Due to same hamfistedness by FlyBe baggage handlers, for which there is an insurance claim being created, we are in the market for a new car seat for the Beamlet.

What does the STW parent massive recommend?

We are the hunt for a seat which is going to span the age range 18 months to as old as possible to negate the purchase of yet another seat down the line.

Ta in advance.

We have a MaxiCosi cabriofix thingy. Can’t remember what age it supports, but as a piece of kit it works perfectly. ISOfix also makes life a lot easier – if you have the fittings that is.

EDIT: check out some of their range here

MaxiCosi Tobi for us – pretty much just sits there and works – easy to fit and very secure with the tensioning thingies. It certainly feels a lot more solid and secure than the Britax we have in the other car.

http://www.maxi-cosi.com/gb-en/carseats/toddler/tobi

Our youngest has got a Recaro Young Sport.

Easy to fit and very well made.

The older one has a Recaro Start 2 which is on a metal frame rather than plastic, but it costs more.

The kids like them and it makes them look like they are strapped in like astronaughts.

Friends of ours recommended this seat (Halfrauds) to us at the weekend.

Apparently it takes a child from 9 months to 12 years… Not sure a 12 year old would want to sit in it though!!! Anyhoo, we are going to investigate it as we need second car seat.

Yesterday we bought a Mamas an Papas Cybex Solution. If your car has the Isofit thingy, M&P Pallas is the dog’s bollocks: http://cybex-online.com/site/us/carseats/pallas.html

Britax evolva, goes from around 9 months to 12 years

Clong

Do you have the Britax? If so do you find it a pain that it can’t be reclined with the occupant in situ?

Whatever you buy, dont scrimp.
Might have cost £200 but the Maxi-Cosi Isofix we bought kept our little one safe when a blow-out left us all upside down in this:-

Y92WOC by pten2106, on Flickr

Replaced with the same model afterwards, & I reckon it will fit him till he’s about 4.
All very well saving a few £’s by going for one of these one size fits all types, but go for that type when you get the next stage.
At 18 months they still need a full-on jobbie.
(Maxi-Cosi one has the big floor support).

Another Tobi user here – seems very secure and I like the retracting straps that move out of the way when the buckle is released.

Britax evolva , +1.

carlos jnr is 5 1/2 and is really comfy in his although I doubt he’ll still be using it by the time he’s 12.

We bought a Kiddy Comfort Pro on Saturday for our 7 month old (he’s too big for a baby car seat now) its for 9 months to 12 years.

It comes out tops in Which reports, although the place we bought from said don’t read anything in to Which reports as the are very inconsistant.

Completely unlike any other seat on the market in the UK as it basically is just a pad that holds the child in place, no straps over the shoulds etc. Apparently the idea is that the whole body moves forward in an accident so the decelaration on the neck/head is better than a conventional seat where the body is held firmly and the head/neck takes all the decelaration.

Its so easy to put Jr FD in to it, and he loves having the padded area in front of him to play on.

http://www.johnlewis.com/230906484/Product.aspx?source=14798

Aye Beamers i do have the Britax. I, or more to the point my daughter, doesn’t seem bothered by the recline function. Its set in the reclined position and she seems quite happy. Its not particaluray reclined though, although it might depend on the car its being fitted too.

Do you want the safest seat on the market today?

Get a rear facing one.

This is the one we have in the Beamer – imported it from Sweden but now available in the UK (just after we imported ours – DOH!)

Rear facing seats are 5 x safer in a impact. A no brainer IMO.

Britax Multi-tech

Actually fitted it a bit better/more snugly now.

http://www.rearfacing.co.uk

http://www.babyandco.com/itemdetl.php/itemprcd/Britax-Multi-Tech

We’ve also got a model very similar to the Recaro Start 2 (with the integral headphones that have never been used). The new grandparents paid so wasn’t going to scrimp 🙂

It’s been fantastic & expands with the childs height so my eldest is still using now at 6 yrs.
The main difference with this type is that you use the vehicle seat belt to restrain the seat & child rather than separating the 2 functions. I think there’s pros & cons for either system…

Second the Recaro but we’ve got a Recaro sub brand called storchenmuhle

http://www.mothercare.com/Storchenmuhle-Starlight-SP-Pink-Flower/dp/B002C3U6T8?_encoding=UTF8&

seemingly made by recaro and well awesome my girls have them and they are really well made and easy to clean.

