Silver Cross Discover

[gemandthetwins]

I'm in the early stages of looking into the next group of car seats for my boys. Because of budget and having to buy 2, we're likely to go with a Joie hbb (@bertiebotts what would we do without you, I did a search and you'd already answered all my questions about the Trillo v Traver in this thread! I'm very much swaying towards the Traver, hopefully i-Traver/Halfords version)

But, if I'm spending >£100, I like the look of the Silver Cross Discover, which is on offer in a lot of places, because of the bamboo fabric, thinking that it might help combat sweaty boys in the summer. But how do Silver Cross car seats rate for safety and in particular the Discover?

Just to update for anyone interested, I've read this review and I'm put off about how snug the seat is, the child looks uncomfortable in the pictures I think.

We went to Smyth's and Halfords yesterday to look at others. I was a little disappointed as I thought the quality of the Traver looked poorer than I expected, or it maybe it was just scruffy being a display model in a Smyth's, as a light grey version in Halfords looked better although wouldn't want that colour for stains! The i-Trillo looked better, as did the Transfix. The Elevate R129 looked nicer too.

I'm undecided which to go for at the minute, but there's no rush as my boys are 100cm and 15.6kg so right on the cusp of moving over, and they're only 3yrs 2mths.

I've not come across that one before, and it does seem like a very thorough review. Silver Cross seem to have variable safety on their models, and not many of them have been through the ADAC testing.

Since your LOs are just 3y2m I would 100% keep them in their current seats for now, probably for another year at least. There is some good research showing that 15kg 3 year olds are at quite significantly more risk than 18kg+ 4+ year olds in high backed boosters, so waiting until closer to the maximum limits of your current seat is a better idea anyway.

In terms of what's currently on the market I actually really liked the new Maxi Cosi high backed boosters, they look smart and have great fabrics in terms of cooling and the price point is good. Cybex are also well designed and so are Britax. Britax Discovery Pro is probably one of the top budget choices at the moment. The Joie seats do have cheap fabric which looks worn after a while. We had a bit of a lull with not many options under the £150 mark but there seems to be more budget models coming out so def worth waiting.

What seats are they in currently?

I've not actually looked at Maxi Cosi ones, I've just been browsing Smyth's and Halfords as stores are close to us, and a look on John Lewis. The boys kept gravitating to the Cybex ones in store strangely enough.

They're currently in Cosatto Come & Go i-rotate, which go up to 105cm.

Keep them in the Cosatto for now. It will take a while for them to gain the last 5cm that they will be outgrown. You could look again when they get to about 104cm or so I'd say. Or if you wanted to keep them in a harness, you could look to replace with Joie Bold, if you have top tether in your car, or the Cozy n Safe Excalibur or Hudson.

You need the older R44 versions of these three seats if you want the 25kg limit on the 5 point harness, so actually it is worth buying sooner rather than later if this is what you decide to do as the R44 versions are being phased out and the newer R129 versions of these seats all have 105cm limit on the harness like your Cosatto seats.

Thank you for the suggestions. It did seem odd putting 3 year olds in a normal car seat belt.

Will definitely be hanging fire for now, now I know how tall and heavy they are. I just jumped the gun looking into seats before measuring them! But helpful to know what our options are before we get to that point and that there are some that have 5 point harnesses especially if we need to get those sooner rather than later.

I’ve just bought the silver cross discover. It’s isofix into the car and then child secured by the seat belt. The padding is in layers and can be removed as the child grows. I usually go by the which reports and my silver cross baby car seat was excellent but I didn’t look this one up. Jodie seats that everyone raves about also have a very patchy results.

I think the difference is I’ve just put a 6 year in the discover as he still fitted the toddler harnessed seat until a couple of months ago when he grew! My seat went to 17kg.

You may find that you have a another year in the existing seats and they do start to grow more slowly

Yes, Joie also have variable safety but their booster seats tend to be good. It's their forward facing seats which are a bit iffy. People usually recommend Joie as being cheap options to rear face with but I do think sometimes this gets lost in translation. I wouldn't want to forward face (with harness) in a Joie seat if I could choose another brand.