Community

Hannah has just turned 2 and she is a bit of 16kg. We have a hired convertible car seat (its a Britax) which I assume has an 18kg weight limit on it... Anyway, I am looking at what to get her for when she hits 18kg.  I want to keep her in a harness for as long as possible, but not 100% sure what to get.  I might be a bit slow, but got a little confused reading about the harness thingys! So what are my options? Thanks  :)

Hi Aimee  :)

What Britax model car seat is it, do you know? Some of the Product Suggestions on this page here: http://www.childrestraintsafety.com/extended-harnessing.html may be helpful to you. What kind of budget are you looking at working with and what vehicle do you have? And no, you're not slow!  :P

LOL - I blame the slowness on being preggy!!

We have a Mitsi Legnum station wagon. Not sure on the budget (anything probably? Am open to any suggestions :) ). And its raining at the moment so will check the model of the carseat tomorrow!

Hi Aimee, gosh your Hannah is good, my guy is just a featherweight LOL.  You're right to want to keep her harnessed as long as possible, as she's still very young for an adult belt.  You have a few options, depending on what you want to pay and how it fits in your car.  I know Bonnie will post in this so I'll keep mine brief lol.

Options 1, 2 & 3 from the Extended Harnessing page:
The inbuilt harness goes to 18kg then you take that out and thread a special 'Protecta' harness through the top slots and clip it to the tether, so it acts as close to an inbuilt harness as you can get. That will take her to 26kg, and costs around $300ish.

If you're absolutely stuck then you could combine a child harness with a Pegasus booster that has a submarine clip to hold the harness down at the crotch, but it won't be as snug a fit as the others above.  Hope that helps? :)

Silly question, but do you have an anchor bolt fitted in your vehicle? Just making sure :) If your Britax seat is the "Safe-n-Sound" brand/model and conforms to the Australian and New Zealand Standard 1754 then you may find this pdf file informative http://childrestraintsafety.com/downloads/Britaxbulletin.pdf

Apart from the suggestions on the "Extended Harnessing" page. There is a new seat coming on to the market in about February. It's called the Brio Zento (www.briocarseats.co .nz) and harnesses till 25kg REAR-FACING, but only 18kg when used forward-facing (can also be used as a belt positioning booster seat till 25kg). Obviously this might not be appealing to you if you do not wish to rear-face again but it is an option none the less. My 2.5 year old is still rear-facing in a similar seat. It does/will cost about $549 and be sold exclusively through Baby On The Move when it comes to New Zealand too so it's not something you can go down and buy at the local baby store. Other then that though there is unfortunately not much else I can suggest I'm sorry!

Thank you so much, I read through it again and it makes much more sense now! Very helpful Bonnie  ;D