Isofix bases vs seatbelts

[AbFabT]

Hi

DH and I are looking to get a carseat for our new arrival. I'd done some reading and thought the Isofix bases looked like a good idea for added sturdiness, but when we went to look at carseats in a shop, the lady said in her opinion, seatbelts are safer, as in the event of a crash, there is a little more 'give' in them, whereas with the Isofix bases, a crash would jolt the child more. This made sense to us, but I wanted to see what you all thought please.

Thanks.

AbFab - I really highly recommend the maxicosi isofix base. They do one now that will fit 0+ seat, and a toddler sized seat.I haven't used it myself, but it looks very good.

John Lewis are very good at this sort of thing, if you have one near you with a baby department def go along and try it all out.

yes, I've heard good things about the explory. If i was having another, I'd like to get a M&P Sola. (can't stand the Bee)

Most obliged, Jareth. Is the isofix base you recommend the same thing as the easyfix base I linked to?

Yeah, have a John Lewis close by, thanks for the tip.

Me too! I love it.

Again, my thanks.

We have the Maxi Cosi Cabriofix with the IsoFix base and are currently using it with our second child. I absolutely love it and would always recommend it.

It's a breeze to fix the isofix base and then a matter of just plonking the seat down on the base when you want to put the car seat it. Everything clinks and there are little red indicators that turn green so you knoe at a glance that the seat is fitted properly - very reassuring.

Plus the seat rated right at the very top of the Which? report when I was buying 3 years ago. It also has removable covers for ease of cleaning when the inevitable sick incidents happen, a pull over sun shade which is really handy and can even be used to keep baby dry in a light rain shower and best of all, little hooks to hold the straps out of the way while you get baby comfy. My friends seat doesn't have these and she always has to dig the straps out from under her son when she gets him in the seat.

One note though, babies shouldn't be kept in car seats for longer than about 2 hours at a time. It's thought to hinder the development of thier hips and current SIDS advice is that sleeping in a curled up position for too long can be a cot death risk. Please don't use a car seat as your only pushchair - buy a lay flat one too for baby to use for the first 6 months. I don't know if the Stokke has a lay flat option I'm afraid. Travel systems are great but the car seat bit should really only be used for short trips not all the time.

Thanks, GS, really good to hear. Think we're decided.

Don't plan on driving far - my mum lives 40 minutes away, and I can't see us going much further than that. Thank you.

AbFab - sorry, i think I confused the issue ealier up the thread

easyfix = isofix base
easybase = seatbelt secured base.

HTH

Our John Lewis had the base set up in store so you could try it out, so have a look out for that.

Thank you, GoblinKing. Think we're going for the EasyFix Isofix base. Just to be clear - the base that fixes to the Isofix points in the car. Not the seatbelt version. Isofix Isofix Isofix! Easy!

OP I know you are clear now on the base you need. But just to say I wouldn't be particularly worried about it attaching to the pram you want. Young babies should not be in car seats for a long time, so you are better to take the baby out of the car seat and lie flat in the pram when you can.

Oh thank you, Eglu. I appreciate you commenting. So much to think of!

I have the kit you're considering, the xplory, maxi cosi and isofix base. You're making a good, if costly, decision.
I found it easy to secure the maxi cosi with a seat belt, which is handy for taxis and other people's cars.
Don't bother getting the xplory carrycot, dd grew out of hers by 4 months and the seat not only lays flat but has a stand so you can use that as a carrycot instead.
The car seat feels wonky on the xplory chassis but it is perfectly secure.

Brilliant, thanks trellism, really good to hear from someone who has the whole package I am thinking of. Thanks for the tip about the carrycot - wasn't decided on that, so good to hear it's not really needed. Does the seat lay completely flat? How long can a baby stay in there for?
Yes, I am at the cost, but if we manage to have three children, it works out at about £400 per child (pram plus carseat plus Isofix), so not too bad! And hopefully we can even sell them on afterwards and recoup a bit of the cost.
I feel quite a bit more sorted about this whole purchase now. Thank you.

