Sorry, I am shamelessly posting here for traffic as most car seat enquiries in the correct topic tend to get like two replies.
I need a lightweight 'spare'/travel car seat for my just turned 2 year old. Preferably group 1/2/3 so it will last until she's much older.
All it will be used for is for grandparent's cars for occasional local journeys (like under 15 mins, once a week or so) and also to take abroad with us for Europe trips (max once a year) which we often hire a car for. So it needs to be easy to travel with and fit with seat belt. After a nightmare last year where we hired a horrendous, old car seat with the hire car, I'd rather not risk renting a car seat abroad again.
Looking online there are quite a few options around 80 quid or less, eg the Joie Elevate, Nania Beline, or a basic Halfords one. But are these safe enough? I am torn between not wanting to spend too much but then feeling guilty if I'm potentially risking safety for the sake of saving money. But surely these cheaper ones wouldn't be on the market if they weren't safe? I'm happy to spend more if needed but equally don't want to waste money buying a pricey, occasional use car seat if I don't need to.
Just for reference we have a 360 maxi cosi isofix car seat as our main car seat which we did lots of research on and it wasn't cheap!
TLDR: Please recommend a reasonably priced lightweight occasional use/travel car seat. Thanks!