Advice needed - baby car seat questions (merged)

dawnybabes

You need a

http://www.thebabycatalogue.com/prodinfo.asp?number=K0306

HTH

Dawn

Slapps

thanks sooz i will give that a try as he loves it when we go out in the car. btw he is 2 and a half.

thanks dawnybabes but he's unlocking the buckle not getting his arms out as i have the seat belt tight enough.

if i can't get him to stop i may have to resort to gaffer tape (on the buckle not the child tho @ times this also seems like a good idea lol)

Bunnie1982

Not sure if this helps but I work doing admin on a Voluntary Car Scheme and we have a load of children who are budding Houdini's.

We supply our drivers with Britax Traveller Plus seats, it has an adjustable 5 point harness. You can also buy clips to put over where the harness fastens but I am not sure what they are called off the top of my head.

tieg3

If your a which subscriber check its safety with them because I'm sure it was one that didn't come out very well in testing, sorry I'm not with them anymore so I cant check. Maybe someone else would be kind enough to do so. :-)

bribri_2

If your child is old enough, try approaching the problem with a reward method.
Start with short journeys - and offer a prize if they manage it. But make sure to withhold it if they don't.

Perhaps the journey can be somewhere your child wants to go and you say you will return home if he undoes his belt.

BernadetteN

Have you considered the Britax Junior Traveller? It is available at Boots online for £120 and fits using a 5 point harness up to 25kg. You can save a further 3.5% (£4.20) by going through quidco and also get perhaps 1000 clubcard points (worth £10) so effectively giving you a reduced price of 120 - 4.20 - 10 = £105.80. That's quite a bit cheaper than the Recaro Start and a price I would hope the vast majority of parents would spend on a car seat - when you consider the cost of buying and running a car it seems very cheap.

natalie1974

Hi , Don't mean to throw a spanner in the works but there is no way on earth I would put my 2 yr old in that car seat , the Recaro one . The high backed boosters are designed for children over the age of 4-6 years as they use an adult seat belt . I have a 2 year old daughter who weighs 16.5 kgs and have just ordered her the Britax Junior Traveller from Boots , http://www.boots.com/shop/product_details.jsp?productid=1084608&classificationid=1034930 as this is the safest option for a child of her age and weight . There is a law coming in that is going to ban the high backed boosters being aimed at children from the age of 9 months as they do not offer the safety and protection they require .

I can't believe they recommended that seat to you when they sell the Britax seat themselves that is a much better seat for your child .

Minerva69

Thanks for the replies again everyone, but I was told by Britax that neither the Junior Traveller nor the Elite car seat will fit my car unfortunately The In Car Safety Centre said the only other one that might do would be the Recaro Start, so that's why I've ordered it. If I can't take my daughter in the car I might as well sell the car and go back to public transport. My other half is having to babysit her at home while I go out in my new car on my own!

The Recaro Start has won a lot of awards for safety apparently. The reason Which didn't like it was because they don't recommend putting a 9 month old baby in it, but my daughter is older than that. I've ordered it from Halfords so if it comes and we don't like it, or it doesn't fit, we don't have to buy it. But if it's no good we're back to square one and I still won't have a clue what to get :rolleyes: I really don't mind how much I have to pay for a car seat as long as it fits our car and my daughter.

Andy_Livi

Getting a car seat has drove me round the twist.

New Nissan QashQai with isofix fitting - sounded easy enough...

Visited a few manufacturers web sites and no sign of the car being listed on the fit lists. Tried Nissan and nothing there either. Question to Nissan and they quote a single seat which I dont even think is sold in this country. Ask again and they say as they dpont manufacture seats they won't be adding any to that list (of one) but I should try halfords.

Visit Halfords after deciding the duo isofix was the one, they phone Britax who say they cant recommend that particular seat. I got the impression not that it was a bad fit but that it was their outgoing model so they were not going to be testing it in any new model cars. They said their new explora isofix was the only one they would give the nod too, oh goody it just happened to be £230.

Emails to every manufacturer I could find, the best response being from Maxi Cosi who quite straightforwardly said they couldn't recomend any of their seats untill the manufacturer of the car got back to them to confirm which ones were a good match, needless to say after the previous answer from Nissan I wont be holding my breath.

Anyway I see boots doing the explora at 20% discount just now so I guess I'll bite the bullet.

Very frustrating times trying to do the best by going for isofix, you would think they were not all that keen on promoting it as a standard.

Minerva69

Andy_Livi wrote: »

Getting a car seat has drove me round the twist.

New Nissan QashQai with isofix fitting - sounded easy enough

I sympathise Andy as we had terrible problems too. I would have bought the QashQai if we could have afforded it, maybe I'm glad I didn't now. Did you get sorted out yet with the Explora Isofix?

Well, we now have a car seat in our car as of today It is the Recaro Start and our daughter seems very comfortable in it. It has an adjustable seatbelt clamp that tightens the belt and holds it in the correct position so it isn't too high up on the child's neck. It also means the child cannot pull the seatbelt to loosen it so shouldn't be able to wriggle out (in theory anyway). The seat is height adjustable to 11 positions, the width and seat base are adjustable too and it reclines.

We had another farce trying to find a Halfords with somebody who could fit it, they all seemed to be having days off at the same time. We had it fitted at the Bradford store and the person who fitted it didn't really seem to know what he was doing, he hadn't done one like that before but didn't bother to look at the manual. I thought it was OK but on reading the manual at home I realised he hasn't got the height adjustment right but I should be able to do it myself.