Rear-facing carseats - importing?

[fallingandlaughing]

DD is rapidly outgrowing her car seat so we need to get her into something for 9kg+ In fact we might need several seats when I return to work (for me, DP and 2 sets of babysitting grandparents). I am sold on rearfacing, but a bit daunted by the cost. Are there any ways to save money? We have family/friends in France and Germany who could help with importing. Has anyone any experience of this?

I imported a seat for dd2 a few years ago (the one I wanted was then nt available in the UK). I bought it from a car seat dealer, though, who packaged it really well for the journey.

I have no idea how costs work out htese days wrt imoprting or buying in the UK - is visiting somewhere like the In Car Safety Centre an option for you? they have a good range of seats, and are really helpful - we spent nearly 3 hours trying out and fitting seats in my car last week, as have dc3 due in the summer, and trying to get 3 seats to fit across my car was a nightmare!

by the time you have factored in delivery etc, would buying int he UK not be cheaper now?

Try Securatot online, run by mummies Kirsty and Jayne. They are knowledgable and very service orientated, have had superb service for all my RF seats, and I have had a few! They also do repairs and can give you lots of useful advice even if you dont buy! Link here:

www.securatot.co.uk/

I dont work for them or have any other link to them, have just been very very impressed with the service and knowledge!

We got ours from the in car safety centre online.

i'm not sure you'd save much even if family helped you import one. you'd have the postage costs (unless someone happens to be coming over and could bring it on plane?) and potentially customs charges too

you'd have to see if they were considerably cheaper over there, i think it's more a scandinavian thing tbh

We bought a britax two way elite from the car seat safety centre over the phone (£200ish) and then just bought a couple of extra sets of tethers for grandparents / DH / childminder cars. The TWE fits most cars and it's the adjusting the tethers that takes the time / is fiddly.

thanks all, really useful food for thought as I am novice on this, we got her group 0 seat from Halfords...

that interesting about the tethers, will look into it. Don't fancy parting with close to £1000 just to equip all the cars DD will be travelling in regularly with separate seats.

if you need to swap between cars frequently then I can definitely recommend the two way elite.
as sugarandspite says, you can get extra tethers. and the seat itself is incredibly easy to install and light to move between vehicles