What are my options after my 3-year-old is out of her Britax Boulevard Clicktight?

For this week’s Car Seat Chronicles, Elise discusses Judy’s restraint options for three-year-old, Olivia (full details of child’s metrics are at the end of the post).

Judy and her family—including grandparents and helper—rely on their Mercedes GLS to get around in Singapore. At three years old and fifteen kilos, Olivia is close to outgrowing her Britax Boulevard Clicktight, which seems a little uncomfortable for her as well. Judy noticed that the crotch belt area is a little tight, the shoulder straps won’t tighten evenly and the lap strap digs into her thighs. However, she finds the Boulevard Clicktight sturdy and easy to install, and thus is on a mission for something similar for Olivia. 

If this situation sounds familiar, or if you’re just looking for a new car seat for your toddler, read away! Otherwise, you may give the podcast above a listen. xx

Hi Judy, Elise here! Thanks very much for getting in touch with us and for filling out the checklist, it makes it a lot easier for me to give you advice. Firstly, the vast majority of car seats in the market have a maximum rear-facing weight of eighteen kilos. There are a few US car seats that go beyond that now—just by a tiny wee bit—but they don’t use the kind of tethering system commonly found in a high weight rear-facing seat. Therefore, at this point, I’m not prepared to make a personal recommendation on using a US car seat that goes over eighteen kilos. I understand this comes across kind of cryptic, but I don’t think that you’d get a lot of bang for your buck if you were to purchase another US or Canadian rear-facing seat, or even a mainstream rear-facing seat at this point; at three years old and almost fifteen kilos, Olivia probably will not have a lot of growing room.

Instead, I’ll recommend you to have a look at Swedish rear-facing car seats. They are the best in the world—they can keep kids rear-facing until 25 kilos (this just screams good value to me)! We’ve got two of these Swedish seats in the office: Axkid Minikid and Britax Two Way Elite (now discontinued). You can pop by our place and have a look, and I’ll suggest that you bring Olivia along with you since the main concern you have at the moment is how the harness strap digs into her thighs and how uncomfortable that is. Alright, let’s delve further into these car seats now!

We’ve got one car seat from Axkid: the Minikid. The Minikid is a luxury version that has an awful lot of convenient features and it’s really cool. We only have the demo, but we could special order them for you (in your preferred colour) if you decided that you like them.

Your next option is the Britax Two Way Elite, which is a compact and low profile car seat. It’s a no-frills car seat in terms of luxury features and it performs extremely well in terms of safety! It’s one of the seats that I use, and I actually like that it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. Britax also manufactures a full range of Swedish car seats, you can have a look at them and we can special order them for you as we don’t have the demos in the office. 

The Two Way Elite can be installed forward-facing in future, although it really shines as a rear-facing car seat. On the other hand, the two Axkid car seats and the vast majority of the other Swedish car seats don’t turn forward-facing at all. The common practice in Sweden is that the kids are kept rear-facing until 25 kilos, which is approximately between six to ten years old, and then they transit straight into a booster seat. It’s uncommon for them to use forward-facing car seats at all. These car seats, unlike those that we’ve been used to, give kids heaps of legroom, and they’re very comfortable and convenient to use. Have a look at the car seats that I’ve mentioned, and it’d be wonderful if you’re able to bring Olivia over to try out the seat and gauge how comfortable she is, considering that you’re concerned with how she fits in her current Boulevard Clicktight. Alright, let me know if you’ve got any questions and we’ll take it from there! Talk to you later, bye! xx Elise

Judy ended up choosing a Britax Two Way Elite, installed in reclined mode. Here's her comment: "Elise was incredibly helpful and responsive to all the questions I had in selecting a new car seat for my daughter. She explained the differences between each seat and allowed us to see how the seats would fit in our car before we made our decision. She was also very patient with my threenager ;) We are still loving the seat and the simplicity if it. So happy with our experience! Thanks Elise!".

Olivia’s metrics

• Age: 3 years old
• Height: 94cm
• Weight: 14.5kg
• Seated height: 53cm
• Seated shoulder height: 33.5cm
• Torso length: 25cm

Below is a guide to the above measurements:

If you, like Judy, need some child restraint advice from us, simply click here. For more information, you may contact us at info@taxibaby.com or @taxibabyco on Facebook and Instagram. Safe travels!