Stupid car seat questions

[TheGirlAtTheRockShow]

DD is 1, nearly at the point of moving out of her infant car seat. We definitely want to keep her rear facing for as long as possible, so looking at seats that say go up to 4 rear facing.
1 we're looking at is the Britax Dualfix which swivels to face outwards to put baby/toddler in. This seems great! However, we're also looking at the Max-fix II which would probably fit better in my little car as says its a slimmer design, and it's cheaper! Also says rear facing till 18kg, same as dualfix.
Is the swivel worth the extra money? How do you extended rear facers cope with getting a squirmy toddler into a rear facing seat without it?
We obviously want the safest for our PFB DD, but money is an issue as we don't have much!

we have a joie stage, whilst it's on the lower budget end it still rear faces. No swivel and we manage fine tbh. Not a problem getting 20 month old DS in.

Thanks, I've been put off joie stages as which rated a previous model a "don't buy". I'm sure newer models are better, but it has made me wary!

Love the swivel function on our dualfix.
In that seat, it makes all the difference. However we recently turned our nearly 2yo to ff as his (long) legs didn't look comfortable in the rf position. Overall it's a good piece of kit.

We have the britax dualfix and it's fab. We had a real dilemma about whether it was really worth the extra money for it to swivel, but decided that as we use the car a lot, it was worth it and I'm so glad we did. But it does make it a bit cramped for the front seat as it is bulky. If you get it from halfords they will price match so we saved £35 which helped - their staff kept saying it had to be somewhere with a local store etc but it doesn't, they'll match the price incl delivery of an online store. Read the price match page on their website before going in would be my recommendation!

You might find you're restricted by what fits in your car. We had to choose a different ERF seat because the one we wanted wouldn't fit our Seat Leon.

Re getting kids into rearfacing seats I think it's almost easier as you're not having to turn them. Ours didn't swivel and it wasn't a problem.

Fitting in your car is much more important than the swivel. I've had no bother with having no swivel on RF'ing seats.

Also re which - double check the report. There used to be an issue a few years back when Which tested all bigger seats FF and RF if they RF'd. Which meant RF only seats did terribly. It may have changed, but it may not give an accurate picture.

I've read that RF seats tend to do badly on Which because some of them are quite a faff to fit (with tethers etc) so it's worth reading the detailed report.

We have a Dualfix and our tall 21month old is really comfy in it. I love the swivel feature it we knew we wanted to try again quickly and I tend to suffer from back pain during pregnancy. It's been a godsend to not have to lean over to lift and strap DD in.

We got ours from Boots when they had a 10% off car seats offer on, and the. Got 10 points back per pound too dosages £70 ish I think. It's dead easy to fit - you don't need to be shown how.

Do check what fits in your car though.

We have the cibex sirona that swivels. Do try out the swivel and see how easy it is to engage. I gave up on ours. My hand just wasn't strong enough. Only my husband can make it swivel. It was a whole lot of wasted money! We went FF at 3 just because our son couldn't see anything and was starting to hate the seat on longer journeys. I wish we had gotten a cheaper not swivel ERF.

The which report for the joie stages said don't buy due to crash test safety, but that was 2012 model.
The cyber sirona is another we considered, but more expensive than the britax.
Britax website says the seats should fit my car, but we have yet to try. I was just interested if the swivel is a gimmick or actually useful! I do tend to struggle with back/shoulder pain, and obviously DD is only going to get heavier!

rf is pretty easy to belt them in as they have 5 point harnesses so you're not leaning across and round them to belt (as per some ff with impact shield) plus you're not battling the car door. My 2 can climb in now (youngest is 2) so its all fine. We have the two way elite from the in car safety centre - can recommend if you're near MK or Belfast!

I would probably get the swivel for dd2 if it fits in my car tbh.

Interested in the joie stages report as we have one which was bought in 2013 and a bit worried now.

Bear in mind that depending on your car the seat in front of the britax will need to move forward to make room for it.
With both of us close to 6ft this is than ideal.

christelle I'm a short arse so sit with seat pretty much all the way forward anyway!
Which report 2012 model Joie Stages

It is easier to load a chil rear facing as you are not constrained by the door. I think the swivel function is more use if you she forward facing.

Which are not a respected source of info on rear facing car seats including that stages report.

I have the Cybex Sirona and I love both the seat and the swivel function. My dd at 2.8 still comfortably fits ff or rf, sadly had to switch to ff when the little monkey discovered how to escape a 5 point harness so the roll bar alone has made the seat invaluable.
I'm not sure how poster above struggles with the swivel function, it hasn't got any more difficult as dd has gotten heavier and it makes getting her in and out of the car so much easier. It performs better than most in crash safety for all types of impact and is the easiest thing in the world to fit as just clips straight on to the cars isofix points.

We have the max fix 2 and have never had a problem. Dd is almost 18months now.

The max fix 2 has also passed the swedish plus test so really is one of the safest. The downside is it doesnt recline much but dd doesnt seem to mind sleeping fairly upright

We have a non-swivel Britax 2-way Elite which works for our tall heavy 16 month old at the moment - I also think that rear-facing must make it easier to get them in and out because of the door, though I can't be sure as we haven't tried forward facing yet.

Pickles - what age did yours find out how to work the harness? This did strike me as a weak point of the car seats and mine loves buttons....

The buttons require a certain coordination to undo so I don't think you should worry about that. Do you tighten the straps every time?

She worked out how to wriggle free about 22 months after months at practising on highchairs, tightening the straps to the point where they can't move is apparently really dangerous so after a failed attempt at a little extra strap thing I had to give in and use the pad ff.

I currently switch between the two as she can now generally be trusted to stay harnessed in if she has a dvd to watch for longer drives and sometimes it helps if she needs to sleep etc.. It's good to have the choice, especially if she is in escape mode.
Still shudder remembering the first time I looked back to see her escaping (on the motorway goddammit!) nearly caused me to crash

Our son figured out how to get out of the cybex harness at 2.5 so we got a Houdini strap. Did the job beautifully.

you can get something called a '5 point plus' which is excellent for stopping them getting out of 5 point harnesses, without adding anything across their chests etc which may put pressure on them in the event of a crash. We used one for our son for a year or so, haven't needed it for DD yet but will be ready for her if she ever does wriggle out!

Pickles - can you explain why it's dangerous to tighten the straps until they can't move? Isn't that what the straps are for?

I have a 3 door small car so currently having to climb into the back to strap baby in. I'm thinking that a swivel would be worth the extra money?