Question Chunky LO outgrowing car seat already

My LO is 4.5 mo already 19lbs, and so he's outgrowing his infant car seat very very soon... we live in canada & we have the
Peg Prego Primo Viaggio SIP Infant Car Seat
http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index....entPage=family
i've read somewhere the weight limit is 22 lbs and somewhere else was 25lbs, can anyone tell me which is correct?

so when my LO reaches the weight limit we'll have to switch to the next stage, the convertible car seat...
we're thinking of the Britax Marathon Convertible Car Seat
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index...ductId=2934997
is this a good one?

so i guess we'll use this one in rear-facing position until our DS reaches 30lbs, is that right?

Many thanks~~

The marathon is a very nice car seat. I have 2 and love them.

The other one you could consider, being that you are in Canada, is the Learning Curve True Fit. It rearfaces to 35#s and seeing that your baby is already at 19#s at 4 months, you might need the higher weight limit to rearface longer.

I second the Trufit, if your little guy is already 19 lbs at 5 months, he's going to need those 5 extra pounds to get him past a year rear-facing!

I also agree with the True Fit. It offers a lot of growing room, especially in the shoulders where the Marathon can be a bit tight with big kids.

I am going to offer a bit of different advice here and i want to point up i am not a technician. If i was in your situation, i would probably look into getting a safeseat1 or another higher weight infant seat if you are not one to baby wear. I did wear my son alot but at the same time i liked having the carseat to place him down when we were somewhere. Especially grocery shopping (but not ontop of the carriage). Also where you said you are from canada you might like the convience of having him in a carrier through the winter. And then at the point either selling that seat or save it and then purchase a convertible. Just my 2 cents.

I wouldn't recommend the MA in your situation - a child weighing 19lbs at 4.5months absolutely needs a 35lb rf'ing seat. A 30lb seat would barely get kiddo to 1yr old, if it even got that far. I wouldn't consider anything other than a 35lb rf'ing limit seat for the convertible, and since the True Fit is the only option in Canada right now, there's not much choice.

The MA in general isn't really a good choice for broad kids either - it's rather narrow in terms of interior space. Even my average dd was snug in the shoulders in the MA and didn't find it comfy anymore before she turned 4 - and she was only just shy of 35lbs then.

So yeah, I'm going to join the masses of saying True Fit all the way. It's really the only option I'd consider right now. Zeller's has it on sale for $150 - I think that ends tomorrow? TRU/BRU also carry it, though some stores it's special order and new stock won't be available until Oct 13 - either to be shipped to stores or for special order.

One other thing to note - the weight limit on the carseat is an overall limit, so if 19lbs was a naked or diaper only weight at the dr.'s office, then you need to factor in the weight of clothes. Your carseat has a 22lb max rf'ing weight limit, so you're probably within 1lb of outgrowing it if the 19lbs is a diaper only weight.

my2kidsSafe said:

I am going to offer a bit of different advice here and i want to point up i am not a technician. If i was in your situation, i would probably look into getting a safeseat1 or another higher weight infant seat if you are not one to baby wear. I did wear my son alot but at the same time i liked having the carseat to place him down when we were somewhere. Especially grocery shopping (but not ontop of the carriage). Also where you said you are from canada you might like the convience of having him in a carrier through the winter. And then at the point either selling that seat or save it and then purchase a convertible. Just my 2 cents.

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Speaking from a practicality standpoint, most parents don't carry around 20+ pound babies anyways - it's just too much weight by the time you factor in the weight of the infant seat itself. While I agree that the Safeseat would be nice to get through the winter with, I'd only consider it if a True Fit was still in the future.

my2kidsSafe said:

I am going to offer a bit of different advice here and i want to point up i am not a technician. If i was in your situation, i would probably look into getting a safeseat1 or another higher weight infant seat if you are not one to baby wear. I did wear my son alot but at the same time i liked having the carseat to place him down when we were somewhere. Especially grocery shopping (but not ontop of the carriage).

