Question for the car free

[littlefrog]

What do you do about car seats?
DS is just at the end of the baby stage - that was fairly easy.
But now we're faced with:

• car seat at ILs (done that, they got a baby-toddler one)
• car seat at my parents
• car seat for us for when we need one
• car seat for CM to use

This seems INSANE! Of course, we cd use the same one as the CM, but she needs a light one, and it'll get a lot of wear and tear being taken in and out of the car all the time, and she only drives him a mile or so in London - not the same as hiring a car and driving to Wales, for eg.

What do you do?
What should we do?

we don't run a car, but have bought our own car seat, as we hire cars on occasion.

Would your CM not have her own car seat as part of her tools of the trade? I wouldn't worry too much about wear and tear from moving it - they are pretty hefty and robust piece of kit . Wouldn't the safety requirements for long trips and short city runs be the same?

I have bought three car seats, one for my parents, one for my sister and one for me when I get lifts from other people.

I would have thought the CM would have her own car seat,if you had a car you wouldn't swap the seats over every time you dropped your ds off. Or maybe you would, I'm not much help am I! But if she doesn't have one you could share quite easily. Although, if the car seat is going to be stored at the CM's house you might need one anyway, for times when you need one unexpectedly and can't get to the CM.

I would do what you are doing and get 4 car seats (or less if you can get away with it)

much cheaper than running a car

I'd probably use the same one for us and the CM though

and I THINK car hire companies usually have seats to hire with the cars-no?

you are doing the right thing always having him in a car seat. Most horrible accidents happen on short journeys. They pretty much always happen when you are not expecting it too, of course. Imagine if anything ever happened (and it really does, I promise you) and you had to live with knowing that had you spent £200 on a bunch of car seats he would be fine

(I don't have a car that will fit my family in it, btw. And we have car seats)

car-hire companies do have car seats, but they charge a fair whack for them, so if you do hire cars a few times a year it's more cost effective to have your own.

riven, as far as I understand it, you don't have to use a car seat in a taxi. Obviously it's safer if you, but as you've outlined, needs must!

oh yes agree re taxis

on the odd occasions when we are likely to hire a car we will be far far from home. So alternative would be lugging 3x car seats 400 miles on the train incl an across london jaunt

agree re taxis, have never found one with car seats. Personally I don't use them for this reason but accept that I am probably fortunate in not needing to-its easy enough for us to get pretty much everywhere by bus/train/foot.

god that is ridiculous

what on earth are you meant to do in that situation?

am very generally about crappiness of public transport but esp on your dd's behalf

We had a very lightweight but bulky carseat that we just lugged around with us if we went on holiday and the in-laws got their own.

Childminder has her own, we have one, my Mum bought one. It works out OK.

wow, thank you! good advice here.
Taking DS in a car without a car seat isn't an option we'll consider (though parents do suggest it , I did take him in taxis without one though, and would do so again for short journeys.
The CM thing is something I asked about on another thread a while ago - she does have a car seat, but it's ancient, and doesn't have a 5 point harness (he's only 1); consensus seemed to be that we should buy one for her to use.
Oh, and the different safety standards thing - I guess that I do feel that I'd be happy with a legal but lightweight £30 seat for local London driving, but would prefer something with all the side impact protection jazz for long motorway journeys.
I guess this isn't something to ask for on freecycle (?)

It's the kind of thing that families grow out of pretty quickly, and especially in London you might find one that has been used very little - so it might be worth getting one 2nd hand? Do you (or CM) know any families with older children for example? Worth a try!

you;re more likely to be in a crash, and a nasty one, on a short london journey though