Convertible seat for Rav 4 and tall/heavy baby

U

Unregistered

Guest
Hi there,

We have a 2015 rav 4 and are looking to find a convertible car seat for our six month old once she outgrows the peg perego 4-35 infant seat. She weighs 23 lb already and is also quite tall 28 inches. While the current seat has a 32 inch limit she is longer in the torso so we have an inch and a quarter before we need to switch. Clearly at this age it's hard to tell if she will lean out once she starts crawling making it hard for me to figure out how to buy the car seat however I assume more important is shoulder height as I would like to rear face as soon as possible.

The peg perego fits behind the passenger seat fine- hubby can't sit there- he's a foot taller than me but I'm 5'5. But if I move the seat any more forward my knee hits the curve of the dash which is not good in case of accident.

I've researched higher limit rf and am confused. The clek with the 50lb limit turns out to only have a 40lb limit rf in canada (what the heck!). The diono ranier apparently hogs rear to front space! Argh, so confused!

Does anyone have any suggestions to help me keep my 97 percentile weight/height baby safe in rf? We may be having a second child soon but we will probably have to switch cars then due to hubby's height but we are stuck with this car now.

Also can seats be installed in the middle of a rav 2015 and will this mean both front seats will be unaffected ?

Thanks for all who can help!

Henriette
 
ADS

Alison's Mom

New member
Hi there,

If you haven't already looked at this list, here are some tech-recommended convertible seats along with their pros and cons.
http://vicarseattechs.com/our-favourite-seats/infantchild-seats/

I don't know your particular vehicle well, but for a tall/heavy baby and if you want to RF as long as possible, the Dionos are a good option, as well as the new Britax Click Tight convertibles (Boulevard and Advocate have higher top slots than the Marathon, though), as well as the Cleks and the SureRide (although this seat has a tall shell and very high harness slots, only the bottom three slots can be used for RFing, so while it's safe for the child's shoulders to be far above the slot, some people don't like it because of that).

You can install a carseat in the centre, but would need to use seatbelt as there are UAS/Lower LATCH anchors only for the two outboard seats. One other thing to consider is that I believe the Rav 4, while there are 5 seats, can only seat two passengers in the back at any one time, due to overlapping seatbelts.

If you're looking to fit a narrow seat so it fits between the two front seats, I would try the Dionos and the Cleks. The Dionos do take up a lot of front-to-back room but once your child has complete head control and can sit up unassisted, you can use the Angle Adjuster to make the seat more upright and therefore take up less front-to-back room.

I believe the difference in RFing weight limits for Cleks in the US and Canada are due to the differences in carseat testing in the two countries. However, I also think that with many seats, most children outgrow them by height rather than weight, so the extra 10 pounds may or may not make a difference.

I would see about finding a store with a good selection, and installing a few demo seats in your car, including the Radian with angle adjuster and see what fits best with your tall hubby.
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
Thanks, those reviews are very helpful. I will have to try the seats out!
 

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