Buggy and car seat advice

[sophftm]

Looking for advice on which buggy and car seat to get. I'm due in Aug so probably about time to start looking for offers and keen to get a list of what I need.
I was looking at the mountain buggy/ out n about for something I can run with when the baby is a bit older, but I'm now wondering about getting something like the Ocarro which seems better for parent facing and folds up quite small, then getting a separate running buddy second hand later.
The size isn't massively important but it's a bonus if it fits in my mini boot easily. We live in Cornwall so I'd like something good for all terrains though realistically I can't imagine wanting to push it on the beach or the coast path!
I also have no idea what car seat to get and how important it is to get one that will click into the buggy.
Advice please!! :)

I am due in august too and I just bought the ocarro Full system with the car seat. Had a shot of it in the shop before lock down started and it’s really nice and smooth abs easy to put up and down / change seat. Really happy with it 😁

Car seats stick with well known brands such as Cybex, Maxi cosi, Joie, Nuna etc. Personally never used the car seat onto a pushchair frame as they're supposed to be in there such such a short time it never seemed worth it.

If i didnt need a double for upcoming bump I'd have got the ocarro initially and then the out and about or city mini GT

I also like the look of the city mini premier

We also just bought the ocarro travel system and upgraded it to the swivel car seat as apparently it is which Best Buy. Haven’t used it yet but they were so helpful in store and we were really impressed with how easy it folded down etc.

Thanks everyone, it seems to have really good reviews. Just found that my Sister has that one so can lend me all the accessories etc so sounds like a goer!

I have also just bought the ocarro after looking at reviews online. At the moment it's on sale for £450 on very in sage green. It's beautiful. It comes with the carry cot, cup holder and car seat adapters.

Ocarro will take a Cybex car seat which means it takes any infant car seat from the following brands, as they all use the same adaptors:

Avionaut
BeSafe
Cybex
Maxi Cosi
Nuna
Recaro

Also, any Joie except Joie Juva; Cosatto Dock; Bugaboo Turtle; Axkid Modukid Infant (with additional adaptors) and Venicci Ultralite, which is the UK branding of Avionaut Ultralite.

You can't put a Britax car seat on there, which is the only other brand I'd suggest to look at as their infant seat has some good features. The other non-compatible with M&P buggy options I'd suggest are the Joie Juva simply for cost as you won't get a cheaper seat than that, although it really is a basic seat, and the other option to look at are fixed, isofix fitted spin seats which turn towards the door of the car and will last until approximately 3-4 years old, typically costing around the same or a little bit more than a high-end infant seat + car base combo.

However. Crash safety wise you cannot really pick a bad infant seat. There are very very few infant seats which do poorly in independent safety testing and where there are, they tend to get recalled and taken off the market ASAP. So don't overthink the infant seat choice. Save your money and energy for researching the next stage up because here there is really a huge range of safety from potential death-trap (and somehow they don't get taken off the market) to seats that have passed incredibly stringent testing.

Safety wise for infant seats if you want to go above and beyond, look at side impact protection scores as that is where the differences lie.

It's personal preference whether you want a car seat that goes onto the buggy or not. I do find it's useful to have one you can carry around, because they tend to fall asleep in the car and it's very, very nice to be able to transport them still sleeping for as long as you can! Bear in mind this does carry some risks, however, IME, if you can't carry them around in the car seat most people end up sitting in the car to allow naps to finish anyway which is exactly the same thing! So you might as well be in your home letting them finish that nap.

Thanks that so helpful. How do you know so much about this? Impressed!! Such a new world to me :)

Too much free time

Made a mistake buying a rubbish pram for our needs with baby number 1 so did a LOT of research for number 2

My eldest child is 11! Struggled to find a good car seat for him due to all the confusing sales terms etc and eventually got a good feel for the different types. Became fascinated by all the features they have to perform safely in a crash etc. It's quite impressive engineering if you look into it! Then was interested enough to track all the changes over the last decade so now I know quite a bit, and am aiming to get into the car seat industry at some point, so I research other people's questions, both to help them cut through the confusion and also to improve my own knowledge, basically.