Our eldest has the isofix one

Cheers all.

The Start and the Young Sport in action recently.

When the child gets bigger the inner seat section and 4 point harness in the Young Sport are removed so that they are restrained by the car seat belt as demonstarted by my lazy-arsed son.

The photos also show the side impact protection “wings”. The Start adjusts in both height and width, the Young Sport only in height but it is considerably cheaper.

Rear facing seats are 5 x safer in a impact

Must not bite.. must not bite.. argh!

Rear facing seats are 5 x safer in a front impact

Nooo! What’ve I done?!

Mat – those seats look really good (and accepted they are* MUCH safer than forward-facing ones). But I have two questions….

1 – how do kiddies deal with longer trips (both in terms of travel sickness and boredom)

2 – what happens when their little legs become great big legs? Won’t they outgrow that sort of seat much more quickly?

*EDIT: Can be. 😉

+1 for the Maxi Cosi – rear facing, light enough but not too much, and the mini-udder falls asleep in it every time.

Oh jesus, now you’ve done it!

I have a as new car seat for sale!
iOSFIX

PA273054 by Richard Munro, on Flickr

PA273055 by Richard Munro, on Flickr

Yes rear facing ok to a point but then child size becomes an issue.

We weighed up so many senarios before settling on the best we could find for the money and we could afford.

And re. the rear facing ones – we very recently changed to front facing and our girls much prefer it and don’t get bored as easily – in fact we have just been to Cornwall and back (from Yorkshire) and they didn’t really moan at all (which I assume is a mix of being able to see us more easily and being higher so they can see things around them).

Rear facing not an option from a child / parent sanity point of view (currently) with child leg room to follow in the not too distant future.

I’m liking the look of the Recaro ones.

with child leg room to follow in the not too distant future.

Yeah that would be my primary concern but they are supposed to last longer than you would expect.

Top tip – get the best price you can online (Google shopping or similar) then go into a Mothercare store with a print out of the cost and they will price match. We just saved £100 on ours and have Mothercare local support not premium-rate phone calls to some call centre (ie Kiddicare).

We’ve got a seat that does rear and front facing. We had it rear facing for a while but she got pretty cramped quickly. That was at like 10mo tho, but then she is enormous.

+1 for child enjoyment of travelling tho. Meg much preferred front facing.

Forgot about this thread!

Here –

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

Some of those kids are pretty big.

A child is much more vulnerable in an accident as they are still growing. Their proportions are not the same as adults’. Their heads are 25% of their bodyweight. If adults’ heads where the same proportions the head would weigh 20kg.

The child’s skeleton has not yet been solidified into bone, but is still soft, mainly consisting of cartilage. When subjected to violent force the skeleton will bend rather than break. On an adult the rib cage protects our vital organs such as heart, lungs, spleen etc. On a child this is not the case. When flung against the harness in a forward facing child seat the rib cage cannot cope with the force on impact and the organs inside might be injured and damaged. Same thing with the neck. The spine has not solidified. It is soft and might stretch and snap, in which case the bone marrow is the only thing left preventing internal decapitation.

There are no reported incidents of rear facing children hurting their legs. There are a multitude of reported incidents of children hurting their necks (or worse!) in forward facing car seats. Proper rear facing group 1 car seats are positioned so that there is space for the legs. Have a look at the pictures in the gallery to see what they look like.

Children that are have always been rear facing will not know any different and will be happy and content in their rear facing car seats. You can use the same stimulations you would use otherwise during a journey: toys, pictures hanging in front of the child, playing music or stories etc. If there are adults or older children in the back seat with the rear facing child, they can interact much better than if the child was in a forward facing seat, as they can look at each other and play together (without being able to hit each other as a little added bonus for less parental stress on journeys).

If you buy a decent seat to use up to 4 years / 15kg then you will be able to sell it for more than enough to buy the next stage of seat as they are generally a lot cheaper. Therefore your issue with buying twice is not a problem.

Check out the Kiddy range as mentioned by funkydunc.

Wife did lots of research and we settled on one of them.

Very easy to use and can move quickly from one car to another. We’re very happy and so is daughter.

Children that are have always been rear facing will not know any different and will be happy and content in their rear facing car seats

Interesting fact.

But complete tosh and unquantifiable as ours were at the stage where just getting them in their rear-facing seats was becoming a fight but they enjoy getting in their new ones and survived the long journey to Cornwall and back with barely a cry.