Desperately wanted: 45 to 50 + pounds rear facing seat for tall 4 year old!

Hi all you knowledgeable people out there,

so grateful to have found this forum!

I want to find out which seat will allow us to keep our almost four year old son rear facing for as long as doable with the seats currently on the market.

He's 3 1/2 years old, tall, muscly, 42" and 39 pounds, no particularly tall or short torso. It does not look like he will slow down growing any time soon.

With engineering experience in the crash testing and design field, it is no question I will not put him forward facing until we are absolutely forced to due to lack of seats with high enough height and / or weight limits.

I have been reading and searching through the forums a lot. 45 pounds currently seems to be the upper end for RF seats - is that correct, or are there ones beyond that? Please? 45 pounds does not sound like it will last us very long in RF.

So:

- Ideally, are there seats beyond 45 pounds RF that have a tall shell as well so he won't outgrow that limit too soon either?

- If there are no seats beyond 45 pounds RF: Which are the tallest ones at 45 pounds RF? Although it would be really frustrating to have to buy a new seat for only 5 additional pounds over what he weighs right now. I'm hoping there's something better.

Space in the car is not an issue, since it's a spacious van. We can make many things possible in this van that would not work in small cars.

We live in New Zealand, but shipping around the world is fine for us if necessary, and we don't need a NZ approved seat - the only thing we care for is that the seat is actually safe, whether it is approved by the slow authorities and not-up-to-date regulations or not. So if it rates high in Sweden or elsewhere where people know what they are doing, and it doesn't have NZ approval, we don't mind.

It seems that unfortunately the manufacturers are always a year or two "behind" our personal requirements. When we were looking for a tall seat for him about two and a half years ago, there were hardly any on the market that fit the bill then. Now, they are available - but we need an even taller / heavier one, and it seems it's not available - or is it???

Would really appreciate if someone could help us out with more knowledge than we have.

Cheers,

Matt

You are going to want to look at Swedish seats. They have the highest rear-facing limits. Some of their seats go to 55 lbs rear-facing. I don't really know a whole lot about the seats, so hopefully someone with more knowledge in that area can help you out. We do have a member here, Adventuredad who has an online store and sells these seats and ships worldwide. This is his store:
http://www.carseat.se/store.html

The Swedish seats are the highest rfing weights. In the US the highest is 45 lbs; I have a large child and will be importing for out next child. My 3 1/2 yr old was 40 lbs by 2 yrs old. Swedish seats are very expensive; just a warning, and shipping is even more.

Kaitsmom said:

The Swedish seats are the highest rfing weights. In the US the highest is 45 lbs; I have a large child and will be importing for out next child. My 3 1/2 yr old was 40 lbs by 2 yrs old. Swedish seats are very expensive; just a warning, and shipping is even more.

Click to expand...

Curious...so if it has the higher weight limit....does that mean they also have higher slots for taller kids? Just curious

The tallest we have here is available here is 18" w/ a max weight of 45#, that Diono brand is also available there.

The Swedish seats are not measured the same as they have different rules about when/how a seat is outgrown. I looked into it last year and was told (by one of the Swedish sales people) that the over-all out grown height of their seats is about the same as the Diono Radian, but the weight is 10# more. He said, "MT will normally last rear facing to a height of 125 cm. This is usually to around age 6 or so. Children can use the seat until tip of ears are at top of seat shell which means about one third of head can be above top of seat shell before it's time to switch seat." The Multi-tech is what I wanted.

Weight gain for children slows down once they are 2yo, so that is on your side, but 6# could take your guy 1 year to gain or 3-4yrs, making the Diono a great cheaper alternative, but since you don't know that, it also makes it rather risky. I wouldn't spend $300 on a seat to RF for 5# and potentially only a year or two, when I could spend a bit (might if were a lot, here the Swedish seats are $600) more money.

And, FYI, my 6yo still fits in the RN RF by height/weight, only went FF a few months ago b/c YDS needed his seat...He's by no means the shortest in his class, but has a long torso and certainly isn't a tall child...

Hi all,
I asked Matt what seat he ended up buying, as we're also looking for a rear facing seat in NZ. His excellent and informative reply follows (he was happy for me to post it to share with you and others)...

****Hi Caren,
I ended up buying a Brio Zento from baby on the move in 2010. It had a hefty price tag, around some 600 dollars, but was the only solution available here that covered the required timespan and size.

We've been pretty happy with it overall - safety is of course top notch, so that's a given with this seat. It can be a bit tricky to install, but in the worst case with some help from either a handy person or a car seat installer, it will always fit in in the end. I was easily able to do it myself, and had to take the seat out for every workshop visit of the car because it's a van and the motor is under the seat, which never was a problem. But it did take me 10 minutes to put it back in every time, so I can't recommend it if you plan on regularly swapping it around between vehicles.

Having said that though, after learning a lot about car seats my impression is that you can either get a really good safe rear facing car seat, or you can get one that can be changed from one car to the other easily - but you can't have both. Technology and standards have not been developed properly at all to this day; it would not be rocket science to do this, but there's no market for it as most people are happy to put their children into whatever slingshot seat the nearest shop sells cheapest, so no manufacturer puts the money into development. But I digress.

My son never had any complaints (aside from really, really long car trips, and less to do with the seat), and really liked it, actually. A year ago, I have bought a Diono Radian RXT, which can fulfill the same requirements that I had for the Brio Zento - rear facing, high level of safety - for even longer. If the Radian would have been available back then, I would have considered it; on the other hand, that seat is so big that even with the "toddler insert" (or whatever they call it) I think my son would have been too small for it back then. He's tall for his age, still the Zento lasted him around until he was four years old.

He's now nearly five years old, but the Radian RXT looks like it will allow him to sit rear facing for at least another half year, maybe even until he is six. Then I think we are approaching the point where we will be forced to have him sitting forward facing, and at near age six, I can sort of see myself being ok-ish with that - although having both worked as an automotive engineer in crash testing and crash safe design, as well as a paramedic, I can tell you with 100% certainty that you are very wise to keep your child rear facing for as long as you can possibly make it happen. Most people have no idea of the forces in play or of the actual consequences if you actually have a forward facing crash. Seeing things with your own eyes has an impact that no story, or even video, will ever have, unfortunately. But it sounds like I'm preaching to the converted here regarding RF

In case you wonder: My son has never had any issues with driving rear facing even now that he's older, none at all. He just doesn't know any different - and even though he has been forward facing a few times in friends' cars, that had no impact on his view of things. He loves his seat, and the fact that he can sit next to me, we can talk without yelling, easily see each other (without me risking to turn my neck backwards ending up causing a crash!), etc. (Interestingly, in Sweden they have determined pretty clearly that as long as a seat is rear facing, appropriate for the child's size and weight, and installed properly, it nearly makes no difference which seat the car is placed on - front row or rear seats.)

In any case, good luck with your search, and safe travels!
Cheers, Matt
*****

Just a follow up to anyone reading this --

In North American cars you generally cannot disable or turn off the front passenger air bag, and you can never, ever, ever put a rear facing seat in front of an air bag. Sensors don't count - if you can't turn it off with a switch, you must consider it active as far as car seats are concerned.