Which baby car seat would you recommend?

[TinaMumsnet]

We're making plans to test and review baby car seats and we'd love to know which ones you recommend.

If you've used and loved a baby car seat in the past two years we want to hear about it. Tell us the make and model of the car seat you rate, and why you'd recommend it to others. Your comments will help us to create a shortlist of baby car seats to test and recommend to new parents.

Also, if you have any tips on how to choose the right car seat, please share them on this thread. We'll include these comments in our buyer's guide

Thanks!

Agree win Teabiscuits.

please ensure that parents know that rearfacing for as long as possible is safest. Also in my NCT group there seemed to be a race to get babies in to what they thought were 'proper' car seats - even though the babies were still so young/small. My daughter was 90th percentile but was still in a baby carrier until 15 months as she still fit and that was where she was safest.

Hi all, thanks for your comments and recommendations so far. To answer your question @teaandbiscuits we'll be testing toddler car seats at the same time as baby car seats, I'll post a link to that thread on this discussion when it's live. Once the research for these two categories is complete, we'll move on to child car seats and booster seats.

As you said rear-facing car seats are by far the safest option and it's something we should have been more clear about in our previous articles on car seats.

As well as talking to parents about their experiences, we'll be talking to independent experts about the safest car seats for children. Car Seat Advice UK is already on our list of experts to approach, but do feel free to suggest other independent bodies that you'd like to hear from.

Thanks!

Mumsnet. Please take a look at the ADAC crash safety tests. These are carried out to a far higher standard than the usual.

Also the car seats that have passed the Swedish Plus test. There's a reason why no forward facing car seat can pass it!

We have got the Cybex Aton 5 for our 16 week old. It doesn't seem that easy to find in the UK but it's been tested by Which? apparently, so it seems like it is available.

It gets great safety results, including a fancy little side impact flippy-out thing that I don't really understand but apparently makes it safer. That was my first priority. Other than that -

I really like:
The headrest adjusts the harness, so you don't have to rethread it ever as it just moves up and down.

The headrest itself is easy to adjust and you can even do it with the child in the seat which is handy to get the right fit. Lots of little increments rather than big ones, which means the harness always fits snugly.

It seems really comfortable, DS2 hardly ever complains in it which is really unusual for a baby IME! He even looked fine in it as a newborn, not drowned, and at 7kg he still has loads of space left in it so I'm not worried he'll outgrow it early.

Fits on Maxi-Cosi adapters so it's compatible with a wide range of pushchairs.

Base can be isofix or belt fitted which is handy - you don't have to buy a separate one.

I really like the look of it too. DH said it was space agey, and shoot me, I like the colour!

Niggles:
It's heavy. Much heavier than the basic Mothercare seat I had 10 years ago with DS1. However I assume this is down to it being more robust, and we often use the pram wheels to transport it from car to house anyway.

Straps can be a little stiff to tighten. I often have to push the crotch strap inwards to create slack in the shoulder straps so I can tighten it up from there. If you weren't aware of the need for seat straps to be totally flush I could imagine this might be missed, which is a concern for safety.

The headrest kind of sticks out from the seat which means it pushes a newborn's head forwards. This isn't an issue once they are a bit bigger, though, and I never noticed any trouble breathing when DS2 was tiny.

The newborn insert is just a piece of polystyrene when it's removed. It does the job well but I'm a bit concerned that I am likely to lose or break it or accidentally throw it away while in storage for potential DC3, because it isn't obvious that it's a part of the car seat and there's nowhere built in to store it when it's not in use.

I never find it clicks into the base very easily - but might be just me as DH manages just fine.

I was always looking for pictures of how a newborn fits in car seats when I was searching for one so here's one. (The pads are in the wrong place, I didn't check at the time, because we were only taking him for a walk.)

We have Joie iGemm seats for our preemie twins and they were fantastic - even at 5lb we didn’t need a newborn insert and the nurses were amazed how secure it was with such a tiny baby.

We had isofix bases which were great. However, we have a VW Polo with a rear seat bench thing that tilts very slightly backwards. This meant that when rear facing and they got bigger their heads flopped forwards when they fell asleep. We moved to the next stage seat which actually has a reclined position for rear facing so we don’t have this problem.

So yes, if your rear seats have a slight inline backwards (eg the front of the bench part is higher than the back) you need to be very careful with car seats. No one told us this, you won’t notice a problem when you fit it, only becomes clear when your baby is in it and probably not until they’re 6 months old or so.

Totally agree with @ teaandbiscuitsforme and @WeSaluteYou have said

If I had my time again i wouldn't bother with the maxi cosi infant seat I would go straight to the birth -4 year cybex etc and bought a cheap one if needed for taxis etc.

I sort of use it on my pram but don't need to.

Anyone here have a Volkswagen polo, which car seat do you have for baby? We are struggling to find one :(

Den In what way are you struggling? Space in the car, fit with isofix/seatbelt, recline?

@den1985 we had the Cosatto infant isofix one and then upgraded to the Joie 360

@Den1985

Hi struggling with the angle of seat as the seats are slopes. Mothercare said the Maxi Cosi wasn’t good but then mammas and pappas said it was fine and also recommended the joie I level

Crunchie12

den You're going to get the best fit using a seatbelt rather than an isofix base. Maxi Cosis should fit but you may have to roll a towel underneath to get a better recline.

Try searching the Facebook group 'car seat advice uk' to see what other people have fitted in a Polo.

Also try an independent car seat retailer if you can rather than Mothercare, Halfords, etc

Hi @Den1985 have a look to see if the ones you want have the polo listen in their fit books. The Joie 360 isofix fit fine - just meant the front passenger seat was pushed up a little. We also had no problem with the infant Cosatto one. Hope that helps. It is a mine-field!