360 spin car seat help please!!

[Laiste]

We have the Ickle Bubba 360 spin car seat and we are trying to work out how to convert to forward facing.

The manual isn't helpful. We've looked at online videos and seen that we need to tether the top tether to a clip behind the seat (in the boot).

This stops the ability to swivel the seat though. Is that normal ?!

Thanks for any insight x

It just seems quite bad that the seat is advertised as swivel but don't mention that is only until forward facing.

It is normal unfortunately. And yes I agree, it's totally shady marketing.

I don't know exactly which Ickle Bubba seat you have, as they have a number of different 360 spin ones, but all of them with tether need the tether to be attached when rear facing as well.

Most of them also are allowed to be used up to the 18kg/105cm in the rear facing position, and this is safer for the LO as well as allowing you to keep the spin function, if you weren't aware of this? That might be a good option to continue in the rear facing position, as long as it's allowed by the seat. Double check what the manual says just in case, as I think there is one which only has a 13kg limit rear facing.

Thank you! 😊 I don't know the specific code number for the seat sadly.

Its my eldest DD who's struggling with this. We had the car seat out of the car that day wrangling about 3 meters of 'tether' strap and the manual and 30 mins of googling the shit out of it and couldn't find anywhere which admitted that the swivel function ceases to be a thing once forward facing.

The seat was quite expensive.

She's got it tethered to the point in the boot behind the seat. And is grumpy.

If anyone looks this up in the future and finds this thread - good luck! No it's not you. It's badly advertised and shady in the details.

It is possible to loosen the tether to allow it to spin as long as it's tightened again once ready to drive off, but having fitted tethered seats before, this is a huge pain and I probably wouldn't be doing it every time.

I know it doesn't help you now but in the spirit of adding info for anyone else searching the thread in the future, a similarly priced seat which doesn't have this issue is the Joie 360 Spin or Graco Turn2Me.

And do consider keeping LO rear facing, both for the convenience and the safety factor. It's your DD's choice of course but in case she wasn't aware. It's totally fine if their legs have less space, not a safety issue.

Another one for anyone who might find this thread in the future: we had a car with no tether point so used the Cybex Sirona i-size 360 seat which had a support leg instead of a top tether. Not cheap though!

Thank you 💐

The number of times i've googled something and my specific problem is only addressed on mumsnet! I'm glad there'll be something here.

DDs little one is 3 and very tall so she's decided to go forward facing.

Because the tether point is quite low down behind the seat it's pretty much permanently buried behind the pushchair and general stuff so sadly she can't untie it each time she uses it. She's getting by though. Hee DC is heavy but just at that point when they start to be a bit more helpful with their limbs and posture when being wrangled in and out of things 🤪