Newborn in car seat for long journey

[graciesmammy]

Travelling down south in a few weeks with my 5 week old baby. It's 5.5 hours in the car , there is mixed guidance online about how long I can keep my baby in the car seat for at one time... I've seen no longer than two hours but for smaller babies the guidance is different but cannot actually find what that is?

Info from the lullaby trust.
www.lullabytrust.org.uk/safer-sleep-advice/car-seats-and-sids/

30 mins at a time for babies under 6 weeks.

Pretty sure it’s 30 minutes at that age. We travelled 5 hours @ 8 weeks and we stopped every 2 hours for 45 mins to an hour each stop..

But I mean, people do travel with newborns. With my first, we lived over an hour away from the hospital & it didn’t even cross my mind to stop every 30 minutes on the way home 🙈

As above, 30 mins is what I thought

You can get lie-flat car seats. We had one for DD. Or ones that are almost lie-flat. It depends if you're likely to do that journey more than once as to whether it's worth the expense I suppose v just dealing with more frequent stops. I would sit in the back anyway on a journey that long.

I remember it to be only 30 minutes too

I've heard 30mins too but I'm not sure whether that's actually backed by any evidence. It just seems to have become received wisdom somehow. I traveled 5 hours with my 7 week old and we compromised and stopped every hour.

It’s 30 mins because at that age, the baby has no neck control so their heavy head can sadly impact their wind pipe and they can struggle to breathe

If you stop regularly and give the baby breaks, and have someone in the back to check they’re in the right position and aren’t too squished then I think you’d be ok

It also depends on the size of your baby even though he’s 5 weeks - a premmie born 4 weeks early I’d be more careful than a chunky 2 week overdue baby

Get the Maxi Cosi lie flat pram seat if you do long journeys a lot. Otherwise just stop every 30-45mins to pull her out of the seat. The stops don’t have to be long - 2-5mins is fine.

I’m due in December and have been told 30 minutes - but also that the lie flat car seats don’t lie flat in the car; so you’d still have to stop and get the seat out to collapse it. It sounds like that might not be true from the answers here?

We’re looking at the Cybex Cloud Z, which does lie flat, but not in the car…

I’d push it back a few more weeks if it’s not essential, or plan to stop every half an hour and make a day of the trip. I’ve had to do it with a poorly dog once; and after bladder surgery; and it was okay.

Not all lir flat car seats are safe for your baby in the lie flat position whilst in the car. For some that feature is for when you are out eg popped to someone's house or using it on the pushchair.

www.which.co.uk/news/2021/06/what-is-a-lie-flat-baby-car-seat-and-do-you-need-one/

My prem baby needs to stretch out every 20 mins as you can see her airway being constricted from her head being low.

Some lie flat in car, some don't, so you do need to check. Ours lay flat in the car but they don't make that one anymore so no point in recommending it!

@TakeYourFinalPosition There are lie-flat car seats that can lie flat in the car (as well as some that only lie flat as a pram when out of the car).

Car seats that are safe to use flat in the car include:

Jané Matrix
Maxi Cosi Jade
Jané Transporter

@TakeYourFinalPosition

I’m due in December and have been told 30 minutes - but also that the lie flat car seats don’t lie flat in the car; so you’d still have to stop and get the seat out to collapse it. It sounds like that might not be true from the answers here?

We’re looking at the Cybex Cloud Z, which does lie flat, but not in the car…

I’d push it back a few more weeks if it’s not essential, or plan to stop every half an hour and make a day of the trip. I’ve had to do it with a poorly dog once; and after bladder surgery; and it was okay.

I had this one. Just as a heads up it isn’t a completely lie flat seat even outside the car. It wssn’t a deal breaker for us as DS had weirdly amazing neck control from birth (he’d peer over carseats like chucky lol) but DN had to send it back when she bought it for her premie daughter. So if that’s what you want the Maxi Cosi pram seat might be better - she uses it as a cot too.

You need to stop every 30 mins with a newborn under 6 weeks. We found it was safer to travel by train with a young baby, much easier to feed, change and move around, and she could sleep comfortably lying flat in the pushchair or in a sling.

The research into how long new born babies can be in car seat was halted because the babies in the study had very low oxygen levels in the car seats so it was unethical to consider the research.

I asked this question back last year when my DD was three weeks old and we ended up buying a proper lie flat car seat (a Jane transporter I think) It was absolutely worth it for the time that we used it, even though it was expensive. If you’re going to be travelling a lot in the early weeks I would definitely recommend it for peace of mind. I will warn you though that our DD stopped tolerating being strapped in lying down after about 4/5 months as she started to want to move and look around, so we did get a short time usage out of it.