Question Volvo XC60, Tall Parents, and RF Baby

Merivel · Dec 5, 2016

Hi all!

We have an '06 Volvo XC70, a very tall baby (over the 97% her whole life, currently 7m), strangely enough her Dad and I are also very tall. We are currently using the Nuna Pipa which requires the passenger to be pretty squished up. (It can't fit behind the driver seat and still allow for either of us to actually drive.) The Pipa is almost outgrown and we want to reclaim some legroom when we replace it. Grandma is flipping out over the Diono Radian XRT, but I'm 99% certain it takes up MORE room than the Pipa in RF. The Nuna Rava takes up the same amount of space or less, depending on the recline you use, it has rave reviews everywhere, and has extra leg room for the kiddo as she grows, but it's super pricey and never goes on sale. I like that both is these seats have steel frames, the only ones that do to my knowledge.

Any insight on the fit of the Diono in an XC70? Does the foam incline accessory help all that much?

Any insights on the Rava?

Any other super safe car seats that give kiddo and parents both more legroom that I should consider?

Thanks in advance!

lgenne · Dec 5, 2016

There are plenty of safe car seats that take up less space than a Radian (and at least one will keep kids rear facing longer to boot!) and less pricey than the Rava.

One caveat: steel reinforcement isn't actually proven to be safer. There's even some educated conjecture that it has some significant downsides when forward facing that require extra engineering to keep from stopping forward motion too quickly in a collision.

That said, most of my suggestions are steel reinforced anyway. [emoji57]

If you want something super compact that rear faces as long as the Rava (which is far longer than the Radian) you should check out the (steel reinforced) Graco Extend2Fit (or the 3-in-1 version of it).

You might also want to check out the Britax ClickTight convertibles. They are also extremely compact front to back and have some really nice features. They rear face roughly the same amount of time as the Radian RXT (but it's kid-dependent-- skinny kids will rear face longer in a Britax; heavier kids in a Radian RXT.)

babyherder · Dec 6, 2016

I have the graco extend to fit and it fits ff nicely with my headrests. I know ff is far in the future but since some volvos gave non removable headrests it might be nice to get a seat that works with them. My car now is not a Volvo but my first car was and the headrests drove me nuts sometimes!