Car seat? Which one?

[Satorye]

I'm going to travel with national express in a month or so and I need a car seat for my two year old.

Clueless about car seats and we are just about to get a car so can't be led by looking for which would fit the car.

Anyone knows which would fit in coach and most cars?

Depends what sort of belts the coach has (lap or 3 point). You don't actually need a car seat on a coach, do you need it for where you are travelling to?

Yeah I sent email to national express, they said the child gets a free seat with me whether I want to use car seat or not. They also said they have 3 point seat belt so most should fit. They do say they strongly recommend car seat but obviously you don't have to.
I'm not going to use it much where I'm going but to airport it's 6 hours drive then when we come it's another hour-two with coach so probably best to take it.

I'm wondering if dual fix would be a good investment?

No - that's an isofix seat so definitely won't fit on a coach. You'll need one which can be fitted with a seatbelt only. You'll also likely need one which is forward facing because coaches don't have a lot of clearance between the seats. If you would prefer him to be rear facing at his age, then you can get seats which do both.

Here's a list of rear facing seats for toddlers, handily labelled whether they are isofix or seatbelt fitted.

For any which are seatbelt fitted, if it needs a tether strap, this also won't be suitable for a coach.

incarsafetycentre.co.uk/category/extended-rear-facing/

A couple of things you might want to be aware of:

• If you're looking at a Group 0/1 seat in order to get both rear and forward facing options, check what the rear facing weight limit is. Some combined seats like this rear face to 18kg, which will work for your 2yo, but some of them only rear face until 13kg which probably won't for much longer, and some are even only RF until 9 or 10kg, which almost definitely won't be enough for a 2yo.

• If you're concerned enough about safety to specifically look for RF seats for a 2yo then you might also be interested to note that most seats which harness until 18kg will NOT last until 4 years despite the manufacturer/shops selling them like this. Most 18kg limit harnesses will be outgrown in height well before the weight limit, by around 3-3.5 by an average sized child. If you have a small child you can get away with it for longer, if you have a big child, you might be forced out of the harness even by 2.5. So - if you'd like to avoid using a booster seat earlier than necessary, it might be worth looking now for a seat which harnesses up to 25kg which is the next weight band. OTOH this might not be a concern - personally I don't find the evidence about booster vs harness to be as compelling as the RF vs FF evidence.

• Some seats for Group 1 (the likely weight class of your son) will convert to a booster seat later which means that you will get more use out of the seat long term. It might be worth looking for a Group 123 seat if this idea appeals to you. The 18kg harness issue applies to these seats too, though, except for the Joie Elevate, where the harness is larger, but still only usable to 18kg in weight. Most Group 123 seats are forward facing only, which might be a compromise you don't want to make yet, but they do tend to be smaller than a Group 0/1 seat so take up less space in a car.

If you want an isofix seat for your car, then it might be worth picking up something cheaper and more basic for this trip (or borrowing a seat perhaps?) and then you can invest your decision and research into a seat you'll be using for longer, especially once you know what car you're getting.

If you want to do this, you're looking at spending about £70 - I'd go for one of the following:

Joie Elevate - 123 seat, forward facing with harness for now, can be a booster later. Helpful as a spare seat as lightweight, and may be useful once he outgrows whichever superduper seat you buy for your own car due to option to harness longer than some other Group 1 seats :)

Joie Tilt - RF or FF but easy to fit and doesn't require isofix or tethers.

Britax Eclipse - FF only and no booster option, but it's flight approved so can use on a plane, can be fitted with a lap belt and is known for being easy to fit in different car set ups.

Or - if you're looking for something longer term I have just thought that the Britax Two Way Elite may be worth a look seeing as it's one of the smallest ERF seats.

Wow so much helpful info, thanks!! I'll look all this up, will have to think through(luckily I have 2-3 weeks left to buy).
Def advice I was looking for; asked Halfords, National Express but they all tip-toe as not to recommend any brand or take responsibility. Like this at a glance Britax seems promising. Thanks so much 🏵

Halfords are really crap for car seat advice in general - they seem to have total lack of training.

I think fitting in a coach will be v different to in a car. I'm not sure that you'll be able to find anyone willing to recommend so it might be a case of take it and see if it fits and if it doesn't, then you won't be able to use it. At least you'll have it for your 6 hour drive, I suppose?