judahs_dad
New member
MIL has requested a seat for her car that will enable her to transport 2 of my 3 kids on occasion (just around town). I thought that I would pass her one of my seats, and use it as an opportunity to get (yet) another new carseat.
DS1 (6.5, 50#, 16 seated shoulder height, 47" standing height) is presently harnessed in a Frontier85, and still has 2-3 slots before outgrowing the harnessed height. While he's probably capable of booster training, we do travel long distances by car once a month or so, and he often falls asleep; plus, he's in the 3rd row of our 2005 Ford Freestyle, which doesn't have side curtains/any safety features where he is. So, I'm fine with keeping him harnessed. In MILs car, he rides in an XTSL with room to grow before his ears/eyes are at the top of the shell.
DD (3.5, 33#, maybe 36"; 10%tile in height/weight) rfing in xtsl outboard 2rd row.
DS2 (20 months, 25#, 28"?) rfing in xtsl outboard 2nd row.
In January, I'll start watching my nephew who will be 8 weeks old, and in a coccoro, possible center seat 2nd row; i'll have him all day 4 days a week. At that point, i might move dd to 3rd row (still rfing if possible) and would outboard both nephew and ds2 (since he tends to be grabby).
I originally was thinking i'd get a booster, and booster train ds1 in our car, give MIL the Fn85, and turn her xtsl rfing for either ds2 or dd (they're on the same harness slot), and just take back the Fn85 whenever we were going to be traveling long distances. If she were transporting dd and ds2, dd would ff for the trip around town. But, MIL's a pain to get a hold of sometimes, and that would restrict some of our less planned/more spontaneous longer trips, and require even more planning for our longer trips to get carseats rearranged.
So, I was thinking that I could give her a second xtsl for rfing in her car, and get one of the younger kids a new seat (we are also ttc #4, so it would conceivably be used for a long time), but we like the xtsl -- it fits well in our car, enables us to do 3 across when we need to, and has a high rfing limit, which is a high priority for us.
So, if you were in my shoes, what would you do -- get a new seat for one of the little kids? get a booster for ds1? which seats would you then recommend? Budget is say, $250 or less, though i could be persuaded to consider the foonf if it's really worth it. If it matters, all three of the xtsl seats were manu. in '09; the Fn85 is an '11, i believe.
DS1 (6.5, 50#, 16 seated shoulder height, 47" standing height) is presently harnessed in a Frontier85, and still has 2-3 slots before outgrowing the harnessed height. While he's probably capable of booster training, we do travel long distances by car once a month or so, and he often falls asleep; plus, he's in the 3rd row of our 2005 Ford Freestyle, which doesn't have side curtains/any safety features where he is. So, I'm fine with keeping him harnessed. In MILs car, he rides in an XTSL with room to grow before his ears/eyes are at the top of the shell.
DD (3.5, 33#, maybe 36"; 10%tile in height/weight) rfing in xtsl outboard 2rd row.
DS2 (20 months, 25#, 28"?) rfing in xtsl outboard 2nd row.
In January, I'll start watching my nephew who will be 8 weeks old, and in a coccoro, possible center seat 2nd row; i'll have him all day 4 days a week. At that point, i might move dd to 3rd row (still rfing if possible) and would outboard both nephew and ds2 (since he tends to be grabby).
I originally was thinking i'd get a booster, and booster train ds1 in our car, give MIL the Fn85, and turn her xtsl rfing for either ds2 or dd (they're on the same harness slot), and just take back the Fn85 whenever we were going to be traveling long distances. If she were transporting dd and ds2, dd would ff for the trip around town. But, MIL's a pain to get a hold of sometimes, and that would restrict some of our less planned/more spontaneous longer trips, and require even more planning for our longer trips to get carseats rearranged.
So, I was thinking that I could give her a second xtsl for rfing in her car, and get one of the younger kids a new seat (we are also ttc #4, so it would conceivably be used for a long time), but we like the xtsl -- it fits well in our car, enables us to do 3 across when we need to, and has a high rfing limit, which is a high priority for us.
So, if you were in my shoes, what would you do -- get a new seat for one of the little kids? get a booster for ds1? which seats would you then recommend? Budget is say, $250 or less, though i could be persuaded to consider the foonf if it's really worth it. If it matters, all three of the xtsl seats were manu. in '09; the Fn85 is an '11, i believe.
