Hello all, my family and I will be traveling with our two kids next month and driving in Switzerland, Germany & France. Our elder son will have just turned 11, but is 155 cm, so I think he's ok to not use a booster. But our 7 yo son is small for his age, and we still keep him in a backless booster at home (we just call it the butt booster).

Can anyone tell me 1) what type of booster is expected for a child under 10 and shorter than 150 cm, is a butt booster only sufficient, or do they need a booster with a back, and 2) is a U.S. booster seat sufficient? I'm assuming I can get a booster from the car rental agency, but if it's just the smaller booster we might bring ours (I've had varying levels of luck getting appropriate car seats from rentals).

I didn't find one good source by googling to get my answers, but this is what I found for the countries we'll be in. Hoping it's fairly accurate...

Germany: Children under 12 and under 1.5m in height must use an appropriate child restraint, e.g. a child seat or booster seat while in the front or rear of a car.

France: In the rear seats all children under 10 must be in the right restraint, if their weight is between 9 and 15kg a child seat and over 15 kg's a booster type seat.

Switzerland: Starting from the 1st April 2010, children must use an adapted child seat until they are either 150 cm tall or the age of 12.