Is this car seat even legal?

[OnMyJourney]

My mum has a couple of grandchildren she spoke to me about getting the a car seat for her car because she has two grandchildren one being my daughter and my sisters daughter they're both similar ages and she sometimes has the girls and takes them out so she thought instead of us always having to lug heavy car seats around to put them in her car she would just get a car seat for hers which we thought great sounds amazing makes life easier, I sent her a couple of really good branded 360 spin type car seats which can rear face and so on. She said she'd have a look and a few days later she said she ordered one so I didn't need to bring mine down so I was like great, I took my 6 month old daughter down to her car and the car seat looked like the picture attached! Like oh my how is that even legal? It's not rear facing, it has no support no padding nothing! She then got offended when I said I'll go get my car seat she's not sitting in that! Like whattt? Someone help me out here surely that isn't legal??

Just by the car seat for your small. She is watching your daughter you provide the kit.

If not the budget you move the heavy car seat!

Not safe at all. Entirely illegal.
Best budget seats are the joie tilt or stages (or the graco enhance or extend - exact same seats as Joie).
Car seats have been a thing for decades, not sure why people still use the "in my day" excuse.

https://www.pramworld.co.uk/joie-stages-0-1-2-coal

I would suggest buying her something like the joie stages. Around £100 mark so not super expensive, well known brand, just doesn’t have spin etc which isn’t necessary for occasional use. And lasts a long range from newborn up to high back booster so would last a good few years and cover both grandkids ages ( is rear and forward depending on ages)

The isofix type that swivel are really heavy if she’s having to keep taking in and out. Only worth getting if she can just leave in car permanently.

Me too. I wouldn't expect my mum to pay for a brand new top of the range car seat.

Yeah we use this one

A lot of car seats that are safe and rear facing are £80+ and don't get me wrong me and my sister and our partners all offered to pay or go halves but my mum said no it was her suggestion for her car so she wanted to pay we 100% said no we will pay but she didn't want us too. It actually surprised me she got this as she's actually a really smart woman usually and she's brilliant with kids she has 4 kids and she's brilliant with our girls and the nieces/nephews but I don't know what she was thinking with this! (It's definitely a car seat not just a mat how would that go into a car seat?)

Definitely not legal or safe. She's probably bought it off some Chinese sure like Wish. Only seats with the correct European safety rating are legal. It's years since I bought a seat, so I can't remember the specific number, but you can Google UK child car seat laws to find it and show her.

Just buy her a car seat. You're unhappy and its your child.

But surely she bought OP and her sister rear facing car seats when they were babies?

It's not only stupid, it's also illegal to drive with your children in that contraption.

www.maxi-cosi.co.uk/c/car-seat-safety-rules-explained-what-does-orange-label-your-car-seat-mean#:~:text=By%20law%2C%20you%20need%20to,R44%20car%20seat%20orange%20label.

For everyone saying it's my child and I should be buying the car seat, we offered money she said no, I sent her links to fairly cheap car seats she said she bought one, I again said how much was it I'll send some money over she said no don't worry, my partner spoke to her on the phone and said he'd send her some money she said no, the offer was there! I sent her the links to make sure she was comfortable using it and installing it in her car so she could choose the most suitable one for her. I would've happily paid the full amount for it for me and my sister.

Send her this OP https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47253546

It says "mat" in the description. So clearly not a sit. I think your mother is not a suitable carer for your child. She's clearly not able to make good safety decisions

I think your mum didn't realise the cost involved. Just order one and the next time you go to hers take it with you and leave it.

Can you be 100% sure that she won't put your baby in that ridiculous 'seat'?

How would you know?

How very worrying

That’s ridiculous. Being charitable, I suppose car seat safety wasn’t so much a thing when we were kids, or not to the same standards anyway and perhaps she just doesn’t really realise quite what was required? Anyway, there’s obviously no question of using that.. thing. If I were you, I’d have just transferred over your car seat for now, and ordered a car seat yourself for her car for the future, and presented it as a done deal. Leaves out any wiggle room for all this malarkey.

But surely she bought OP and her sister rear facing car seats when they were babies?

Laws around specialist car seats weren't a "thing" in the UK until 2006, so no, she probably didn't.

www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/road-safety/car-seat-laws/#:~:text=Seat%2Dbelts%20didn't%20become,weren't%20introduced%20until%202006!

When I was a child my mum had an old car it didn’t actually have any seatbelts in the back at all. Rule was the biggest child sat in the middle as they were least likely to fly through the windscreen in the event of an accident # vintage cars # child rearing in the 80s

We were born in the 80s. I know I was in the carry cot strapped in on the back seat but I also remember a baby car seat (recognisable as an early version of what we use today, but can't remember which way it faced) for my sister born late 80s. We all also had those booster cushion things when we got a bit bigger. Nothing surprising in car seats for my parents.

I remember having a battered grey booster cushion in the nineties - though I'm sure I stopped using it by the time I was seven or eight.

Don't think I ever had any kind of high backed car seat and certainly nothing that was rear facing.

i was born in the mid 80s and my parents were very hot on car seat safety compared to others at the time. They wouldn’t let us sit in the middle seat with just a lap belt for example and travelled many miles to a specialist seat seller to get a sort of shelf thing which went over the lap of the child to prevent them breaking their back in an accident.

However, baby safety measures for them included a strap to hold the pram bassinet in place on the back seat for me, while my younger sibling has a forward facing seat from the off. Rear facing wasn’t really a thing! Even for the boat safety conscious parents.

I have a baby and all her grandparents are late 40s and very early 50s. We (their children) had baby car seats, then toddler seats and then booster seats. DP and I were born in the late 90s and our siblings were born in the late 90s and early 00s.

That's exactly what I thought 🚙

I think things changed drastically between the early and late nineties.

I was born late eighties and my parents were really hot on car safety, but rear-facing really wasn't a "thing" and most children were just put on cheap booster cushions. High backed boosters for school aged children just didn't really exist.

I mean, you could buy them but they were still very rare.

Just buy it yourself. My mum looks after my DC a lot, and despite her insisting she will buy XYZ, I refuse and just buy it for her. She’s looking after my child so shouldn’t need to fork out on things too. Just order one to her house.