baby car seat for Land Rover Defender - any recommendations?

[mrsbaldwin]

DH drives a Land Rover Defender (one of those square box on wheels-type things).

Before you all start imagining we live on a private estate draped in Barbour jackets, until recently DH was a wholesale greengrocer - the back usually full of sacks of spuds, boxes of bananas etc.

Anyway ...

DS1 is due in March and DH is about to get the Land Rover garage to fiddle about the front seats, so a baby car seat can slot in.

He's planning to ask the garage if they can suggest any particular brand of car seat which will fit correctly - and I have also had a bit of a surf on the Land Rover enthusiast websites (lot of bewildering camshaft talk over there )

But I thought it might be worth posting here to see if anyone had any recommendations - I'd be really grateful!

Many thanks
MrsBaldwin

www.graco.co.uk/en_GB/car-seat/matching-car-seats/car-id/247/

don't know car myself but this is from graco website if you click on seat will show where can be fitted

I only have a discovery, middle ground for comfort/practibility . I did always wonder about car seats in defenders...

My DH has just peered over my shoulder at this thread with some interest, saying he never knew so many ladies had a Land Rover fetish

Although he is a fine one to talk - he brought his Land Rover magazine to bed again last night and spent some of this morning considering aloud whether it would just be a whole lot easier to swap to a long wheelbase now rather than faff around with seat changes to existing car etc.

LesbianMummy - thanks very much for this Graco link - very helpful. I am a complete novice to this car seat stuff never mind the mummy part. (NB: my RL lesbian chum loves rolling about in DH's LR - there may be a link here )

LadyofWaffle: swapping to Discovery did flash through my mind, but as MM may agree, there's some sort of primordial charm to the Defender

LR should be paying us all to be in a focus group ...

Happy birthday MM

thank you!

present

We had defender before and after ds1 was born. We just put the normal car seat from the travel system into the normal seat belt like any other car....

Mum sat in the middle with the lap belt on.

16m age gap between kiddies meant that after a while we just couldn't fit.

So as dp is a builder and needs something pretty industrial as a vehicle, we got an old twin cab pick up (not one of those trendy ones that never sees any dirt).

Dp sold the landrover on ebay. I didn't know what he'd put in the listing till someone phoned to come and view it and said 'are you the pregnant missus forcing sale?'

apparently dp had listed the reason for sale as '2nd baby on its way and pregnant missus sick of rolling around in the back'

We used to offer overdue friends a ride over the moors whilst eating a takeaway curry to hurry things along

was it a double cab high capacity pickup?

oh macdog!

come out to play in mine now? I will clear a space for you among the empty diet coke bottles, hydraulic jack thing, portable power pack etc

he's going in for new front brake pad things tomorrow, I said I'd wait rather than risk the L reg Mondeo again

High capacity? No idea! Its an old Toyota thing like the one that Jeremy Clarkson threw into the sea and set on fire to test how indestructible they are

Ours looks like the tv one after Jeremy and co finished with it....

Do miss the landrover though for the cameraderie of other drivers and things like it having its own magazine. My friends husband had about 4 in bits in his garage that he spent years building a 'Super Defender' from.

The landrover made me feel like when my dad had a Hillman Imp. He used to flash his lights when he saw another one and they'd flash back!

Ooh a lovely landrover thread!

We have a black one, and it is the coolest car IMO, though my leg does get the shakes holding the clutch for long on inclines etc. I do covet the white roof ones tho. When I was younger M and D had one with split screen it was so old.

Anyway, we had DD in a rear facing car seat in passeneger seat when a baby, then had a specialist harness fitted in the middle when she could sit forward facing. She still uses that now and she's 5.

Let us know how it goes. :-)

Dingdongbells - thanks this is very helpful.

Flibbertyjibbet is right about the camaraderie of other LR drivers - I find this quite hilarious. I think it's mainly blokes flashing their lights at other blokes mind - I don't know if women do that.

I shall update this thread for posterity once we've bought a car seat and have the baby in it!

I've been looking for this thread for ages!

I smile at other Defender/Series drivers, it's desperately sad but (argh why am I admitting this) I sometimes count them, not consciously but at some point during the day the thought 'wow, that's 9 defenders I've seen already' crosses my mind. I am practically a trainspotter but I get a kick out of seeing less usual variations, such as the 130 (double cab very long pick up)

oh the SHAME

reassure me, there are worse interests a girl can have?

MysteryMoniker - never mind Mumsnet, you should join one of the Land Rover forums (if you're not in one already)! Then you will be able to chat about double cabs all day! But obviously you are not uncool as (a) you post on here (b) you drive a Defender and (c) did I read on another thread you have a dog? I also have a dog! However you will trump me on coolness if you can drive your dog about in the LR - as mine gets sick every time she even looks at it.

I can't believe this thread has made it past 40 posts BTW.

heh

I drive LOTS of dogs about in my land rover, it's what I got it for also horse trailer (but have not attempted this yet). luckily my dog (springer) loves it, not just in my land rover but anybody's - he gets VERY excited if he hears one!

I feel a bit under qualified for the land rover boards as don't actually know anything about their insides nor do I really want to learn

but hope I am doing THIS tomorrow!

oh how could anybody not love them, they are so amazing

We were driving in our (boring) car today. dd (nearly 3) piped up from back seat "land rover" - the wee soul had spotted one in a field.
A convert to the cause

discovery v defender 90 no prizes for guessing who wins

SazzlesA - thanks so much, very helpful.

MM - I just had a look at YouTube video. Hehe! You will scale new heights of coolness once you can tow your horse trailer on the back!

But one thing about trailers on the back - the tow bobble gets a bit oily and greasy and deposits smudges all over your clothes if you are not careful. Gives a whole new meaning to wearing Diesel jeans, IMO If you were wearing nice white jodhpurs for example you would want to be careful. But you will have experienced this problem before, LR or no LR, doubtless.

(BTW, they definitely don't have trouser smudge chat on the LR forums. DH once asked the LR garage, on my behalf if they could install a vanity mirror above the sunvisor on the passenger side. They nearly confiscated the LR off him there and then, for suggesting such an unDefendery thing.)

Macdog - one advantage of driving a normal car is your clothes will stay pristine

I'm really scared of towing - the whole thing, it's on my to-confront-list. I haven't even got a trailer yet though

@ your vanity mirror, did you get one in the end?

I feel a bit nervous about some of the scary country lanes I have to drive on today

any defender fans want to come with me and navigate?