would be so frustrated by it) He used the middle lap belt to put through the base of the seat and then he some how tied the tether to the passanger seat base in the floor. (No floor hooks either.) Is tying it to the floor like that a lock off?

We have yet to install the Scenera, but when I looked at the booklet for RFing, it only shows using the lap belt or the Latch. There is no pic of anchoring the tether to the floor. I don't think just puting it in with the lap belt is enough. I mean, if you were hit head on, wouldn't the car seat fly forward into the back of the back seat?

[bubbaray]

We have a Britax Marathon RF in our Saturn. Saturn is a 2001 model, so no hooks in the seat. (Is that what is referred to as LATCH?) Our car does have the tether hooks in the back window area, but it is RF so we don't use it yet.

When DH installed the seat (I wanted no part of it b/c I knew I would be so frustrated by it) He used the middle lap belt to put through the base of the seat and then he some how tied the tether to the passanger seat base in the floor. (No floor hooks either.) Is tying it to the floor like that a lock off?

We have yet to install the Scenera, but when I looked at the booklet for RFing, it only shows using the lap belt or the Latch. There is no pic of anchoring the tether to the floor. I don't think just puting it in with the lap belt is enough. I mean, if you were hit head on, wouldn't the car seat fly forward into the back of the back seat?


The Scenara doesn't tether RFg, so don't worry about that. Installing via belts or LATCH without tethering has to be sufficient for it to pass crash testing. It has not been tested using a RFg tether, so its not safe to do that.

Yes, LATCH is lower anchors (in the seat) and tethers (TT).

The Scenara also d/n have lockoffs. The MA has them, they are on the side of the seat and are like clips kinda integrated into the shell. Your manual explains them. If you have a solid belt install, you don't need to use them. We have DD#2's MA installed in DH's SUV via belts and it is not using the lockoffs.

About your current MA install, is the seat installed in the center? I'm just hoping that your DH used the center belt for a center install -- you can't use a center belt for an outboard install, KWIM?

Also, the Versa tether should not be "tied" to the front passenger seat -- he should attach the D-ring to his chosen anchor point on the front seat and clip the versa tether to that.

HTH

[o_mom]

We have a Britax Marathon RF in our Saturn. Saturn is a 2001 model, so no hooks in the seat. (Is that what is referred to as LATCH?) Our car does have the tether hooks in the back window area, but it is RF so we don't use it yet.

When DH installed the seat (I wanted no part of it b/c I knew I would be so frustrated by it) He used the middle lap belt to put through the base of the seat and then he some how tied the tether to the passanger seat base in the floor. (No floor hooks either.) Is tying it to the floor like that a lock off?

We have yet to install the Scenera, but when I looked at the booklet for RFing, it only shows using the lap belt or the Latch. There is no pic of anchoring the tether to the floor. I don't think just puting it in with the lap belt is enough. I mean, if you were hit head on, wouldn't the car seat fly forward into the back of the back seat?

Re: What is a lockoff?

When you install a carseat, you have to lock the lap portion of the belt to keep it in the correct position. For a lap only belt, it is very simple as 99% of them lock at the buckle.

When you use a lap-shoulder belt there are a few ways to lock it. The first way, the lap portion of the belt will lock at the buckle, so you don't worry about the shoulder portion as it will lock in a crash. The rest of the time the shoulder belt is not locked.

The second way you pull the shoulder portion all the way out and then slowly feed it back into the retractor. When you do this, the belt will lock and can only retract farther, not pull out again. With these type of belts and some seats, the retracting of the shoulder portion can cause the seat to tip up on one side where the shoulder belt pulls up.

The third way is for belts that don't lock either of the first ways, or that cause excessive tipping. In these cases, you can use a locking clip which holds the lap portion of the belt fixed until a crash when the shoulder portion will lock up.

If a seat has a built in lockoff, it essentially takes the place of the locking clip. For a lap belt, the lockoff is not needed, so your DH was right. If you have a lap-shoulder belt that either doesn't stay locked well with a child seat or causes tipping, you can use the lockoff to fix that.

RE: Top tethers

The tethers behind the seat are for forward facing. You would use the seatbelt and the top tether together. Britax and Sunshine kids allow the use of the tether rear-facing as well. In the Marathon manual there are instructions on this, but basically, as Melissa said, you wrap the d-ring around a seat leg and then clip the tether to it.

The Scenera does not allow the tether to be used rear-facing. They have not tested it that way. In a head-on collision (front impact), the seat will move toward the FRONT of the car first and then rebound toward the back of the car. The seat will flip up toward the back of the car (called coccooning), but the forces are much smaller than the initial impact. In a rear-impact, the seat would move toward the back of the car first, but rear-impacts are much less likely and usually at lower speeds.