tiny 1 year old

my one year old is 19lbs 4oz and can't get him to sit still long enough for an accurate torse measurement....

he has a 22lb limit on his infant seat which he rides in when we're in our odyssey and a britax decathlon for our rdx.

we're getting close to the end of the infant seat life at this point and tried to swap it out for his recaro como this weekend. before installing it, the 2nd slots were right at his shoulders, so we tried to leave them there. by the time it was installed, he was just barely above the bottom slots. so we adjusted the harness down.

when it's on the bottom slots, we cannot get the harness even remotely close to being tight enough. it's like we could fit 2 of him in there! i always had a problem with the head pillows pulling the harness up and way out of line with the slots on the como (big sis has a como and had been using his as well for about a year). the butt pillow is still in, but the head one is not. it doesn't really add any "padding" to help with the harness fit anyway.

we've checked with the seat installed and uninstalled and the harness isn't getting hung up on anything and the splitter plate is pulled as far as it can possibly go, aka the harness won't go any tighter.

are there any known fixes for this? i've seen mention of infant inserts from recaro in some searches i've done, but i haven't seen any pics/results after getting those. i can't believe that at a year, even though a small one, he still doesn't fit at all! we have one last thing left to try, the pool noodle, but i honestly can't see it causing anywhere near enough adjustment for the harness fit either, it's THAT bad......

fwiw~he fits perfectly in the decathlon and has fit in it for atleast 4 months now (when he wasn't even 15lbs). the harness is just able to go so much tighter.

I have no experience with the Recaro Como, but hopefully someone else here might have some suggestions to get a better fit for your son.

Weird... I'm not familiar Recaro seats either, but does it have different loops on the end of the harness for different harness slots? I know the MyRide is like that, so it was the first thing that came to mind...

nope, no extra loops on the harness (our combi infant seat does have them though, so it was one of the first things we looked for too ).


we got the infant insert recaro sent to us the other day and reinstalled the seat this morning. I'm still not sure i'm comfortable with the fit of the harness....

we will try to call recaro again this week and see if we can forward some pictures to them. i couldn't get the best pics today, but i can say i can still pinch about 1/2 an inch of slack in the harness tightened all the way and the infant insert installed. i may be overreacting a little on the fit on our son, but i just wish we could get it a little bit more snug....

seeing how this fits him, i'm worried about how many people out there are assuming it "fits" properly since they have the harness tightened as far as it can go. my son is small, but i'm sure he's not the smallest being put into a como by far...

i'll try to upload a couple of pics. 2 are him today in his seat, 1 is of his sister. i have to send a pic from my phone that has the slack pinched in it. i didn't get one of that with the good camera... his big sis is now ff at almost 4 yrs old and she is mad about it!

i *wish* we could steal a couple of inches of torso from big sis! she could stand to loose some height there and he needs some! go figure!

ps~i love how the infant insert pushes him out and makes him look chunky!

also, if i remove the shoulder pads, there is ALOT more slack in the harness..... aaack.

So if you take off the harness pad, you can pinch slack at the shoulder? It looks snug, especially in the second pic, but even then, you'd think it would be able to tighten a lot more than that. Something has to be stuck somewhere. Are you sure the splitter plate isn't getting stuck on something near where his feet go? I know someone had the same issue with their radian and it looked like it couldn't go any further, but when they reached their hand in, it was stuck and they were able to tighten a few more inches.

ETA:

Maybe this thread will help? Different seat, but same dilemma.
http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?p=1035224

Yeah, we pulled both his seat and his sisters out of the car last weekend to make sure the harness wasn't getting hung up anywhere.... The splitter plate was pulled right up against the bottom of the seat, nowhere farther for it to go.....

If we take the shoulder pads off. You can easily pinch the straps at his shoulders. With them on, the only place I can check is over his tummy since his shoulders are covered with the pads..... you can stillnpinch it there although I know that's not the right place to check.

For comparison, his harness is nowhere near as snug as his sisters is on her..... Granted, she removed the pads (no idea why! I'd think they'd make it more comfy! Ah, preschoolers!!!).

If he was able to be up a slot, the harness can be tightened enough. Its tightened nearly all the way then too and is much more snug, I'm guessing because there is what, about an inch more of the harness "used" by the seat. But those slots are way too far above his shoulders.

Well geez... I guess I would just try again in a few weeks. (At least babies grow fast, eh?) I'm surprised it won't get any tighter though. I mean, the seat is rated from 5-70, you'd figure a 19lb baby would fit.

It's a long shot because I'm pretty sure you would have checked, but is he slouching at all? If his bum is pushed out towards the crotch strap and he is curving down, that would bring his shoulders lower than they would be if he sat all the way back in the seat, and also add some slack.

It does seem pretty odd that the harness wouldn't adjust any shorter. Maybe you could measure the harness length and compare to DD's harness length or another "working" Como that someone is using for a small baby. Never hurts to check for an odd manufacturing quirk/error.

he did slouch before the infant insert was put in since there was so much slack in the harness. the fit is considerably better with the wedge in there and he doesn't seem to slouch now. it's just still not as snug as i'd like to see it.

we have actually had him in his sister's como to see if we had the same issues. it's identical. the manufacture dates are about a year apart on the 2 seats.

the whole problem would be solved if he'd grow about an inch in torso length so that we could move the harness up a slot! on the living room floor, he sits even with the next slots up and the harness gets tight and still has the ability to go a wee bit tighter. but when the seat is installed he is way below the 2nd slots so we can't use them yet.

when you initially put him in the seat, it seems to be just barely ok. but if you leave him in it for a bit, it slowly gains more and more slack. the harness remained tightened all the way, so it was from the wedge compressing over time. i caught ds repeatedly pushing himself into the seat farther like the wedge was putting him in an uncomfy position or something, so i don't know if he "helped" compress it. he would plant his feet on the back of the seat and push, over and over again. it was still disturbing that it resulted in more slack regardless of the cause. (we did decide to drive to the store with him in it yesterday to see if this would happen--and stashed his infant seat in the back in case it got too bad...)