Well... it feels like a big milestone here at the Owl Nest...
We finally had to move J to a booster seat.
Here is the backstory. I am a self-described car seat safety freak. I am fairly laid back about lots of things, but car seat safety is MY issue... the one thing known to drive me crazy when others are lax, the one issue I will stay up at night agonizing over. How hard can it be, you ask? Try fitting three kids in the back seat of a Saturn VUE. Not an easy task, my friends! Especially because two of those kids were already riding in Britax Wizards... which are huge. Add to that the fact that you want to keep all kids in 5 point harnesses as long as possible (the Wizards go to 65 lbs) and that you want to keep the baby rear facing (RF) as long as possible (J and K stayed RF til almost 2 years old). Suddenly, the situation looks a bit more complicated!
So after hours of agonizing, measuring seats, researching car seat boards, etc, when W came along we had to forgo the baby bucket (otherwise known as the infant car seat) and go straight to a Radian 80 because it has such a narrow footprint. The beauty of this is that the Radian will keep a child in a 5 point harness up to *80* pounds!!!!!! So off we roll with three car seats, forward facing (FF) Britax for K, RF Radian for W, and FF Britax for J.
Fast forward a year and a half... J is now six and a half, and tall. Just about too tall for the Britax. And too big of a boy for the narrow bodied Radian (which would hold him to 80 lbs but his shoulders don't fit). W is by far the heaviest of all my babies, and is now almost too heavy for the RF limits on the Radian. So now we have to move to plan B.
So, to make a super long story short(er), after literally two hours of wrangling car seats, installing, uninstalling, trying various configurations, we are now ready to roll out again... in a FF Britax for W, a FF Radian for K, and a Graco highback booster for J.
My little owls seem to be getting bigger all the time, and it feels like the end of an era and the beginning of the new one, now that I no longer have any little RF babies riding around in my car and one of my little ones is officially in a booster seat (yes people... I KNOW he is six).
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It is a milestone. Maddie is super tall, and she's been in a booster for years now. We bought an Apex 65 for Ryan 18 months ago, and he outgrew that earlier this year, so he's also in a booster.
ReplyDeleteWe're now at the point that Maddie may not need a booster at all! She is just about tall enough to not need the extra boost! Ryan will still be in a booster for another 2 years, and Jacob will still be harnessed for some time (he's a little peanut compared to the other kids). We'll likely move Jacob from his el cheapo Scenera (hey - it did it's job!) to the Apex before we go on vacation - it's just alittle plusher of a seat.
We have very little baby equipment in our house, and now have very little in the car. The kids really do grow up too quickly!
You totally rock!!!! I am a carseat nutjob too, Zara will be in a 5-point as long as she fits (we have a Nautilus now and she is nowhere close to outgrowing it). Glad you found a good solution. Don't feel the least bit of guilt about the booster, 6 & 1/2 years harnessed is awesome!
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