Confused with car seat dilemma/choice

[onerubberducky]

I have a 5 month old DD who is only 12 pounds but has a quite long torso. She is getting close to growing out of her infant car seat (she is squished width wise). She is in a britax chaperone right now, and is not happy reclining any more either.

My car is a VW Toureg. I have my 14.5 yo in front seat, 12 and 10 yo and baby in back. I want a narrow seat so they have more space in the back.

My front seat is almost always filled by 14 yo, so RF has allow front seats to be back enough to be safe.

I am thinking about the Radians. but I am confused about the different models that are still available. If I buy one of the 65 models instead of the new rxt, will there be more space available to the front seat when the seat is rf? Will the RXT fit rf?

Should I get a Britax marathon or roundabout? They look like a better fit for rf, but width wise I am not sure? I could buy the RXT when I get ready to ff in a year and half from now. The combi one is very narrow and would work for a while, but I am not sure about height wise for the baby.

[staceyeileen]

What? A 12lb baby outgrowing the infant seat?

[NCGrandma]

What? A 12lb baby outgrowing the infant seat?

I wondered about that, too. My DGD2 is the same age and weight, and she seems far from outgrowing her Chaperone. When I saw her in it at Christmas, I thought she looked cozy rather than squished width-wise. Is it possible that the OP's DD is wearing heavy winter outerwear? My DGD2 is wearing a Hanna fleece bunting, and the car seat is 'wearing' a fleece shower-cap style cover.

[onerubberducky]

She is 4% for weight but 75% for height IUGR/severe reflux. She onl wears fleece. Her arms are crammed in. She I guess has the baby equivalent of wide shoulders. Her torso is very long and she has about one inch before her shoulders are level with highest slot.

[rin]

As far as I know, all the Radians are very long, so they would not be a great choice for a young child to RF if you want a lot of leg room in the front seat.

We have a Radian XTSL and just got the angle adjustor cushion; it's great! We now have plenty of leg room in the front seat (we drive a Honda CRV) and my 6'2" DH is perfectly comfortable up there. However, I'm pretty sure you can only use the angle adjustor once the child is over 12 months, so I don't think that would work in your case. Before we had the angle adjustor, the front seat was pretty far forwards.

ETA: To clarify, to the best of my knowledge the Radian 65, 80, and XTSL are all exactly the same height, so they would all have the same front-to-back footprint in your car. I don't know about the new models, since I bought mine before they made the change.

[MommytoEliana]

What? A 12lb baby outgrowing the infant seat?

With the older seats, sure. My DD1 had to move to a convertible seat at 4.5 months, when she was around 14 pounds, if that, because she got too long for the 26" height limit. However, with the newer seats' limits I'd think there should be some growing room still.

Is there an infant insert in the seat? Some seats come with one which does need to be removed after a while to give the baby more space (we had to take the insert out of our Keyfit a month or so ago). After that, though, you should be fine for quite a while. With a rearfacing infant seat the straps should be below the shoulders, so if that is the marker you were looking at you're fine. IIRC, the top of the baby's head needs to be an inch below the top of the shell of the rearfacing seat; as long as you're within that and the height and weight limits you should be fine. (Carseat gurus, correct me if I'm wrong!)

Good luck with your search...but I'd be surprised if you need to switch anytime soon.

[MommytoEliana]

She is 4% for weight but 75% for height IUGR/severe reflux. She onl wears fleece. Her arms are crammed in. She I guess has the baby equivalent of wide shoulders. Her torso is very long and she has about one inch before her shoulders are level with highest slot.

See my other post--it's okay if her shoulders are level or above the top slot for rearfacing. It's forward facing that the straps need to be above the shoulders.

[HIU8]

For rear facing the harness should be at or below the shoulders, so she sounds like she has tons of room height wise in the seat. When her head is 1 inch from the top of the seat shell she will have outgrown the seat. However, if her shoulders are smooshed I would make sure you have taken out the infant insert. I'm not familiar with the chaperone, but I will say that for my DS I had a Peg Perego Primo Viaggio which was EXTREMELY padded width wise. He did not have particularly wide shoulders and we had to move him to a rear facing convertible at 11 weeks b/c the darn seat was so narrow width wise at his shoulders.

[onerubberducky]

The insert is an optional accessory so I never had I. She is squished so I am starting to look early.

[AnnieW625]

I have a Britax Roundabout 55, and a Britax BLVD 70 and I like them both a lot. The BLVD does have the nice headwings, but DD2 diesn't seem to miss them in the RA55; plus the RA is lighter.We are rear facing in our 01 Corolla with the RA 55 and the BLVD in our 06 Pilot. The seat does take up room in our Corolla, but it fits just fine. I have not used one but rear facing a Radian looks like it still has a fair amount of recline so if you want upright a Britax seat might be the way to go. I would also look at the Evenflo Triumph Symphony seat or The First Years True Fit (although I did have a fit issue with that seat in my car and it is similar in size to a Toureg, I think).