Travel system with i-size

[clfno1]

Really didn't know where best to stick this so I've put it in car seats and pushchairs, sorry in advance!

My question is does anyone know if there is a travel system that has and i-size car seat with it?

Me and my partner want two isofix bases, one for each car, and a travel system with an i-size car seat, hopefully to make things easier (and maybe cheaper in the long run) but I fear it may be wishful thinking.

Thanks in advance

You might need to work backwards. this mothercare page gives all the isize seats that they stock. Restrict with the check box to only birth to 13kg and you have the likely options that will go on a travel system.
EG the Joie seats will go on some joie pushchairs... The Pebble Plus will probably fit on the widest selection of pushchairs as maxi cosi adaptors are available for most pushchairs. Having said that if you click through to the Besafe Izi Go there is a long list of pushchairs that are compatible (you'll presumably need to buy adaptors though).
I wouldn't buy a whole pushchair system just on the basis of it having an isize seat though. Choose the pushchair that suits your life best and then see if it has an isize seat that goes with it - as I said, the Pebble plus fits on most.

Does it need to be isize or does it just need to go on a base? These are not the same thing! There are a few isize travel systems on the market but I believe it is literally only those two, and they cost a pretty penny.

If you're just after the convenience and error reduction of bases then you have loads more choice, and there's not much difference just yet between an isize infant carrier and a modern Group 0+ infant carrier. You could always look at isize for the next stage if it's important to you or another extended rear facing seat. Just because you can turn babies forward facing earlier with the older regulations, it doesn't mean that you have to. There are lots of options - isize and not - for keeping your baby safe once they outgrow the infant carrier or you stop finding it practical.

What are your reasons for choosing isize at the moment?

Second the why the iSize question.

We've just been a little bamboozled with all the different sizes of car seats and travel systems etc, and with the different sizes (Group0, 0+, 1, isize etc) it seemed that an isize car seat to work with a travel system would be a better and cheaper long term solution as some, if not all can be used up to around 4 years (size/length of child dependant).

Hope that makes sense

Yes that does make sense. It's not very clear, is it?

Any seat which can be used until 4 years won't be the kind that goes onto a pushchair to make a travel system, though. Even i-size seats which work with a travel system are just the infant carrier kind with handle. These are designed to go up to about a year, 18 months if you're lucky (but they get pretty unwieldy before then anyway).

If you want a birth-4 years seat then you can look at either i-size or R44 (group system) seats, but either way, these are designed to stay in the car and don't go onto a pushchair, the seats are too big and heavy, and wouldn't stand the bashing around that a travel system seat gets in everyday use. They can be a practical choice but in your situation with wanting to switch between cars, I'd recommend going for an infant carrier seat (either i-size or Group 0+, there is really nothing between them at the moment) and then when your baby is around a year old look again at what's on the market in terms of second stage seats. It might be that in a year or more from now there is something much better out there anyway.

At the moment there's not really much difference between i-size and R44 approved seats. i-size requires some extra testing, but most of the big manufacturers already use these extra tests anyway. The main plus of i-size going forwards is that R44 seats are tied to the "group" system which has set weight categories (0-13kg, 9-18kg, 15-25kg, 22-36kg) which can make it hard to find non-standard seats for bigger children or inbetween categories. For example, when my DS was younger it was difficult to find a seat which would allow a child to stay rear facing past about a year. Now it's more common but it took a long time because most people didn't want a seat which was rear facing right to 4 years old, and there was no middle ground possible. The current issue is that most seats on the market stop using a 5-point harness at the 18kg/100cm mark which can be too small for some 3 year olds or even some big 2 year olds, but there is so little demand for seats which harness to 25kg/125cm (the next possibility) that manufacturers are not motivated to produce them. The idea with i-size is that as demand grows, different manufacturers will compete to produce seats which use the higher safety standards for longer, perhaps starting at 105cm, 110cm, 115cm, etc. But because R44 is still dominant, there is not much differentation yet. We're seeing a little - some i-size seats designed for toddlers go up to 18.5kg for example, but IMO there's nothing which is definitely worth the bump in price at the moment. I'd get the baby seat, and wait and see what you can get in toddler seats later.

Hope that helps - feel free to ask if you have any more questions.

AFAIK the iSize will (effectively) be outgrown faster than some of the previous R44s.

If you're wanting a car seat to fit in the travel system and click into the isofix base, I'm almost certain it will be an 'infant carrier' and so will only last till around 12 months (I'm intending on getting this one: www.britax.co.uk/car-seats/baby-safe-plus-shr-ii/ but it may not work with your travel system without adapters, worth checking). The other one that lasts relatively long is (I think!) the maxi-cosi pebble, but not the pebble-plus (confusingly).

Once baby outgrows that you will need a next-stage seat. The best ones are rear facing and harness to 25kg. I have a Britax Two Way Elite, which isn't isofix. Have a look at carseat.se to see some of the types on offer, depending where you are in the country there may be retailers closer to you but worth noting that most 'normal' retailers aren't very clued up on extended rear facing seats so you probably need a specialist.

You can get seats going from newborn through to 4yr+; but they are unlikely to fit on your travel system. It's worth noting that babies aren't supposed to be in a car seat for extended periods in any case, so it's worth thinking of how long you'd be leaving baby in the seat if you were transferring it from car to travel system and back again.