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An alternative to this is to get a really nice and heavily padded shopping cart cover that also works in restaurant high chairs. I have a Buggy Bagg, but there are others that looks nice, too. My son moved out of his infant seat at 3 months, when he was around 18 pounds. I don't think the higher-weight infant seats were out yet, but I just wanted to move him to a convertible. I could lay him down in the shopping cart or prop him up with all the padding and pillows. Same for the restaurant high chairs. It worked great!

I'd suggest the SafeSeat if you are still interested in a bucket-style seat.
Or the True Fit as a convertible.

Your child's growth/weight gain might slow down, especially if s/he is EBFd. DD#1 was 16lbs at 4m, DD#2 was 15lbs at 4m Both were EBFd and were around 20lbs at 12m. DD#2 is 20m and is 22lbs. DD#1 was out of her SnugRide by torso height at 4m, we took DD#2 out at 2m. Both went directly into the MA. I really like the MA....

HTH

Definitely a True Fit! My DS was 20 pounds at his 6 month checkup, and is now 29.2 lbs at 14 months old - and that's naked, so with clothes on he's too heavy for a Marathon now. We replaced our MA with a TF to keep him rearfacing, and we LOVE the True Fit. He seems much more comfy and protected in it.

here we go again... i posted several questions about this the other day. look in the car seat chat section for the thread.

i thought i loved the tf until i tried my 4.5 mo (may 7th) old son in it at the store. (yesterday at the ped. he weighed in at 18 lbs 3 oz.& 26.25") we tried the seat with the 2 position crotch buckle and he was sitting directly on top of it it the recommended #1 position for rf. he was so squished! the #2 position looked like it would be more comfy in "that" area but that # is for ff children. apparently there is a 3 position crotch strap model and if you can find that one it would probably be the best choice. i ended up buying a ma and if i had known that info prior to my shopping trip i would have searched out and purchased the 3 position tf. definitely go to a store and try them out for size and fit!

just a note though...i am very happy with the ma that i bought. it has only 1 position for the crotch strap and a nice little "pillow" for that area but it also has plenty of room for growth. i don't have any doubts about my son being squished down there as he grows.

it also fits fine in the car and it is super-snug!

72msfish said:

here we go again... i posted several questions about this the other day. look in the car seat chat section for the thread.

i thought i loved the tf until i tried my 4.5 mo (may 7th) old son in it at the store. (yesterday at the ped. he weighed in at 18 lbs 3 oz.& 26.25") we tried the seat with the 2 position crotch buckle and he was sitting directly on top of it it the recommended #1 position for rf. he was so squished! the #2 position looked like it would be more comfy in "that" area but that # is for ff children. apparently there is a 3 position crotch strap model and if you can find that one it would probably be the best choice. i ended up buying a ma and if i had known that info prior to my shopping trip i would have searched out and purchased the 3 position tf. definitely go to a store and try them out for size and fit!

just a note though...i am very happy with the ma that i bought. it has only 1 position for the crotch strap and a nice little "pillow" for that area but it also has plenty of room for growth. i don't have any doubts about my son being squished down there as he grows.

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The problem is that the MA only rear faces to 30lbs in Canada. Really I would absolutely not recommend it with a child this weight at this age.

One other thing - which I'm not sure if it was mentioned in your other thread or not, is that position 2 IS ALLOWED when RF'ing. The manual is somewhat confusing, but what it says is that the outer position must be used after a specific weight. (I'm blanking on the weight right now, but I'm thinking 50 or 55lbs - don't quote me on the exact weight though...) So anyways - use either position up until that weight, then once that weight is reached the outer position has to be used. So really, your kiddo had a lot of growing space.

19lbs at 4.5 months old puts your son in the 90% for weight. IF he stays on the same growth curve, then he would be 30lbs at 17 months and 35lbs at 2.5 years old. With that said, most four month olds do *not* stay at 90% - they start to even out once they are crawling/walking.

If you are planning on rear facing to the limits of the seat and want him rear facing longer (2 - 3 years old), then you may want to go the TruFit option for the 35lbs limit.