Hm. Well I was! Showed DH this thread, and he's keener on the Jané with the Third Generation Isofix - www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNv9qBGSe7g - now I am all again. This one does seem more advanced than the MaxiCosi.

"Jané has revealed a pioneering car seat that takes ISOFIX safety to a new level and features four new patented technologies. Officially one of the safest car seats on the market, Jané?s EXO is challenging industry perceptions of ISOFIX car seats.
Most safety seats now use the ISOFIX system, allowing the seat to simply fasten to the chassis of the vehicle. ISOFIX devices minimise the car seat?s movement in the event of an impact, reducing the risk of serious injury by up to 22%."
"This new ISOFIX system reduces the force of an impact by up to 4Gs when compared to conventional ISOFIX car seats."

The seat would be the Matrix Cup (www.babyboom2000.co.uk/products/Jane-Matrix-Cup-Car-Seat-Urban.html), Racing (www.babyboom2000.co.uk/products/Jane-Racing-Car-Seat-Carbon.html) or the Strata (www.babyboom2000.co.uk/products/Jane-Strata-Car-Seat-Group-0%252b--Green-Valley-J49.html).

Any thoughts?

But it doesn't fit on the Stokke Xplory - not sure how much of a problem that would be.
We really don't drive very much. Though possibly will do more when this baby is born. Either way, I want the safest carseat for our baby when we do!

I've been told thematrix has improved since 2005 when we had it, but it never fitted securely in our car and it was a nightmare to fit to the chassis and heavy.
The Strata has performed very well in the latest which tests.

Am very jealous of your Stokke, would have loved one of those

Thanks, mamatomany.

Does the Which guide say if the Strata is better/safer/more comfortable than the MaxiCosi? Is it worth me getting a Which subscription, or is there a Which Carseat magazine I can buy, do you (anyone?) know?

Yeah, I am loving the Stokke!

Do John Lewis have assistants trained to fit car seats? I can believe they're fantastic to go and look at buggy's, but I'd be cautious of buying a car seat from any shop that couldn't fit it (or from an assistant not trained to fit the seat I wanted).

Personally, I have reservations about Which. They test all seats in a single set up. As the safety of a car seat is highly dependent on how well it fits your car, I have concerns regarding how representative these tests are. (There's an assortment of other things that knock their credibility in my eyes, but that would be broadly irrelevant and take too long ). I don't think they're meaningless, but I'm not convinced they give accurate information of what and how they're actually testing - which makes the results very easy to misinterpret.

I wouldn't be too worried about fitting the car seat on the pram chassis - we took the decision that the car seat wasn't a good place for our DC to be any longer than they had to, and accepted that this meant we'd have to switch them between seats/prams more often. It wasn't actually that much hassle, especially once DD decided at about 3 months that a stretchy wrap sling was a MUCH better place to be than something with wheels!

If you want a good independent opinion on the safest car seat for your car, the ladies at the Essex County Council In Car Safety Team are extremely helpful. Having just looked, we actually bought our car seat from one of their recommended fitters and we were extremely happy - she was, indeed, passionate about car seat safety and has made an ethical decision not to sell car seats through the internet as she would not be able to fit them.

(ps - I'm also jealous of a Stoke. I might have been able to persuade DH, except we live in too rural an area and I just don't think the wheels would have coped with the mud )

Thanks, Tangle.

I don't know about the JL assistants fitting the car seat. Someone else once recommended we go to our local fire station as they should have someone trained in fitting car seats, so we could do that. My local fire station is a one-minute walk from our house.

I appreciate what you are saying about the Which reports. It's just difficult to know what to do!

Good to hear about the car seat and the pram - that does help. I did hear that having to disturb your sleeping child when transferring them was not ideal, but I do agree about not leaving them in the car seat for too long, so I guess you can't have everything. We also plan on getting a sling and using it a lot (depending on whether our baby is happy with it!).
Thank you soooo much for the link to the Essex council site - very informative. I am now veering towards one of the Jané models.

