RF tether youngest or put FF child in middle?

Hi,

Looking for some opinions here:

I drive an '09 Odyssey. I have 2 children - my son is 6 months old and I've just moved him to a Marathon from the infant bucket. My daughter is almost 3 and FF in a Frontier. They are in the captain's chairs, 2nd row (MA on the driver's side, FR passenger).

I couldn't find a good place to RF tether the MA, so I searched the forums here and discovered that you can't RF tether on the driver's side 2nd row unless you won't be moving the driver's seat (because the only possible spot to tether is the bar under the seat itself and it would move with the seat). This is not an option because it's our only car and both my husband and I drive it regularly.

You can tether a RF seat to the flip down tray, but only from the passenger side seat.

When I was installing the MA, I had planned to move my daughter's captain's chair to the middle position in the van (2 chairs next to each other) so she would be that much safer in terms of side impact. The passenger side chair is the only one that can move to the middle.

So, now I can only choose one option - RF tether the MA using the flip down tray on the passenger side OR move my daughter to the middle in her FR.

More info: my husband doesn't want either child in the back row because he feels it's not as safe as the 2nd row in the captain's chairs (may or may not be accurate, but he feels strongly about it). I definitely don't want the baby back there but I might consider my older daughter. The Odyssey has side airbags in all rows.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

I'd probably choose putting the forward-facing child in the middle.

You drive what is arguably the safest minivan on the market. Your children are in very very very safe seats. Even if they were both outboard, they'd still have quite a space buffer between them and the outside of the car in the event of a crash.

At this point, worrying about putting the three year old forward facing/third row is really splitting hairs. Put the three year old whereever you need to. Tether the rearfacing Marathon. You'll be just fine :thumbsup:

Yeah, it's all what's convenient for you.

I'd choose the forward facing kid in the middle just from a convenience standpoint.

Thanks for the quick replies so far!

It's no more or less convenient for me to have my daughter's seat in the middle of the second row as opposed to outboard.

I know that they're both very safe but now it feels like I'm just picking which one I want to be slightly safER.

My son would be safer tethered in a side impact.

My daughter would be safer in the middle in a side impact.

Instead of choosing which one I love more , I was hoping that there might be some sort of consensus on this board to help me decide (or that someone might magically know a RF tether point for the driver's side 2nd row!).

If only Honda had made the driver's side chair the one that moved to the middle, I wouldn't have this dilemma!

Can you tether him rf to the seat belt of the drivers seat? I'm finding it hard to believe that was the only place you could find to tether it. I ripped some trim off my husband's car that covered the bolt for his seat belt, and there was a hole in the metal bracket big enough to attached the tether clip to. I would get down there and start tentatively peeling trim back to look for hidden things like that, so you could tether him and then put her closer to the middle.

FWIW I also move my seat once in awhile but all it did was loosen the tether (it was adjusted to the longest position). If it's that big of a deal you could just adjust it every time. A PITA to be sure but at least he'd be tethered. I don't tether to the seat anymore because I found a better place in my car too. It's a little off center but that's ok too.

Then there are a few of us on here that don't RF tether at all. You don't have to. If your son was RFing in anything other than a Britax or Radian seat it wouldn't be an option and no one here (I don't think) would tell you that you should go get a seat that can RF tether to make your son safer.

While I do see the advantage of a RF tether, I don't think I will ever use one unless vehicles start coming with approved RF tether anchors specifically for that purpose, like the ones used for FF. I don't like the unpredictability of not knowing how the make-shift anchor I'm using will perform in a collision, not just with respect to the child restraint, but also with respect to whatever it is tethered to. :twocents: