Can you all please help me think this through again....

I have had such a dilema with car seats due to financial constraints (dh has been unemployed for months) and the fact that I have this tiny, old, car that there is no chance of replacing anytime soon. As I have said for the past year here - I NEED another option for my almost 6 year old who is autistic. His stats are in my siggy.

I may be able to get some Christmas money to buy him an inexpensive seat. The apex will not work for him as there is no harness adjuster strap left to adjust when he sits in it. I do not believe that he will tolerate a ride safer vest. If it rides up at his neck he will freak out. He has sensory issues around his neck. These are the options as I see it.

1.Buy an 86Y to use with the fpbooster in the corolla. The issue with this is that I will need to front face my two year old so that the 6 year old will fit in the center. 6 year old can not be outboard in this car as he plays with the doors and windows. Using the 86Y in our van is not an option - unfortunately due to tether anchors. I think this option would cost between $80-$90 due to having to purchase the harness plus at least one tether anchor from toyota for the two year old.

2. Keep the radian in the corolla. Buy a vivo light for him in the van. I think that with the locking seatbelts and side impact protection, he would sit properly in it. Right now he can almost handle sitting in the fpbooster with the seatbelt locked, but he leans to the side and slips his shoulder out of position in it. I don't think we would have that problem with a side impact booster. He could use this seat in other vehicles too. About $90

I am hoping to be able to swing the $90 soon.
If you were in my shoes, which option would you try?

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I think I would keep the Radian in the Corolla, because that means you can keep the 2yo rear-facing, and get an 86Y for the van. I know you said you can't have tether anchors added, but I'm assuming you mean factory anchors. Have you tried talking with EZOn about their heavy duty anchors? They are generally very helpful with finding appropriate locations for anchor installation. If that works out, then you'll be able to keep him harnessed in both vehicles, plus keep the 2yo rear-facing.

I just can't see where I could get a heavy duty anchor installed in the van. The only thing that could work is drilling out the existing anchor location on the back sill in the third row. I just can't see how I could get to the other side of the anchor. (I think it is double wall construction there, but I am not positive.) Because the van is leased, we are not comfortable drilling in other parts of it.

Dh and I have been brainstorming and we may be able to put the 86Y outboard in the corolla, engage the child locks on the door and remove the window lever thingy (ok, I don't know the right technical term) from that door. Then 6 year old couldn't open the door or roll down the window anymore. Then 2 year old could stay rearfacing and we can fit them all in there safely.

Before we do that, I am going to try to put baby rearfacing outboard and the two boosters next to each other again and double check if I can buckle them. Good thing my kids are thin and they can fit with the boosters at the narrowest setting. I just worry about them gaining weight and having to make the boosters wider.

musicmaj said:

Dh and I have been brainstorming and we may be able to put the 86Y outboard in the corolla, engage the child locks on the door and remove the window lever thingy (ok, I don't know the right technical term) from that door. Then 6 year old couldn't open the door or roll down the window anymore. Then 2 year old could stay rearfacing and we can fit them all in there safely.

Before we do that, I am going to try to put baby rearfacing outboard and the two boosters next to each other again and double check if I can buckle them. Good thing my kids are thin and they can fit with the boosters at the narrowest setting. I just worry about them gaining weight and having to make the boosters wider.

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That sounds like a good plan -- removing the window crank shouldn't be a huge project, I imagine, and it would be great to keep the 2 y.o. RF, if possible :thumbsup:. I recently was considering trying to put my oldest (6 y.o.) in a booster + 86Y in the center of our '96 Corolla, so some of your thought process sounds familiar. In our case that would involve turning our 3 y.o. DS FF (just to allow access to the center position, since we currently have two RF children). That's certainly less of a concern than turning a 2 y.o., and we're likely to turn him FF pretty soon in any case.

However, when I looked at the practical issues of buckling/unbuckling the center lap belt every time DS#1 were to get into the middle (assuming he would deal with getting the 86Y itself on/off himself, and that I would only have to reach/climb in to get at the seatbelt buckle), it seemed like a REAL hassle, since the buckle is sort of down under the overhanging edge of the adjacent harnessed seat. It would be quite hard to reach, and there is the hazard of unbuckling the adjacent carseat every time you want to unbuckle the lap belt. With another booster in that outboard position, it may be less trouble, but probably still not easy. You also have to consider what your other children are doing while you help get someone into that middle spot. In your case, I believe you have an older child, who presumably would wait responsibly while you climb into/over his outboard booster to get access to the center spot. In my case, the other two are younger, so leaving one of them unsupervised outside the car is less of an option. Also, in our Corolla (the station wagon version) installing the required center tether would seriously compromise the cargo area of the vehicle, since the anchor point is all the way in the center back of the cargo area (so the tether strap has to run diagonally down through the available storage space). If yours is the sedan version, it may not be quite such a nuisance.

I guess the other questions are how much growing room your DS has in the Radian, and how often he rides in the respective vehicles? It sounds like he's OK in the Radian for now (in the Corolla?) but that you're not comfortable with how he sits in the booster (in the van?). If he'll still fit in the Radian for a while, and you think he's getting close to being reliable enough to ride safely in a booster, maybe a booster upgrade is a better option? Skip the hassles of dealing with the 86Y? How do you think DS would do with the new procedure of getting the 86Y on/off (versus the familiar procedure you have now)? Oh, just realized that the Vivo may not fit in your Corolla (so possibly it's less versatile for you, in terms of where you can use it in the future)?

Not much help, am I....

Katrin

For the price issue - the 86Y comes with a heavy-duty TA, so perhaps you could put that in the Toyota yourself and save some money? That way, if you can get your 86Y from the same place I got mine, it'd just be $52 + shipping, rather than the cost of the harness + the cost of having a TA installed?

Debbie,
I e-mailed the company you bought yours from and am waiting for a reply. I think that I just have to deal with how difficult it is to buckle in the car with the three seats in there and one rearfacing. I wish there was another option for us, but there isn't so this just has to work.

The radian will have to stay in the van. He has two inches in shoulder height in there. That will buy us at least another year for him to mature and for us to work on some more behavioral intervention in the car.

I hope to post back very soon with pictures of the new harness and set up.

Thanks!

musicmaj said:

Debbie,
I e-mailed the company you bought yours from and am waiting for a reply. I think that I just have to deal with how difficult it is to buckle in the car with the three seats in there and one rearfacing. I wish there was another option for us, but there isn't so this just has to work.

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Speaking as someone who spent four years buckling two boosters on either side of a carseat in the back of a two-door car, I feel your pain. I used to tell my chiropractor that once my kids were out of boosters I wouldn't need him anymore!