Diono question

I just read the super duper long thread about the seats, but as a lay person I got super confused.

Will my kid be able to use the seat from birth to booster, or will the booster be outgrown before it is ever reached by most children?

Also, I was looking at the seats. Do the huge head wing things make a difference in a crash? I know you're always saying all seats have to pass the same safety tests, so everything is equally safe, BUT what do those wing things do???

I'm just trying to decide which version to purchase. Because now there's a cupholder. That was a deal breaker before. On that note, does anyone know how much the additional cupholders are going to cost? Going from a MR to whatever I get, my kid is accustomed to a timbit holder and a milk holder

Oh, and are the seat covers removable like the MR, or do I need to buy the soaker pad thingy?

Thank you thank you thank you.

I can't answer any of the other questions but WRT the cup holders, I just bought a SK cup holder for my Radian XT and it ran me $20. I would expect the new Diono seats to run around the same price.

The covers are removable on ever seats that I'm aware of, though some are easier to remove than others. The soaker pad thing would not be recommended as it's an aftermarket product that could interfere with the proper use of the seat.

Since nobody has actually put a child of the proper size in the seat as a booster yet AFAIK, we don't know how good of a job it will do at positioning the belts. In booster mode, it will last until the child's ears go over the top of the shell or 57 inches, whichever comes first. So at most, the child will be 4'9" tall, which is when we sometimes see some children starting to 5-step in some vehicles. Most likely, the child will need a backless booster for a little while at least. If the child is long-torsoed, they may outgrow the seat by shell height even earlier than that.

The head wings help in a side impact crash. We don't know exactly how much benefit they may be, but it certainly makes sense that they would help some. The safety test that all seats must pass is strictly a frontal crash. We don't currently have any side impact test standards.

One downside to the headwings is that they don't adjust any higher than the top slots. So, your child's shoulders can't go past the top slots in practicality, because they would be jammed into the wings. Also, the seats with wings have the shoulder belt guide attached to the bottom of the wing. Since the shoulder belt guide must always be even with or above the child's shoulder, the seat will be outgrown as a booster when the child's shoulders go above the bottom of the wing. The non-headwing seats have the shoulder belt guide in a different location that will hopefully allow it to fit longer, but as I said previously we haven't actually seen it yet.

You can use the Diono/SKJP Dry Seat in the Radian. It is approved by the manufacturer.

The seat soaker pad is more of a pain than it's worth, with the exception of potty training, then it's the best thing ever! LOL Though, the cover is more work to take off than some other seats, so if your LO is eating/drinking in the car you may find it worth the extra adjusting it takes.

My almost 6yo is still harnessed in the seat w/ ~1-2years to go. He is almost at the 40# min for booster in Canada and no where near the 50# (I think) Diono requires for booster weight. I wouldn't worry about the booster portion of the seat, unless you are comparing it to the Frontier b/c even in Canada you can find a HBB for ~$50 on sale and you very well may have another child(ren) that need the seat by then anyway.

tam

Thanks everyone.
We're going to get the chair with wings because DS saw that there's a BLUE one. It sure makes it easy to get him from one chair to the next when he gets to pick them out
And I found the cupholders on snugglebugz - they're $14.
We're potty training now, so I'm totally going to buy one of those thingies for the seat.

And DS was 35lbs at 1 year, and now he's almost 2 and a half and sitting steady at 37/38 lbs, so he might actually get some use out of the booster.

Only time will tell, I suppose.