Glad you are all approving of the Stokke!

stokke have a car seat coming out in july for the explory.
it is a BESAFE norwagian company i think but there seats have won the highest safety awaeds in sweden.
it reclines when on the pushchair so baby can lie flat.
Saw them at the baby show super lovely.

Hi ABFABT

Hijacking slightly as I read something further up....

My car can do ISOFIX but dh doesn't. Can a seat be transferred between the two?

Thanks for that, raindroprhyme. I did see that in the Stokke brochure, but felt they were so new there wouldn't be sufficient reviews, and compared to Jané which seems to be a market leader in carseats, I was tempted away from Stokke. I didn't see they'd won the highest safety awards in Sweden though - oooh, something to consider again! I will go check them out again, though I've spent some time today reading up on the Jané brand and carseat infor, and am feeling quite convinced about the Jané Strata with the third generation base. But I do like the Stokke brand.

Hello, Nymph!
We only have one car, so not a major consideration for us. And seatbelts are possible for the Strata so if we were to transfer to a friend's car/taxi etc, it would be ok.

You're welcome - it is a total minefield .

The Firstation may well be able to help - just make sure you can return the seat if you get told that it doesn't fit (a lot of people won't take them back as they can't know for sure that you haven't had a crash with them in the car...) The Essex ladies really are worth a call. When you see free car seat safety checks advertised at local fire stations, these are often the ladies that turn up to do them under sub-contract! Because they see so many different car seat / car combinations they have a very broad knowledge of what seats fit well in which models of which cars and (more pertinently) which combinations are positively dangerous, and they're very happy to talk it all through over the phone.

(Incidentally, we have a BeSafe for DD and are very happy with it - it scores really highly in Scandinavian countries, who have a more stringent test than the ECE R44 we use in the UK, and DD enjoys being in it.)

Nymph - it depends where the ISOFIX points on the seat are. IIRC most ISOFIX infant carriers are a seat that clicks onto an ISOFIX base - and it will usually be possible to fit the seat using a seat belt. So you should be OK - but it would be worth checking that the seat can be fitted securely into your DH's car as some seats require long seatbelts and others have a reputation for being difficult to fit properly. When you get to Grp 1 seats it might get more complicated, as more Grp 1 ISOFIX seats have the integral ISOFIX mounts. I don't think it would be possible to fit one of these ISOFIX seats into a non-ISOFIX car, as the mounts would get in the way - but there are some seats that still use a base system that might work. Hope that helps

It sure is! My poor head!

I think I'll email the Essex ladies, yes! I'll ask them if they know about the iZiSLEEP BeSafe for Stokke carseat. Though what we like about the Jané is the 'third-generation base' which has the special "ISOFIX system that reduces the G-forces in an accident. Its revolutionary, patented Pneumatic Absorption System (PAS) reduces the impact of an accident to minimalise potential injuries."

Good to know you are happy with your BeSafe, and your DD is too!

Thank you for the extra help!

The standard Stokke seat lies pretty flat: baby isn't curled up like they are in a car seat in any event.

Thanks again, trellism.

Just for clarity for anyone reading this belatedly, the site I linked to previously is NOT the site of the Essex County Council In Car Safety Team, although they do provide contact details for them. The official site from ECC is here and this is the site of Cathy and Vicki - two of the ladies employed by ECC.

Apologies for any confusion

And a random addition from me who has just found this thread. Most local libraries have a Which? subscription so you can go in and consult the latest test results there without having to pay for your own subscription or website access etc...

Just a small piece of advice. I bought the maxi-cosi car seat and the isofix base and I was very pleased with it and it fitted on my pram etc etc. But now I have come to upgrade my car seat I find out that the isofix base is now useless and if I want the bigger maxi-cosi seat (i think its called PEarl) I have to buy another type of isofix base... I think they have changed it now so the base fits both car seats but it would be worth asking these questions now as my DD is only 8 months and is too long for her baby car seat now.