Any tips for a car seat?

goldingwebb

My baby is 9 months now and almost too big for her car seat. We want to make sure that we get a very safe model so don't necessarily want to skimp on price but we do want to make sure that we buy one which will last us for as long as possible. The only other requirement we have is that it's easily transferred from one car to another.

Can anyone recommend their car seat or make suggestions about where to look?

Thanks :A

glitter03

Hi, we bought a Britax car seat when our DD was roughly the same age as yours.

Sorry, i cannot remember the model name as she is now 4 years old and still using it! We will be buying a booster seat soon as she is quite tall but i am currently pregnant and will re use the Britax when this one is the correct age.

I think we paid approx £120 - 150 for it and as you can see has served us well.

Hope that helps

pigpen

We chose to keep our daughter rear facing given the safety statistics so we have the besafe izi x3 .. it looks fiddly to install but it actually took about 15 minutes the first time it would probably take less than 5 minutes again it was so simple.

The downside is it costs about £300.. the upside is.. it keeps them safer than forward facing seats by far lasts until they are 4+ and is extremely comfy.

jetta_wales

I've always stayed with Britax.

teasleym

We had a maxi cosi priori fix in our car and a Britax in Grandma's. Wouldn't recommend the maxi cosi, the straps kept sticking, got worn and we had to get Halfords to get them fixed and they still stuck.

Had Britax up to 9mths, and Britax after 4 years for my daughter, and would definitely stick with them.

k3lvc

Seriously consider the Recaro Young Sport - you start off with the whole thing then remove straps/adjust size as the child grows until they're left with just a booster seat. We have a pair for our 5yo/8yo and wouldn't swap them for anything

Agutka

Pigpen, she's so cute, not wonder you make so many

Sounds like it's an isofix, which we would need fitted in our car. But looks good. I'd choose that now for the 3.5 year old, as his feet are long enough to kick the front seat. Repeatedly.

In the meantime I'm sticking to britax, no idea why, just started with them and am used to them. We have two renaissance, which are old models, don't know which new ones I'd choose. When I took the baby to halfords to fit him in he screamed in every one of them.

flutterby_lil

Maxi cosi tobi, fantastic. Everyone I know have used them.

Easy to fit into car, easy to clean seat and easy to swap and change when needed in friends/families cars.

freddie_2

Are you sure she is ready to be moved? My DD didnt change seats till she was 18 mths and ds is still in his at 14 mths.
They are so much safer rear facing and dont need to be moved until their head is over the top of the back of the seat.
I have 2 maxi cosi priori seats and will be buying a rear facing stage 2 seat for DS as safety in a rear facing is so much higher.

Dont feel that just cause all the other mums have their babies in stage 2 seats you have to as well. 9 mths is really young to be in a stage 2.

purplegirluk1

I totally agree with pigpen, rear-facing is the safest way to travel, my son has just been turned forward facing at 3, he could have remained rear-facing for longer but with a change of car the seat could no longer be fitted that way. We went to this centre

http://www.childcarsafetyseats.co.uk/in_car_safety_centre.html

They have a large selection of car seats that they will try in your car to show you which fits best. This centre do not sell seats, I ordered mine online after visiting.

This centre do the same thing, they do sell the seats too.

http://www.incarsafetycentre.co.uk/about.html

Hope that helps.

shar46y

I agree with pigpen and purplegirl, the statistics all show that rear facing is safer - in Sweden they are rear-facing until age 4! When we were researching next-stage car seats, we found lots of information here:

http://www.rearfacing.co.uk/

We got our carseats from the In Car Safety Centre (see purplegirl's link) in MK, I think they are Britax 2-Way Elite (can't remember without going to look in the car ) and they were a comparable price to some of the more popular branded forward-facing. It takes a bit of practice to install them correctly, but it now doesn't take us long to move them. Best of all, they can be turned forward-facing later on so will last a bit longer (I think they last until age 6)! Wanted to be a bit MSE as we had to buy two at the same time having twin DDs