best 9months - 4years car seat?

[WelshCat]

hi, i know this has probably been posted a trillion times on here, but i am about to buy DS a new car seat and im insanely confused.

have a friend who sends me links to crash test videos and scares me, but my knowledge goes as far as thinking maxi cosi and britax are the safest?

anyone wanna correct me? i have been looking at the kiddy pro or something with the padded thing instead of a harness, and while it looks cool and says its safe, i cant find pics of it in a car with the belt on, so cant figure out how it works...

also i want one with some sort of head rest thingy inside the actual seat (like on the opal etc) as it looks much more comfortable, aslo with recline etc...

budget not really and issue as family are paying for DS's birthday present.

please advise me!

I think that FF seats with an impact shield do outperform harnessed FF seats in crash tests though, and they avoid the problem of children easily being able to wriggle their arms out, or undo the buckle. They don't do as well as rearfacing, but they are a good compromise if you can't fit a rearfacing seat (which is rare I understand :))

Yes, I'd meant to say earlier that a seat with an impact shield is much safer than a harnessed forward facing seat if you can't get a rear facing seat. The Kiddy selection, Jane Montecarlo and the Cybex Pallas are the ones I know of and are all (except Kiddy Infinity/Energy Pro) group 1-2-3 seat so you'd never need to buy another seat unless it got damaged in any way. The Kiddy seats are really light and compact so fit in most cars. It's still worth trying them out first I think.

for a small car the kiss is good and so is the hi-way apparently. the twe is good too as you can adjust the angle.

:)

Whether you can fit rearfacing depends on your car/parent/children combo. My DH is 6 ft 4 and we have a small car - we couldn't fit rearfacing for twins and him in the car (and we tried, believe me!) His seat needed to be too far back to be able to drive safely to fir the rearfacing in.
So we got the Kiddy ones with the impact shield and they are totally fab.

I've got the Kiddy Pro which works well when I fit it in my car (Focus) but there have been a couple of occasions when it's been fitted by DH and my little boy has managed to push the cushion off. I think it's because i'm much more concientious at fitting it than DH, but it's still a scary thought. If I was going to buy another, I'll prob get a rear facing seat.

oh no! i nearly had my mind made up on the kiddy pro, but if he's gonna be able to kick the cushion off thats terrible!

Go to Halfords/ToysRUs and try a Britax 1st Class - this will give you an idea of rear facing fit space wise. I managed to fit rear facing group 1s in my little Polo - just meant the front passenger seat had to move all the way forwards, so passengers with longer legs preferred to sit in the back behind the driver!

I have the 2 way Elite, but forward facing (DS2 is now 3) Very good seat though.

i am not overly fussed on that one, it doesnt seem to have much in the way of head cushioning.

I wouldn't worry about kicking the impact cushion off so long as you install it with the seatbelt tight. It shouldn't be possible to move it if it's fitted correctly. You could have a look at one in real life to see what you think of them. I know John Lewis sell the Kiddy Guardian Pro.

DS has never been able to kick his off. If you tighten it at every stage it's too tight for them to be able to. Definitely less easy/less common than them being able to get their arms out of a harness, RF or FF.

cool. john lewis sell them? thats good to know ill go have a look. so hard to tell about these things without seeing them in real life.

They only sell the Guardian which goes up to 12 years but they all look really similar and the impact cushions are the same I think. I can't tell the difference between them all just to look at.

Here

i'm confused! DD is 1 year old. I want to keep her rear-facing as long as possible, so we have been looking for a rear-facing seat. But the only ones I turn up in my internet searches cost 300 or 400 quid! We just can't afford that, much as I think it is money well-spent to have her in the safest seat possible. And in the shops here, I can't FIND any rear-facing ones for kids over a year. What am I missing???

for instance - the britax first clas (which i see some people recommending) says it is only safe as rear-facing up to 13kg. Even though you can then turn it aroudn and use it for longer, that's not a true rear-facing seat for the older babies.

The first class isn't an ERF seat, no. I bought this for £200 a few weeks ago and I'm really pleased with it.

there are only a handful of places selling ERF seats in the UK unfortunately

however, if you can fit it in your car you can get a Britax Multi-tech from your local Volvo dealer (it will be branded volvo, but is the same seat) for around £130!!!

oh thanks for that!!! looks really good...i have just emailed the link to DH, and this might be our answer. ta!

Why do I never think about the Volvo seat?! If you have a local Volvo dealer, definitely ask them about the MultiTech. It goes up to 25kg so it's actually a much better bargain if you can fit it in your car.

This is the Volvo seat and this is the Britax.

thanks again - i think we will try volvo first and if that's a no-go, we are definitely going with the besafe from paul stride. problem solved - why did i never try mumsnet before???

you might have to insist that the volvo guys look it up in their book/computer because from what i've heard a lot of them have NO idea that they stock car seats at all

I know the saab seats are dealt with by the 'parts' department so it may be the same for Volvo. Glad to be of service!