I find the Trufit to be slightly annoying with installing because of the *need* to use the lock-offs. I also can't stand the infant padding in the Trufit as I believe it interferes with the harness when tightening/loosening... just makes one more thing for the harness to catch on. These are issues you can work around if you know about them though.

You do need to be *extremely* careful with tightening the harness. The straps are folded over in the buckle tongues which causes the buckle tongues to stay in place (they will not slide down to hide by the hips), however this means the buckle tongues do not slide freely along the harness.

I recently had a check where the mom put her baby in, tightened the harness and checked the tightness using both the pinch test and the one finger method. The harness appeared tight and she had pulled hard to get *all* slack out of the seat. *However*, due to the straps being folded over in the buckle tongues, there was still excess harness by the hips... about an inch or so.

You *need* to buckle the harness and pull all the slack out of the *hip area* before you pull on the strap to get the rest of the slack out of the harness. If you are diligent with this, then you will be fine using this seat. If you are not, it will never be tightened correctly.

The harness is a continuous loop harness. It starts at one shoulder and goes down past the crotch strap to the hip, under the bum, up past the second hip through the crotch strap and up to the second shoulder. Essentially you don't need to loosen/tighten the harness every time because you can just tug by the hips and slide the strap back/forth to have it loose on each side as you put that arm through the strap.

This works great when rear facing. However once forward facing, I've found that the way the child sits in the seat (or maybe the heavier weight of the child - mine was 39lbs) does not allow the harness to slide back/forth easily at all.

I also *really* do not like this seat in forward facing mode, it is quite reclined and I'm just not okay with a forward facing seat being that reclined.

If you are okay with turning your child forward facing at 17 mo, or want to take the gamble that they will slow down in weight gain (most children do, but not all) then you have a few other options.

Britax Marathon
-older children do find it narrow through the shoulders
-I love the rear facing tether and I really like how it fits kids when rear facing... if you are planning on having another child down the road, you can plan to pass this seat down to the new baby once your son goes forward facing/outgrows the seat... then purchase a seat like the Frontier/Nautilus/whatever is latest and greatest on the market for your son.

Sunshine Kids Radian
-tallest top slots of all convertible seats on the market (comparison photo thread here)
-rear facing tether
-*fantastic* for airline travel once forward facing (after a year on the plane - rear face at your destination until the limits of the seat)
-can be tricky to install the first few times... once you learn the tricks, it's fairly simple
-takes up quite a bit of space when rear facing... so knowing your vehicle make/model/year helps quite a bit in choosing a seat
-very narrow outside footprint which makes three across much easier and allows larger adults to sit in back beside the seat comfortably

Evenflo Triumph Advance
-small front to back space
-has knobs for adjusting on the side of the seat which can sometimes interfere with the vehicle seat when rear facing... if you have sculpted back seats, this is probably not the seat for you

Your last option and probably the one I would choose is to get a SafeSeat1 like a previous poster mentioned.

A carrier will still allow you to take baby in/out of the vehicle without disturbing sleep for those quick in/out trips at the gas station/grocery store/mailbox... you know, the errand days where it's just not worth disturbing their sleep. For the other days, just leave the carrier in the vehicle and take baby out with you.

It will also be super nice with our winter coming to not worry about how your going to safely bundle baby, get them to the vehicle, put them in their seat and then cover them with blankets. Remember that kids should *NOT* be wearing bulky snowsuits in the vehicle. They allow slack in the harness and then baby is not tightened correctly and runs the risk of being ejected in a collision.

With a carrier, you put them in and buckle, add blankets around them and then if you want you can add a pop over cover to keep them warm on the trip to the vehicle.

I had to take both my kids out of the carrier at 5 months (too tall and no SS1 option at that time) and I *hated* not having the carrier any longer... especially since they both came out of the carrier in September (Saskatchewan) and October (Alberta)... not fun winters.

The SS1 should last your son until close to 17months as well, that this is the option I would go and then see what great convertibles are out at that time.

Without quoting the entire post, I strongly disagree with getting a SS1 unless there is money to spare for a few reasons...

