Rear facing car seat

4.5 yo DD--42 inches, 38 lbs--is still in a harness in her convertible car seat, which goes up to 48 in & 65 lbs forward-facing.

Not in any hurry to switch. Plus we're not at 40 lbs yet.

Anonymous wrote:Car seat. Almost 5. I will switch to booster next year for kindergarten.

That's what we did. 5-point harness until the summer before K (at which point they were over 5), then worked on high-back booster all summer to prepare for K pickup (which was more crowded than PreK pick up and therefore didn't have time for buckling help). Also, my kids are very tall - always been in the 99th percentile.

Our small 5.5 yo is still in a 5 pt harness. There’s no rush to switch to a booster, especially not for a 4 yo. It isn’t as safe at that age and size.

Son moved to high back booster after 6. As 99% weight, he outgrew harnessed car seats for some seats.

4 year old daughter is still in harnessed forward facing car seat. Our 6yo barely has the maturity to sit still in his seat and reaches for stuff all the time. Wouldn’t have moved him except for realizing the weight (almost height too) issue.

DD is a tall 6 year old. We recently purchased a low-back booster for carpooling situations. She has since started complaining about one of her car seats being uncomfortable (she’s an inch away from the max height) and uses the booster in my car. Her car seat in DH’s car converts to a high-back booster, so she should be fine in that one for longer. The regular car seats/high back boosters are much more comfortable for napping on longer trips, so that’s another reason it’s worth hanging on to them as long as possible—in addition to safety.

We transitioned to booster right around 4, when DD was getting uncomfortable.

We switched from a harnessed convertible to a high back booster at 4 for other reasons.

We were in a car accident soon after and DC was fine.