School run with a baby

[oldtownroad]

Pregnant with DC2 and thinking about how I will manage the school run with a baby. The school is a 10 min drive and then a 5 minute walk as parking directly outside the school is a nightmare. We still have a car seat from DC1, which is 5 years old. They don't make it anymore, it's a silver cross Ventura. I've given it a good clean and fitted it in the car with the seat and am confident it's correctly fitted and looks/feels safe and secure enough. However, there is no isofix or option of attaching it to our pram.

So options are:

Keep the pram in the car, and move baby from car seat to pram for school run (as well as all other outings). This would mean no space at all in the boot. We can obviously take the pram out if we need space but as we live in a flat that will be a pain.

Using a sling for school run (so transferring baby from car seat to sling) and keep the pram indoors mainly (we have a small shed at the bottom of the stairs that I can keep the chassis in). But is this practical? I never even used a sling with DC1 so I'm not sure.

Invest in a new car seat (that attaches to our pram) and isofix base (£200). We can afford it but it just seems a bit wasteful to buy a new car seat when we have a perfectly good one but I'm thinking the convenience is worth it. This would also mean I can keep the carrycot indoors and just keep the chassis in the car.

What would you do?

Or follow the lead of a dm at our school. Left new dc +toddler alone whilst delivering pfb dc to the school door..
Once the toddler had a lollypop in his mouth....
Toddler is nursery age so it's just 1 dc alone with the engine running now...

As a couple of people have said car seats need to be replaced about every 5 yrs so I would change the seat to one that is compatible with your pram and then just lift the seat out of the car onto the pram.

DS was 5 when DD was born, if we drove to school and DD fell asleep then it was easy to transfer her from car to pram and back to car without waking her.

Another vote for the car seat here - you can get a footmuff and rain cover quite reasonably on Amazon - the baby can stay warm and dry and asleep. I'm in this position at the moment and tried the sling but as others have said the baby wakes up and you need to sort them out to keep them dry for the sake of 5 mins it's not worth it. Especially with the windy weather we've been having lately - baby is much happier and sheltered in the seat.

i don’t know how I’d do the school run without the sling.

Having 4 kids this time I invested in the isofixbase instead of using the car seat - well worth the money imo. Saves so much time and hassle having to lean over car etc especially when having other children to get into the car you can literally open door and click it in with one hand while holding a toddler for instance as opposed to having to either put car seat in road while putting toddler in first or having to lean across and keep an eye on toddler etc.

I have always had the car seat that attaches to the buggy frame - imo also invaluable as you don't need to disturb a sleeping baby for short trips.

Other things I found useful this time too - sleepyhead and the snuzpod crib! Amazing discovery's to make life easier since DS1 was born! 🙌🏻

I’ve never had a baby that was happy in the car seat though, so maybe this clouds my judgement.

Without fail, the doona car seat has been an absolute god send in my school run situation. I would highly recommend that car seat

Sorry typo above - meant to say car seatbelt!!

Buy a new car seat.

You then have the option to click the car seat onto the pushchair frame which would keep baby undisturbed and takes a couple of minutes. Also useful for other things like quickly nipping to the shops. Baby is totally safe and cosy.

The new car seat wouldn't restrict you either as you always have the use of a sling if you chose.

My carry around car seat with I sofix base or use of normal straps catered for a baby up to 13 kg (not sure if they all do though?) but this lasted us til 20 months safely.

I’d get the new car seat!

I find it easier to do the whole journey on foot, is that a possibility? I use the sling when we drive, although i do find it a bit of a pain to wrangle him into it.

How large is your baby likely to be? Mine both outgrew the car seat that attached to the buggy within months, had to shift them into a group 0/1/2/3 car seat that is just for the car.

I used a sling with DD. The only times I didn't were when it was either very hot or very wet.

I did have the car seat that fitted on the pram too - still found the sling easier!

Car seat. Baby is kept warm and dry (as it always rains at school drop off and pick up!) and is so easy to take whole seat out and baby stays asleep. I love my sling and used a lot as could walk to primary with it but I never ever ever managed to get baby into it without them waking. I wouldn’t want my baby screaming from being woken when I’m trying to take older child to school or collect them. It’s not fair in the older dc to always be met with a baby screaming whose needs have to be met. With the carseay baby might stay asleep and you can have some 1-2-1 time to talk to older child just before and after school.

Of course it depends on the baby I suppose. Maybe not all babies scram their heads off when woken out a sleep and will only settle with a bf ... mind did though and a sling in your circumstances would have been a nightmare. I used loads of other times though so I’m not anti sling at all.

Definitely the sling especially since it's only a short walk

Can you not walk to the school.Saves all that hassle.By the time you mess around with the car seat to buggy you would be there and back walking.

Thanks everyone. Lots of good points I hadn't thought about, I will definitely not be doing the first option of pram in the car then as not even one person has gone with that!

We could walk I suppose but it's 35 minutes each way so I wouldn't really want to do it everyday, especially when the weathers crap.

Definitely get a car seat which will attach to your pram. They weren’t available with my older 3DC and it was a revelation being able to pop a rain cover over DC4 before getting his seat out of the car if it was cold or rainy. The convenience more than makes up for the cost.

Hate slings, always worried the baby’d fall out if I misjudged it when trying to put him in!