- Most parents don't carry a child heavier than 20lbs in a carrier IME - it's too heavy. Without using the carrier feature, it's a waste of money to buy it.
- I wouldn't count on a child falling off his/her growth curve - some kids will actually go up in percentiles, there's just no way to know - and banking on getting longer in a 30lb seat due to dropping in percentiles could turn around and bite you (general you, not you specifically,) in the butt.
- I'm not comfortable at all with putting a child ff'ing at 17months when there is a seat on the market to keep said child rf'ing to 2yrs old.

It's worth saying that the original Radian's had the narrow buckle tongues as well that made them not slip down on the harness straps. Additionally, most seats do need to be at least checked at the hips for proper tightness - this is a parental education thing, not a seat drawback - even the snugride which is one of the most common infant seats used, needs the straps snugged through the buckle tongues. It's not a step that should be skipped on any seat.

I don't think the TF is the end all be all of carseats, but it certainly doesn't deserve a horrible rap due to the continuous harness and narrow buckle tongues. The straps don't twist with repeated use and some parents actually like a continuous harness. A child at this weight at this age needs a 35lb seat, and financially it doesn't make sense to buy a carrier that may not even be used as a carrier for long and then still have to buy a convertible seat. And I wouldn't spend money on a 30lb convertible seat - because again, I'm NOT comfortable with a 17mo old ff'ing when there are other options available to keep the child rf'ing. And the TF is an affordable option, not one that is going to break the bank.


I guess this is just an agree to disagree thing...

snowbird25ca said:

Without quoting the entire post, I strongly disagree with getting a SS1 unless there is money to spare for a few reasons...

I guess this is just an agree to disagree thing...

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You have already pointed out (several times in this thread) that you don't agree with an SS1. However, there are parents that would (and clearly do) agree with an SS1 at this age. I don't think it's fair to continuously reply to this thread that the SS1 is a bad option. Yes, that is your choice, but is it not everyone's choice and some people actually prefer it.

The Trufit's buckle tongues in relation to the strap width are much different than all other seats out there. The straps have at least 1/3rd of their width that is folded over in the seat. The straps do not budge when pulling hard on the adjuster strap... this is a huge issue as other seats still budge and move a little. As long as the parent is aware of this, they can work around it. It is definitely not an issue that most other seats have and certainly becomes a drawback of the seat for some parents. The important thing is to give the parent all the facts and let them make their own decision.

It's also worth mentioning that depending on your vehicle, you may not even be able to install the Trufit properly in it. Case in point... we installed the TruFit rear facing today in an '03 Explorer using the seatbelt. It was impossible to install the Trufit at an angle appropriate for a 4.5 month old baby. The seatbelt lines up with the lock-offs in such a manner that it creates a 30 - 35 degree angle. The Trufit is only allowed to be between a 35 - 45 degree angle... which means the Trufit is incompatible for a child that requires that 45 degree angle in this vehicle.

As time goes by I think we are going to be getting feedback from parents and techs that the mandatory use of the lock-offs cause some major incompatibility issues... especially with the younger babies.

I think that if someone wants to purchase a SS1 and doesn't mind carrying around a fairly heavy child in an also fairly heavy seat (10lbs?!), so be it. My main concerns would be with plagiocephely or that parents would want to skip the RF convertible stage. If money is no object, and the convenience of the carrier is greater than the inconvenience of lugging that seat and child around at almost 30lbs...have at it! In my experience with a 29lb limit travel seat we had, once you approach that 30lb mark it's a struggle to lug a seat around, or even lift it off and on the base.

As for the TrueFit lock-offs--in my experience (and in the experience of other techs I've discussed this with) the lockoffs pull a little bit of slack out of the belt right at the end, so you have to generally get the belt tight but still leave a tiny bit of slack. It's counter-intuitive since we're so used to getting our rock solid installs, but in this case it's possible a rock solid install will interfere with the lockoffs, later. In any vehicle where you can recline the seatback that the seat is on, you can always drop the seat a notch, lock the lock-off, and force the seat back up a notch. It's easier to force the seat up than force the lockoff closed without slack.

I think that any time you add "features" to seats, you're bound to encounter more install problems...that's why we encourage people to try before they buy.

