Safety And Comfort with Diono Radian RXT
When I first started searching for the mother of all carseats, I asked everyone from friends and family to people on facebook and forums. Diono was repeatedly brought up as the best car seat around. So obviously, I was delighted when Diono was generous enough to let me and my newborn try out their latest Radian RXT to see what we thought.
Obviously safety is our number one priority as a family when it comes to baby gear like this, but comfort is a close second. How safe can a car seat be if the baby hates it so much and is so uncomfortable that you have to keep finding places to pull over and retrieve your newborn from his carseat to calm him down? Ain’t nobody got time for that!
Thankfully, the perfect marriage of both safety and comfort can be found with the Diono Radian RXT.
What Diono has to say about the Radian RXT Car Seat:
The RadianRXT is a highly versatile car seat that could be the only seat you’ll ever need. It comfortably seats rear-facing children from 5-45 lbs, forward-facing children from 20-80 lbs in 5-point harness, then converts to a booster for children up to 120 lbs. It’s built for strength and safety with a steel alloy frame, reinforced sidewalls, adjustable head support and our patented SafeStop® energy absorbing harness. EPS foam surrounds the child’s head and body to provide complete side impact protection. Our unique SuperLATCH system makes installation easy. The RadianRXT is NCAP crash tested, the industry benchmark for verifying child seat performance in severe accident conditions, and the only car seat rated for LATCH use with a child up to 80 lbs. The RadianRXT sits low on a vehicle seat for easy child boarding, features memory foam padding and infant support pillows. Expandable sides and a longer seat bottom provide extra room and comfort for your growing child. One cup holder is included, with the option to add up to 4 cup holders. In addition to all this versatility, it folds flat for travel and storage, has a 10 year life and offers amazing safety, comfort and convenience your child won’t outgrow.
That’s me, 3 weeks post-partum with my newborn baby boy in a Boba, showing off our Radian RXT fresh out of the box. Sure I may look like I haven’t slept in a few days, but honestly I’m pretty darn happy about that car seat I’m holding.
My number one FAVORITE FEATURE of the Diono Radian RXT is that it can rear face up to 45 pounds! Why is that so great? Because most car seats can not safely read face for that long and we all know that rear facing is LOADS safer for small children than forward facing. Sure it might be a little inconvenient at times, but it’s totally worth it. Especially after you watch a video of a simulated car crash with both a forward facing car seat and a rear facing car seat. I won’t get into the details of THAT today but trust me, you want to rear face your kids as long as possible and you can do that safely with the Radian RXT.
The rear-facing seat base easily clips onto the front underside of the car seat to position the car seat at the perfect angle for the rear-facing position.
I found the instructions easy to read and understand, so installing the car seat in my SUV was relatively easy to do. I installed the car seat on the passenger side of my SUV because this was the safest way to place it in my jalopy. You don’t have as many options for safe installation with cars that are 10+ years old, especially when you need to line up THREE car seats in a row – a fate worse than death. I don’t wish that task on anyone, but let me tell you, it’s a heck of a lot easier to fit three car seats in the back of a small SUV when you have a space saving design like the Radian RXT.
Another thing I like about this car seat is that it’s small enough for my newborn and yet can also accommodate my 7 year old daughter too. That means you truly get the biggest bang for your buck with this one since you only have to buy one car seat from birth to 80 pounds.
Another thing I like about this car seat over my other car seats is the slim profile. The sides are low enough so that my son, positioned forward facing in a similar car seat, can easily interact with the baby. This makes car rides in my SUV a lot more fun! They can see each other, touch each other and happily interact with each other.
The low sides on this car seat are a huge plus to me since I like my kids being able to see and talk to each other. I must add though, they are pretty well behaved compared to the average kid. I can see how kids having easy access to each other in the backseat might be a nightmare for some people though, so keep that in mind!
That’s not the only plus to having low sides though. It certainly makes it a LOT easier to get kids in and out of the seat!
Another thing that is really nice about this car seat is that it comes with infant body support cushions that hug your newborn’s tiny body so there is no need to start off with an infant car seat! Since you can put infants as small as 5 lbs in here, you are good to go.
We’ve been enjoying our Diono Radian RXT for almost 3 months now and we absolutely love it!
Overall, I’m really happy with this car seat and I don’t have any complaints. In my mind, the best features are…
- It’s small and compact, ideal for lining up two or three of them in a small vehicle.
- It accommodates children from 5 lbs to 80 lbs
- It has a ten year life span. Buy one and done.
- It has a slim profile and low sides.
- It is easy to install with included instructions
- It is comfortable for babies. My little guy loves it!
- It is safe and has great RadianRXT Crash Test Results.
As you can see, little man is quite comfortable in his car seat!
Color: Shadow – Black/Gray (Seat comes in many other color / print options!)
Price: around $269-$339
Buy It: Target.com, Walmart.com, Toysrus.com and Kohls.com
If you want to read more reviews, I encourage you to check them out on Amazon. You can purchase the car seat on Amazon as well!