Recline angle and outgrowing seat

NannyMom

Well-known member
In my head, a child would have more room to grow if the seat was reclined more (45* as opposed to 35*). But I've seen mention in posts that reclining gives less room.

Sofi's Scenera in Grandma's car is 45* or pretty close to it. Last time I reinstalled it, the vehicle seat was all messed up (scrunched and bunched in places :whistle:) and I didn't want to fight with it.

She has about 1 inch of growing room before she outgrows by height RF. 1 inch makes me nervous. Especially since it's a seat I don't normally see her in. But we don't yet have the funds to play musical carseats and buy a new seat. Would changing the angle help? Should I get the seat more upright?
 
ADS

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
Yes, installing the seat more upright will give more growth room.

Same way as adults "shrink" ever so slightly during the day, a kid sitting straight up is going to shrink a bit more than a kid who is reclined all the way.

It actually came close to making the difference between harness position #2 and #3 in the True Fit for ds. When it was first installed he needed #3. When I re-installed it more upright to give dh more room in the front seat, he moved to the borderline spot of being slightly below #3. After some debate and moving the harness between the 2 positions I've decided to leave it at #3 with his shoulders ever so slightly below... but that illustrates the difference it can make anyways. Probably about 1/4" to as much as 1/2" depending. :thumbsup:
 

NannyMom

Well-known member
Maybe I should have Grandma take the seat out of her car to let the vehicle seat air out and um....perhaps return to it's shape. Then it'll be easier to reinstall more upright.
 

joolsplus3

Admin - CPS Technician
Leah's been 'at' the second to top slots in the Radian since she turned two when it's reclined and rearfacing, and when she's upright and FF (at age 3), she's like half an inch below them :confused::eek: Her big sister had at least half an inch more growing room FF in the Marathon in our upright ford escape compared to our reclined Ody captain's chairs. There's definitely more growing room in a seat that's more upright, I'm just echoing Trudy on that :)
 

ginny4

New member
generally speaking i think you gain more room the mor eupright it is. HOWEVER a very very odd thing....when my DD was outgrwoing the FPSVD i had it very upright. i wanted to squeeze a lil more time out of it so...i tried pulling the base out a lil bit to recline it a bit & sure enough she had a lil bit more room. it was odd. not anything i expected. i think perhaps that because the leg support on the FPSVD is shallow? that may have something to do with it?
 

natysr

New member
Sometimes it is hard to tell based on the vehicle you are using.

We have 2 marathons. One in a Honda Civic and one in a Pathfinder. One would think that Jordan would fit the same in both, but he doesn't.

It appears that the Marathon in the Pathfinder is installed more upright than in the Honda, but he actually has less room above his head in the Pathfinder.

But..the civic has cloth seats and the vehicle seatback is naturally more reclined. He has more legroom in that car.

In the pathfinder, we have leather seats and the seatback of the car is very upright. So, it appears that the Marathon is installed more upright. Jordan has less legroom in that car. But, he has less room above his head.
 

NannyMom

Well-known member
Sometimes it is hard to tell based on the vehicle you are using.

We have 2 marathons. One in a Honda Civic and one in a Pathfinder. One would think that Jordan would fit the same in both, but he doesn't.

It appears that the Marathon in the Pathfinder is installed more upright than in the Honda, but he actually has less room above his head in the Pathfinder.

But..the civic has cloth seats and the vehicle seatback is naturally more reclined. He has more legroom in that car.

In the pathfinder, we have leather seats and the seatback of the car is very upright. So, it appears that the Marathon is installed more upright. Jordan has less legroom in that car. But, he has less room above his head.

I guess this would go along with changing torso heights based on leg position. I know I've seen it discussed here before. He has less leg room, so maybe he's crossing his legs, which makes the torso taller. Hmm.... something to think about.

Sofi looks to have alot of legroom in Grandma's Escort. But that's just based on seeing how the Scenera hits the vehicle seat.
 
U

Unregistered1

Guest
I wonder something: When we check if the child has an inch above their head, instead of looking at the child directly in the face and measuring how much shell we can see above their head from that angle, should we look from the side and draw an imaginary horizontal line? Let me try to illustrate on photoshop...

OK in the pic I'm about to attach, the first illustration is how I always thought we measured the 1" rule. Looking at the child head on. Then I got to thinking about how the Britax manuals advise you to check harness heights, and I thought if we apply it to the 1" rule, we should measure more like the second picture, from the side. If we do it that way, it would make sense that a more upright install would give the child more room because a greater amount of shell would fall above the horizontal line. Does this make sense to anyone but me?

eta - you'll have to click the pic thumbnail below to be able to see it decently sized.
 

NannyMom

Well-known member
The horizontal line we draw should be at the same angle as the carseat, not parallel to the ground. Is that what you were going for? I thought I was measuring wrong. See how much room is above her head in my siggy? That was only 5 months ago. It looks to me like 6 inches, but maybe I'm estimating wrong :) Now she has only 2 inches. I checked out the pics in the articles/reviews and remeasured. Still 2 inches above her head when measuring correctly.

In my mind... it seemed if you put the seat more upright, the child's back/head would slide up the seat allowing less room above the head. If you recline the seat more, the back/head would slide down. I guess my mind had it wrong :eek:
 

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