Advice needed - baby car seat questions (merged)

s@sha

kyle wrote:

Your baby is not ready for the next stage up and i would advise against it as we were also looking in to getting our baby the second stage one when he was 8 months so we went to halfords and the saleman who came out to see said in no uncertain terms should we be getting a seat as they need to be over 20lbs and sitteng up by themselves, if not then this can cause injury to the head and neck if in an accident.

As previous poster said i would go for a support cushion for their head so they don't flop, you can get them from mothercare.

Hope this helps.

Can I just say I totally agree with this advice? If your baby is not yet 20lb and he can't sit on his own very well, he really shouldn't be in a stage 2 seat.

We went to Mothercare on Saturday to look at stage 2 seats as my son is only 6 months old but already over 9kg/20lb, and he was beginning to look a bit squashed in his M&P infant carrier (which is supposed to go up to 13kg).

Mothercare advised that even though his weight was fine for the next stage, if the baby cannot sit confidently on his own for at least 20 mins, the neck & back muscles are still too vulnerable in a forward facing seat. The assistant even checked whether our son was still OK in his own seat & said that as long as the top of their head isn't higher than the top of the seat they should be fine in their existing seat.

I'm sure they were giving correct advice, as she could easily have let us pay over £100 for a new seat if they just wanted a sale.

Edited to add that it was a Maxi-Cosi Priori XP we tried him in, and it looked very safe & comfortable. It was a Which? Best Buy in 2005, and I think has only just been beatenin their tests this year by the M&P Pro-tec, however, Which? say the Pro-tec is not quite so easy to use. I think we'll be going for the Maxi-Cosi when he is ready for it.

kizatt

my sister & i got a few of the britax hi-liners in halfords last week for £39.99 reduced from £79.99. can't get onto halfords website just now to check if you can buy them online, sorry. kids love them!

carray

hollydays wrote:

Great advice from highly regarded Incar safety centre milton keynes-01908 220909

I can also recommend these, travelled over there with both cars when wanted 9mth+ seat and they patiently tried lots in both cars for us. Very helpful and impartial advice.

fulltimemum_2

I recently purchased a couple of these for in my car and I got them from Lidl for only £2.99 each. I know this was cheap for something very important but I thoroughly checked them out and went to halfords and compared to one costing £29.99 and they were identical (although the covering design on the seats was a little prettier at halfords but who cares about the pattern). The ones from Lidl had all safety regulations too so they were a bargain, they were flying out of the shop so my bet is they will get these back in.

hex2

kizatt wrote:

my sister & i got a few of the britax hi-liners in halfords last week for £39.99 reduced from £79.99. can't get onto halfords website just now to check if you can buy them online, sorry. kids love them!

They are available on line plus £4.95 p&p. Pink trim does not appeal though.

Caramelapplebetty

This subject makes my blood boil. We had to have a booster seat for our youngest whilst on holiday in the states. Bought one for about £8 over there - two parts to it - worked great. Gave it away and now I need two for a seven year old and a nine year old. WHy do we have to pay so much over here. Luckily when my kids were due/born my OH went to the states on business quite a lot so each time he would bring back pram/highchair/baby carrier etc - saved us a fortune.

snowball2

It's about time they made it law to have children in a proper booster seat until the appropiate age/height.

It makes me mad to see young kids with the seatbelt across their little necks and their parents seem to think it's ok !!

alice's_mum

My two both have these seats, and have had them since they grew out of the brittax seat after the baby seat. These have been great as when they are small they have the three point harness just like the baby seat, but as they've gotten bigger they still can be safely strapped in my DS is now 6 and has had his variation on this (different seat cover) since about 2½ and it's still in great shape, he's happy and comfortable sitting on it, and hes a big 6 at 129cm but there's there is also loads of growing room. And DD is in this variation of the seat and will be for some time to come

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3754511.htm

mollyholly

hellofreebies wrote:

this is a good basic buy considering the booster cushions are between £9 - £15......

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3752908.htm

depending if they regularly travel on long journeys or not i would maybe opt for one that gives extra thick padding on the bum as i m sure i would get a bum ache on those hard plastic seats after 20 mins or so....

Sorry to disagree but these came bottom in a recent Which report for general safety. The manafacturar of the car seat has gone into liquidation and changed their name three times in the past 5 years and are currently been sued in the US. Far better to check Which and buy a reputable brand which might cost more money but this is your children's lives we are speaking about.

kizatt

mollyholly wrote:

Sorry to disagree but these came bottom in a recent Which report for general safety. The manafacturar of the car seat has gone into liquidation and changed their name three times in the past 5 years and are currently been sued in the US. Far better to check Which and buy a reputable brand which might cost more money but this is your children's lives we are speaking about.

totally agree - we had a britax cruiser plus for our 6 year old & a graco junior plus for our 8 year old & i replaced them both with the britax hi-liner because they both did very badly in the which tests while the hi-liner came out as a best buy. which don't recommend any stage 1,2,3 car seats as best buys at all (the ones that go from 9 months to 11 years/9-36kg). they also say that the carrycots designed for use in the car are unsafe.

this is what which say about their tests:

"We use far more stringent standards than the legal requirements. Our tests use the same strict crash tests used by EuroNCAP to assess adult protection. Our front-crash test is conducted at about 40mph, and we also carry out a side-impact crash test.

We put child crash-test dummies in the car seats, fitted to real car bodies. The front crash is equivalent to a force of 30 times the dummy’s weight on impact, rather than just 20 times in the standard safety test. This is much more realistic than the standard test. In addition, our experts assess how easy each seat is to use.

Our tests reveal big differences between seats. Some protect children well, but others expose them to the risk of serious injury or even death."


you can take out a free 30 day trial for which online to read the full report for yourself:

http://trial.which.co.uk/

you'll find the article under which reports > cars > safety & security > child seats. the article was updated april 2006, so is giving the current recommendations.


the best buys for each age/weight category are:

birth - 13kg (approx 18 months):
britax cosy tot isofix
britax cosy tot premium
maxi-cosi cabrio
mothercare travel tot/travel tot deluxe

9-18kg (approx 9 months - 4 years):
which say this category was difficult to choose best buys for as the standard in this category as not as high as others.

britax duo plus isofix
mamas & papas pro tec (if you don't have isofix in your car)

15-36kg (approx 4 - 11 years):
concord lift protect
concord lift evo
maxi-cosi rodi xp
britax hi-liner
britax kid

DON'T BUYS:

britax cruiser plus (stage 1,2)
britax ranger (stage 1,2,3)
britax trio (stage 1,2,3)
concord trimax x-line (stage 1,2,3)
mamas & papas elan (stage 1,2,3)
mamas & papas navetta carrycot (stage 0)
meggy kombi (stage 1,2,3)
storchenmuhle starlight sp (stage 1,2,3)


the graco junior plus (stage 2,3) and the mamas & papas passaggio (stage 2,3) also did very badly.

hope this helps someone. we only discovered all this when we were looking for info on mse about best prices for a graco junior plus to put our 6 year old into as she was outgrowing the britax cruiser plus. to our horror we realised the graco did badly in the tests & are very greatful to the mse-er who originally posted the results. looking into in further we discovered the britax cruiser plus did very badly, too & therefore won't be any use for our 3 year old to go into. i agree with other posters that the whole thing is very expensive, but i know i need peace of mind when it comes to my kids & for £80 it was worth it!