Stage 1 car seat recommendations

[notjustamother]

Hi, my daughter is 14 months, now looking to get the next stage car seat as she's nearly at the height limit, we currently have the maxi cosi pebble plus which is on the two way isofix base.

Looked on the maxi cosi website and everything's changed since last year again and the Pearl 2 way isn't even on there! Looking at the maxi cosi mica 360 - ideally would prefer rear facing. Any others to recommend as I'm clueless!

[BertieBotts]

Here's a chart showing which car seats go onto the base you have:

www.maxi-cosi.com/international/base-compatibility

Looks like Pearl Pro, Pearl Smart or Pearl One. They can all be rear facing, which you're absolutely right is the best/safest choice for her :)

The Mica is a really nice seat as well, and doesn't need a separate isofix base which is handy if you want to reuse the baby seat + base for another child.

If she's 14 months and not 75cm yet she is probably quite dinky for her age, so any of these mentioned will be alright for her until she's about 4-4.5 as they go up to a rough height of about 105cm. It's a good idea to look at projected height as the ages generally given are averages!

You might want to know that there are larger rear facing seats available which go up to 25kg, these are suitable to an average height of around 125cm, so would allow your DD to stay rear facing for an extra 3 years possibly, if that would be something that would interest you. These seats also tend to offer better leg room once the child is over about 2-3 years. The seats up to 105cm are great, but they do tend to be a bit limited in the legroom and ergonomics department once you're about half-two thirds of the way through their lifespan.

If you want to look at the larger seats, look at:

Axkid Minikid
Axkid Move (cheaper, less featured version of the Minikid)
Britax Max-Way (also the Max-Way Plus)
BeSafe izi Plus
Diono Radian 5

The downsides of the larger seats are that they are more complicated to fit (too large for isofix to work), don't recline on the go (which was important to me) and you might not find them easily in high street type stores, although obviously at the moment that is neither here nor there. You also don't get spin seats at this stage because using them with a heavier child would be impractical.

If you think you'd be happy enough with a seat up to 105cm, as well as the Maxi Cosi Mica and Pearl variants, I'd recommend to look at:

Joie i-Spin 360
Britax Dualfix i-size
Besafe izi Turn/Twist
Nuna Rebl Plus

All the above are spinning seats, if you like the features of the Axkid Minikid, you could also look at the Axkid Modukid - it has many of the benefits (better leg room, self tightening harness) that the Minikid had, but with the convenience of isofix and on the go recline that you get with a 105cm seat. No spin, though.

If you need/want a seat that is lightweight to move between cars without a base, Concord Reverso is also worth a look. But again, no spin feature here.

Pricewise, you're looking in the same ballpark for the 25kg seats and an isofix-fitted 105cm/18kg seat. The 25kg ones are probably slightly better value when you consider you can use them for around twice as long.

[notjustamother]

Thank you that's really helpful I'll have a look at all of these online! I have managed to get an appointment at a local independent baby store to have a car seat fitted so I will see which of these they have in stock.

[BertieBotts]

Oh brilliant, sounds really good :) If they are independent, they often have training from the different car seat manufacturers which really helps with their advice.

I would definitely insist on rear facing as it's so much safer at her age. It's not a preference, it really does make a big difference.