Thanks for the replies.

I think it may be best to get a travel system with two isofix bases and not get too hung up about isize and car seats yet, and hopefully they will last 12-18 months, then look a different car seat option at that point.

I was hoping there was a fix all solution, but probably not, as we will be running two cars so a base in each, and a seat/travel system, to then be replaced by another car seat.

Oh well, if we have another after we can always save it! lol

isize won't be outgrown faster, they are no smaller (well no reason for them to be). They are about the same size really, although most i-size seats for the next stage are rear facing too, so I suppose it's possible that the baby seats might get smaller. Certainly if you compare the Pebble Plus with the Pebble for example, they are almost identical in size, the main difference is the lie flat insert.

If you go into halfords/mothercare/john lewis and ask to have a look at the Group 0+ and i-size baby seats you'll see they're almost identical apart from the price! You'll also be able to see that the 0-4 year car seats are much bigger and a totally different thing - it can just be easier to make sense of it by seeing in person. Another option is to look at the websites of the big companies - Britax, Maxi Cosi, Joie and Cybex - and see what they actually have as options, they normally have things laid out by age or divided into categories so it's easy to understand. Once you know what is on offer then you could always hone your search down a bit and look at other brands but I think these four are probably the best in terms of seeing what's both popular and excellent quality.

As an aside if you are planning on having more than one child it's often not particularly economical to get an all-in-one car seat because you end up having to buy two, whereas it's possible to juggle things so that your two (or more) children aren't in the same stage seat at the same time or you only have to buy one stage of seat twice, rather than all of them. The same about those bases which cunningly promise to last across two seats - you'd still need a second base for the second child's seat anyway!

Bertie - iSize is ISOfix only (an issue for us, as we don't own a car, so the seat must be compatible with as many cars as possible).
AFAIK, ISOfix is only approved to 18kg rear facing (happy to be contradicted). So therefore, iSize will be outgrown when a child reaches 18kg (or will be required to turn forward facing)?

Agree that there's no particular reason for an iSize infant carrier to be any different from an R44, but it would depend on whether your particular child is heavy and short or tall and light - eg Pebble 13kg, Pebble Plus 75cm.

Yes, that's true. I have no idea about what they are planning to do long term about the 18kg isofix limit, because it does seem to limit things somewhat. It's not about rear facing as such but any seat which restrains the child with a part of the seat itself can only rely on isofix up to about 18kg. You can have RF past 18kg but the seat must be secured with the seatbelt, which is incompatible with i-size, since the point of i-size is to make child seats universal. So there are no i-size seats, forward OR rear facing past 18kg (or a nominal 18.5kg perhaps) on the market at the moment at all. I don't know what their criteria is for boosters. That should be interesting to see.

I don't think any child actually outgrows infant carriers in weight before they do height, do they? Even on the 97th centile weight-for-height is only about 11kg at 75cm, girls and boys.

Not entirely sure, as they never bothered measuring length here, so it seems a bit odd to focus on it for an infant carrier measure (I sort of understand the older kids by height not weight idea, but then if you've got an 18kg limit anyway you still need to know both so not sure what you gain )

Looking at my red book growth charts, 99.8th centile weight is still under 13kg at 12m, but 99.8th centile height would go past 75cm by 7 months (boys, not preterm). So a weight-only limit on an infant carrier would (on average) last longer than a length-only limit? (I appreciate that some infant carriers require head not to be above top or eyes not above something else etc too, which would be an additional limit to the weight one.)

Hmm. Have done some sleuthing, it appears R129 (the regulation behind i-size) has not been fully rolled out yet. Phase 1 only covers baby and toddler seats (0-4 years). Phase 2 is due this summer and will cover booster seats. Phase 3 will be next year and covers belt-fitted baby and toddler seats. So indeed, waiting a year-18m to buy the next seat, OP, should get you a lot more information and options.

OP - babies shouldn't be in car seats more than 30 mins at a time unless really needed in car. This is due to oxygen levels. So a car seat really shouldn't be taken out the car at all as just encourages overuse.

I would just get x2 extended rear facing seats 0-4/5 years. One for each car. And as stays in always secure. We used the cybex sirona. But the joie range is new now and one has good reviews for £150 something each

It will be because this is a European legislation and most people know roughly how tall their kids are here (I live in Germany) because you buy their clothes in cm sizes. Plus it's measured at their numerous developmental checks.

In any rear facing seat it's not safe when the baby/child's head is protruding from the top of the seat shell. Imagine the forces on their neck in an accident. So in practice they all get outgrown in length before weight. I suppose they are also designed that way so it's intuitive and you're not going to accidentally put a too-heavy child into a seat.

Agree with artandco.
30 minutes is not long at all by the time you've got to where you are going and walked a bit with pram.
Is buying 2 extended rear facing seats much more than buying two bases and one seat? You then don't have to worry about buying two new seats which you would have to in about a years time anyway.

You might have more choice in a pram too as not relying on car seat that fits on.

I lifted DC2&3 out of the car seat and into the pram. They were just used to it from newborn so were used to staying asleep. I thought it would be a bit awkward as I'd been used to lifting DC1 seat onto pram wheels but it was actually easier. Babies also seemed so much more comfortable in pram than being pushed round in the car seat!