Questions on: Convertible seats, cargo barrier safety, and winter wear safety-Canada

Hello, just a few questions if you don't mind, please!

Our daughter is almost a year old and is a big girl...ninetieth percentile, reliably. We currently have her in a Graco Snugride 35, but she is about to outgrow it, height wise. We are looking at convertible seats now, and would like to keep her rear-facing for as long as possible. What seat would you recommend? I understand the Britax ones are good but have short heights. It seems the Diono Radian is very tall and has a high weight limit...would it be our best bet?

Two other questions about child car safety in general...

We drive a Volkswagen Golf Wagon, and our cargo hold is often full with either a large dog or with miscellaneous cargo. We have a cargo barrier gate between the hold and the back seat that is tension mounted to the roof and floor, but not hard-ware mounted. Is this recommended, to prevent projectiles from injuring baby or us in an accident?

Finally, a question about winter wear in the carseat. we live in a city which can get extremely cold in the wintertime. We were very careful last winter to not put our baby in carseat wearing thick clothing, such as winter coats, etc., as we read that fleece and thick fabrics can prevent seatbelts from being tight enough, and can compress in a collision, resulting in ejection from the carseat. For her first winter, we put her in the bucket carseat in her indoor clothes, and then used a Jolly Jumper winter cover for the car seat when leaving the vehicle and going out into cold weather. This seemed to work very well. However, she will be too old for the bucket style carseat this winter. Should we just continue to put her in the carseat in her indoor clothes, and put her coat on before leaving the vehicle/take her out of her coat when getting into the vehicle? Though this seems very inconvenient, we will do this if it the safest thing.


Thank you very much for your time and your advice. Very much appreciated!

Kind Regards,
Tara

Re: Questions on: Convertible seats, cargo barrier safety, and winter wear safety

Hi Tara, you're asking some great questions.

I would stay away from the Britaxes since you want to rear face longer than about two. They probably wouldn't get her much further. The Radians with angle adjuster will work in your car (BTDT). The Graco Size4Me would be another at which you should take a gander. Those would likely be my top two. The Radian R120 and RXT have 45 pound rear facing weight limits, and the R100 and Size4Me (also now called the MySize70 at BRU) go to 40 pounds rear facing. You'd need to look out at her growth chart and see which weight will be ok for you, age wise. If you want the 45 pounds, you could also look at the Peg Convertible and the soon to be on the shelves Clek Foonf. I don't know how either of those fit in a Golf.

The gate is a great idea, but a pressure mounted one will likely not withstand a ton of stuff (a literal ton, depending on the weight of your dog, but if you say the cargo is filled then my guess is it's a big dog). It and the dog would come forward in a crash. I'd either talk to VW or talk to a conversion mechanic about getting a hardware mounted one in. Or you can crate the dog in the back, or get a harness that works with the cargo hooks. Depends on the size of the dog.

For winter wear you can leave a fleece on her in the seat, but put the heavy stuff over the harness again. Yeah, it takes a bit longer, but it's what's safe. http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=151522 That's a great post demonstrating why from a mom in Alaska.

HTH

Wendy

Re: Questions on: Convertible seats, cargo barrier safety, and winter wear safety

Thank you so much for all the great info, Wendy! Much appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Tara

I just wanted to post a note that the Size4Me isn't available in Canada, so that rules the seat out. The Peg infant/child seat has also been delayed. Last estimate I heard is November now, but I can't say for sure. (That came from a retailer.)

The Foonf promises to be a good seat and with all the testing they've done in different vehicles, I'd expect it to fit properly in your vehicle. It depends on how quickly you're in need of a new seat though since it's not actually on shelves yet and I don't know if it'll make it before you need a new seat.

a car seat poncho, a blanket with a hole cut in the middle and made into a poncho, or put the winter coat on backwards. kids usually think this is funny so you also get the bonus of car entertainment