Question Researching convertible seat for very tall child has me more confused than ever...

Hi! I could really use some pro advice here. I've spent hours researching the best convertible car seat for my little guy, and I'm more confused than ever about what the best choice would be for him. I'd love to get some input from you all who have real world experience with many different models. Here's my situation:

My son is EXTREMELY tall/big for his age (well off the charts for height and around 98th percentile for weight). At only 5 months, he's really at max height for his infant/bucket seat already, so I need to purchase something quickly. Given family history on both sides, I expect he will always be bigger than his age-group peers. Much of his height is due to a long torso, so he needs something with high shoulder-strap settings. I won't put a price limit on this, as I'd be willing to spend quite a bit for something that would fit him well from here through booster stage. I'm really wishing we'd just started with a convertible at this point, as he was already on the highest strap setting of his infant seat before 3 months, so it feels like we really kind of wasted money on that one.

My husband and I both drive larger vehicles (myself an SUV, him a crew cab truck). We're undecided on whether to buy 1 seat that we switch back and forth or a seat for each vehicle (welcome input here too). We also need to buy something for our daycare provider, and we can probably go with something more inexpensive here as he'll only be making very short, relatively infrequent trips in this seat and will only be using it until he starts preschool anyway, so we likely won't need to worry about the booster stage.

In my search of recommendations for tall babies, many people mention the Diono brand. But here's my frustration: I'm hearing that the Rainier and Radian are bad for long-torso kids because their shoulders hit the headwings too quickly, thus negating the great posted height limits. But the models without headwings, Pacifica and Olympia, apparently receive abysmal ratings in the booster stage. Several reviews also mention the Clek Foonf, but it looks like it's better suited to an older child since it appears to lack any sort of infant head supports, and I worry that it won't be good for the first several months. Despite his ridiculously large size, my son's still young and kinda wobbly/spastic.

Any input on what direction to go here? Do we just need to give up on finding one that will last us through the booster stage and just worry about the best fit now? Any guesses on how long the Radian/Rainier would last us before we start having trouble with the shoulders being bound by the headwings?

How about a diono without headwings? Might be a nice choice for him.

My concern with the ones without headwings is that they apparently are not recommended for use in the booster stage. So I guess I'd need to buy a new booster when he gets to that point? I was hoping to find something that would last us through until he can just use the regular seatbelt, but maybe that's just not realistic.

Find something that works now, and hopefully for the next three years or so, if he stays big. Worry about higher harnesses and taller boosters later. The 'one seat for everything' is basically a promise no seat can fulfill well (the Diono is horrible as a booster, regardless of the wings making it short, it doesn't allow the belt to retract freely, resulting in a very dangerous situation with loose shoulderbelts). The Diono IS great for heavy kids rearfacing, though (love that 50lb weight limit on some models!), and is a nice low profile seat later for forwarrd facing. The Britax Boulevard and Graco 4Ever are better for very TALL kids rearfacing, and are easier to install in general. (40lb weight limits, for a big kid, that might be like age 2-3, probably still long enough rearfacing, unless you are very committed to RF to an older age).

For a second/third seat, the Evenflo SureRide/Titan 65 is fantastic for huge kiddos

I would absolutely recommend buying separate seats for your car and your husband's. Moving car seats around is just not fun and the time you'd spend doing that would really add up fast -- and safety-wise, it's better to get a good install in there and leave it, than to constantly be re-installing things.

You might be happy with the Britax Boulevard Clicktight -- it looks cushy enough for little ones, and it can RF for a good long time. We love our Radians, and as jools said it's a great seat RF and FF if it installs well in your car, but as tall as your child is it won't take you straight to a seatbelt. It probably won't get my kids there either, and they're on the exact opposite end of the charts. Our Radians have no headwings; my 7.5yo, 50-lb 48" tall child has some growing room left in his but not a ton. It'll easily take him to a backless booster.

The Radian R120 has no headwings and does come with the infant body support cushions. It rear faces to 45 lbs instead of 50 but may be a good option.

How long do you plan to rear face? The problem with all the extended rear facing seats on the market is that they either max out at 40 pounds but can go really tall, or they can go to 45 or 50 pounds, but aren't good for exceptionally tall kids. For kids who are just all around big, you might max out weight on tall seats and height on high weight seats by the time they're, say, 2.5 years.