-Nicole.

QuassEE said:

As for the TrueFit lock-offs--in my experience (and in the experience of other techs I've discussed this with) the lockoffs pull a little bit of slack out of the belt right at the end, so you have to generally get the belt tight but still leave a tiny bit of slack.

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We did try this and I've created a separate thread so as not to de-rail this one. What we found was quite scary.

It's really not the age of the child so much as the weight - I wouldn't be carrying around 30lbs of kid and carseat regularly, let alone close to 40lbs. (I checked Graco's site, it weighs 9.6lbs)

I loved my SS1, don't get me wrong. I bought it when ds was 5months old because he was outgrowing the snugride by height and I wasn't ready to give up a carrier. I understand the convenience of the carrier, I truly do. But I think as kids get heavier that convenience isn't truly there. My comfortable limit is around 16 or 17lbs, then I start leaving it in the vehicle most of the time. With ds I made it through the last few months of winter, then started leaving it in the truck most of the time, and quit using it by 11mos because I wasn't using the carrier function at all anymore and was ready to switch to a convertible.

I'd say a good 1/2 of parents shopping for convertible seats start shopping because the child is too heavy to carry anymore. Most of those kids are in the 15, 16lb range. A lot of parents discount the SS1 from the beginning because of thinking a 20lb + child would be too heavy to carry & the carrier itself is heavy. I usually tell those parents that by the time a child is 20lbs they're going to feel heavy regardless of how light the carrier is. And as for the ones shopping because kiddo is too heavy to carry, I suggest leaving it in the car if they're otherwise happy with it and the child otherwise still fits. The SS1 really is a wonderful seat.

My dd went into a convertible at 4.5months, and it was a huge PITA. I do understand that. I guess my whole point is it's only convenient to buy the SS1 if you use it as a carrier, and quite frankly I don't know of many parents who carry a seat past 20lbs. Given that another rf'ing seat will almost definitely still be necessary after the SS1 is outgrown, and that the carrier function is likely to not be useful for that long, I only think it's a good option if a parent has the money to spend, and goes into it knowing that there's a 99% likelihood that they'll need to buy another convertible seat to rf with.

Ultimately that's my biggest concern - that by recommending a 30lb rf'ing limit seat for a replacement, that the child will be put straight into a combination seat once the 30lbs is hit. Because when it comes down to it, the average parent wants to buy as few seats as possible and wants one that will last the longest.

I've gotta say though, if you did carry around that much weight, you'd get some pretty good looking arm muscles. And if a parent is going to actually carry it around to the full weight limit, AND buy a seat with a higher rf'ing limit afterwards, then I say go for it. If that was the scenario, then it would be a fine option. :thumbsup:

canadiancarseatqueen said:

You have already pointed out (several times in this thread) that you don't agree with an SS1. However, there are parents that would (and clearly do) agree with an SS1 at this age. I don't think it's fair to continuously reply to this thread that the SS1 is a bad option. Yes, that is your choice, but is it not everyone's choice and some people actually prefer it.

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I don't believe Trudy saying the SS1 is a BAD choice. However, it might not be the choice if Jenn/OP is looking for ONE carseat to replace the Peg and to last a while (beyond the rf stage).

-----------------------------------
I'm pasting my response to Jenn/OP on another board with the same post/questions...

Basically, if you want an infant carseat to use over this winter (convenience of portability, shower-style cozy cover for warmth, etc.), the Graco SafeSeat 1 infant carseat might be the one to consider. It has 30 lbs rf and average size babies can last in it until about 18+ mos.

The TrueFit is a good seat with lots of features similar to the Marathon (ie. built-in lock-offs, EPS foam thru out, non-twisting harness, side-impact protection, etc.) and good value. Reg. for $199 and on sale regularly at Zellers for $149. This one is the only rf seat in Canada with 35 lbs weight limit, so it might be the one for your little chunky one. We do advocate extended rf because it is the safest.

If you don't worry about $$$ and how long the carseat need to last, baby slows down in growth, etc. the Marathon is great. Still is my favourite seat.