Advice needed - baby car seat questions (merged)

Poppy9

The Road Safety site provides more guidance.

Measured DD (11) today. She is over 140cm so is exempt. I would have kicked myself if she wasn't I have recently sold her booster seats!!

I do think that children in secondary school are going to have a bit of stick if they are using booster seats. I know safety is paramount but it's so hard for kids at that age when they want to fit in and feel grown up.

jellyhead

shocking yes rachie actually just thought of one, there's a teacher who uses a booster for her youngest who is 6 and small.

my son's friends tease him, most have never seen a booster cushion and they think car seats are large things with backs to them, to be discarded once you're able to say 'no'.

we've been hunting for a car seat today and have seen the height charts etc. everywhere. my ten year old is 136cm but that's with his shoes on, so he doesn't need a booster by law. he is very thin and stick-like though, very underweight and not really comfortable without a booster. his bones stick out, he's skeletal. does anyone have any suggestions for seats that won't make his bottom go to sleep?

it was the baby we wanted a seat for, a second seat for use in other cars while my husband is at work. our car seat is too bulky and complicated for me to manage so it stays in the car. i saw one for £60 that is suitable from 9 months (9kg) right up to 11 years, a lightweight one that uses the seat belt, it has no harness of it's own. if people bought something like that when their baby outgrows the infant carrier then they'd be sorted until their child reached 135cm.

arnie&caseysma!

Poppy9 wrote:

The Road Safety site provides more guidance.

Measured DD (11) today. She is over 140cm so is exempt. I would have kicked myself if she wasn't I have recently sold her booster seats!!

I do think that children in secondary school are going to have a bit of stick if they are using booster seats. I know safety is paramount but it's so hard for kids at that age when they want to fit in and feel grown up.

I don't think theres that much chance of kids at secondary school having to have a booster seat as generally they will either be 12 years of age or over the height restriction. There will probably be very few that started secondary at 11 years old that are still under the height. It is whatever comes first, age or height, not both.....

Poppy9

arnie&caseysma! wrote:

I don't think theres that much chance of kids at secondary school having to have a booster seat as generally they will either be 12 years of age or over the height restriction. There will probably be very few that started secondary at 11 years old that are still under the height. It is whatever comes first, age or height, not both.....

I can think of 4 children from my DD year 6 class who would need boosters for the first 11 months of secondary school as they are August babies so not 12 till end of year 7. Two of them are very small for their age (they are twins) the other 2 are little too. Really noticed at the year 6 concert the huge difference in height of the kids. Some looked too big and old for primary and others looked to little and young for secondary!

rammy007

My DD who is 9 has been a really fussy eater,and is horrified about the booster seats and is now eating everything in sight so she grows a bit to meet the 1.35m,bless!

Gingham_Ribbon

It's about time the law protected children as much as adults in cars. it's crazy that it didn't before. but for people with 3 children and a small car, have any of the companies designed smaller seats yet so people can comply with the law without having to buy bigger cars? (An impossibility for lots of people and not exactly good for the environment.)

jellyhead

if you can't fit 3 then you can have one child not in a booster, the eldest i suppose. not sure if one could go in the front with a booster instead but then i don't know if that's safer than no booster in the back.

poppy are these 4 children under 1.35cm? in year 5 there's only one boy and 2 girls smaller than my son, so they have another year to grow before starting high school. there are massive differences between the year 6 children yes, i noticed during their end of year play that some of them look like adults and some are still little girls. don't think any of them are under 135cm though.

but if they are small, as has been said it's better to have a sulky child than a dead or badly injured one.

we go to lots of theme parks so my tiny boy is used to being told he's too short to do what his friends do :rotfl:

jellyhead

following my baby's curves on the centile charts (not that he's actually ON the centile chart, baby giraffe he is!) he will be able to ditch his booster seat before he reaches 7 years old :rolleyes:

actually, if i've understood it properly, looking at the height chart in my baby's red book there's still 2% of boys under 135cm (barefoot) on their 12th birthday. i don't have a girls height chart but assume they are a bit shorter. so that's still quite a lot of children under 135cm who will be starting high school. also realised that my son's height isn't below the scale anymore, he's nearly in the middle - yippee! must just be a blip that the other children at school are much taller, even the twins (3 sets of them in his class, another blip lol!). also read that children grow faster in the summer, so maybe rammy's daughter will make the magic 1.35

Sarahsaver

My 8 year old DD will have to grow 9cm by then We can't fit another booster in the car, ds1 and ds2 are in a booster and a car seat, dd in the middle.
Some of you are shocked by people not using a seat after age 3, you should take a look round where I live! Kids crawling all over cars, standing between the driver/passenger seat, babies on peoples' laps AAARGH! :rolleyes:

code-a-holic

Have known about this for a while and have been telling other parents for some time. No one else had heared about it. I must admit most of the families i know and my sons friends all have the proper seats bar one family who have never used seats after 9mths old and think thats fine! Have had their son in my car and he was amazed by the booster seat i had ready for him!

I upgraded to a 7 seater ( i have 3 under 5's) almost especaill because of this law. Getting two stage 2 seats and a booster in a normal car isnt possible and im not comfortable letting my 4 yr old go without a booster.