Best car seats for newborns

[coastalchick]

First baby, not a scooby about anything, any recommendations?

My experience . I got a cosatto car seat which goes on my travel system. Little one was fine in it and still is but decided to buy a cybex which will take her up to 4 years old. She looks way more comfortable in it.

You need to think about your push chair system as well. And if you want to be able to take baby out of car in the car seat or happy to take them in and out.

Must admit for the first 5 months I much preferred taking the whole car seat out as baby would stay asleep and would sleep more. Now little one is 7 months old I can transfer from car seat to push chair or inside and she will go back to sleep.

I’ve bought the Recaro Privia as it’s the Which? Best Buy of all the infant car seats they have tested (or it was 2 months ago when I bought), with or without the isofix base.

I didn’t look in to what’s best with what pram as it’s really not good for babies to be in a car seat too long.

You can use a group 0+, which is the one that has a handle to carry around and can connect to a compatible pram. These are suitable from birth to 13kg which is around 15 months.

You can also use a Group 0/1 car seat which stays in the car and are suitable from birth to 18kg which is around 4 years. They usually start out rear facing and can be turned to forward face when baby is between 9-13kg but some can stay rear facing until 18kg which is 5x safer.

Obviously though the safest option is to get one that fits your car properly so it's worth narrowing down which kind of seat you want and checking in a store to see what works best for you.

Also meant to say that Britax, Be safe, Cybex, Joie and maxi-cosi are all pretty good brands to look out for in terms of safety testing.

We have the cossatto hold for my car as it will be the main car and the seat can attach to our travel system. We then bought the joie every stage for DH which claims to be able to take from newborn all the way up to 12 including extended rear facing 😊 we will see how we get on with it and if all is good will purchase another one for my car when baby out grows the hold 😊

We are going for the Kiddy Evoluna isize as it is lie flat so better for baby's breathing and you don't need to worry about the 2 hour max rule. Really good reviews on which and fits our chosen pram.

We bought the Cybex Cloud Q for our first baby and it was expensive but well worth it. It lies flat (not in the car though - but on the pram chassis with maxi-cosi adaptors and on the floor) so it means if you go out shopping in the car and the baby falls asleep on the way there, you can allow them to keep sleeping while shopping and then pop them in the car again, and the only time that counts towards the 2 hour limit is the time actually in the car. So much less stressful than always having to keep an eye on timings unless you are on a long journey. And we found that it meant that we didn't need to lug the carrycot part of our pram when we went to stay with grandparents' so it saved space in the car in the first 6 months. It feels robust and well made and is a doddle to clip into the isofix base. For what it matters, we also got a lot of compliments when people saw it in use as a carrycot on the pram as it is so funky.

We're very happy with our Maxi-Cosi Cabriofix. I have long babies and this has one of the longest shells on the market so should get a decent amount of time from it.

We had the Kiddy Evoluna iSize because it lies flat in the car and it's fantastic. It has a massive hood for shading baby too

We also have the Kiddy one that lies flat, it's great. So easy to stick on the pram and then lie flat so don't need to worry about them being in it too long. Only downside was its a bit heavier than others that we looked at so I had to start transferring DD in the car rather than taking the seat inside from about 4 months as the combined weight was too much for me.