But there's a new Safety 1st seat coming out in April that can rear face to 50 pounds and 49 inches, which is super exciting given my gigantic 3 month old.

How quickly do you need seats? Could you get a seat that you plan to use for travel/grandparents/sitter/occasional use and use it temporarily until this new seat is available?

I would get a Sureride / Titan65 now with the plan for it to be a secondary seat later. Use that until the new seat lgenne is talking about is available. Once you get a chance to look at it, you can decide if you like it or if you want something else as a primary seat. As others have said, right now for rear-facing you're basically looking at a 40lb seat that will be outgrown by weight or a 45-50lb seat that will be outgrown by height.

Ignore the booster idea altogether for now. No use muddying the waters For now, the important thing is to decide what your rear-facing goals are. Secondary to that would be considering forward-facing harness height.

Wow, thank you all SO MUCH for all your help! This really does help us focus in on what we need to look for. I would certainly like to RF as long as possible, but I don't see us making it to the 4-year mark many seem to be shooting for with his size. Two is my minimum, and I'll be pretty happy if we make it to 3.

We really do need at least a couple of seats pretty quickly. I've been looking for a while, but then in the last month he LITERALLY grew 2-1/4 inches, so he really is right at the limit of our Chicco Keyfit 30. I don't think we can make 1 work until April.

We live in a pretty rural area, but we're headed to the closest metro area this weekend, and I think we're going to go to a few baby stores to check some of these out in person. Now that I'm not trying to find a 'forever' solution, are there any other models you'd recommend we take a look at? If it helps at all, we drive a Buick Rendezvous and a Chevy Silverado 3500 crew cab truck, and we generally keep both front seats as far back as possible (our large child isn't really shocking - we're both very tall).

You're going to need 3 total, right? Can you do just 2 for awhile? And can we assume that 2 will be used frequently and the 3rd less often?

If you can get away with just 2 short term, I see 2 ways of doing it:

1) Hope the new Safety 1st seat is the perfect seat for you, and just get 2 cheap spares for the moment.
2) Get one nicer seat and one "spare" until we know more about the Safety 1st seat.

Here are some links that can help you get started. I would consider a couple of Scenera NEXTs or possibly Guide 65s, based on what you've said about front-to-back space in your vehicles. Neither will last as long as the Sureride forward facing, but they're much more compact and likely to fit where you need them for rear facing. For nicer seats, given that he's off the charts for height and only at the top of them for weight, I'd go with taller rather than higher weight seats. Links:

http://carseatblog.com/31265/best-c...cing-the-definitive-guide-for-savvy-shoppers/

http://carseatblog.com/22818/the-ul...ertible-space-comparison-review-size-matters/

http://carseatblog.com/30022/comparison-of-budget-priced-convertible-carseats-under-100/

I would recommend looking at two Britax Boulevard ClickTights (b/c they are the tallest convertible seats out there right now and last the longest by height & torso height of all the convertibles available). The Britax Advocate ClickTight is the same seat, just add the side impact cushions and a higher price tag. These are heavy, and I do not recommend swapping these seats, or any other, daily or a few times a week. When you are in a hurry, you could make a dangerous mistake. And the Evenflo Sure Ride is also very long lasting..great option for the sitter's car or a less used vehicle.

As for the convertible seats that convert to boosters, rarely do they make good long lasting boosters, and with a boy that tall, you'll definitely be buying a stand alone high back booster anyways! Don't worry about boostering right now.

If you look at the growth charts and he continues on his current trajectory, at age 3 he may be up to 41 inches tall and 40 lbs. If he stays longer in the torso (they don't all), seats with 40" rear facing height limits will be outgrown before 40 inches. If you need a seat right now, I'd go for a Britax Boulevard ClickTight, cause we know it's going to get him pretty close to age 3 rear facing. (-; At the very least, we know most of the longer lasting seats out there will get him to age 2...and most of the tallest ones will get him close to age 3. (-; They tend to slim down a bit later, while staying tall, so that helps, too.

hths

We have ended up with 3 different ones for our tall son. He was in a RF recaro untilhe was just too big to heft him into it and we switched him around somewhere about 20m. Then at 3 he was too tall ff in it and we bought a frontier. He’s max harness height now at 5.