ISOFIX base for car seat

[allthingssparkly]

Is it worth getting an ISOFIX base for babies first car seat? I'm trying to weigh up whether it's worth paying the extra for one? Never had one for the car seats with my previous two but interested to hear people's thoughts that use them.

Thank you in advance 😊

Yes. It's a lot safer! Once it's in it's in. Recommend getting a 0-4 years one so you don't fork out again for another seat at 15 months and get one that swivels. Ours is a joie and gets great reviews and not super pricey

I didn't have one for DS1 but did have one for DS2 and DS3 at DH's insistence.

IME it's nice to have but not necessary and they are quite expensive. It is worth trying out the belt fitting on whatever car seat you have, because some brands are really easy to fit (Maxi Cosi, Britax) and some are a bit annoying particularly for the clip around the back of the seat (Joie, Cybex) I wouldn't want to be struggling with it. OTOH it does make it really quick to fit in and you don't have the worry that a child in the middle seat will accidentally unclip the car seat. If you have a child climbing into the middle seat, it is slightly annoying for them to climb over the base.

It's no safer as long as you fit it correctly. Isofix does reduce the potential for error, but if you've used one without a base before then you probably know what to do.

I’m not sure what they’re like now, but I had one for my last dc (17 years ago!) and it was a godsend, I loved it! There was 20 months between baby and older toddler sibling and it really made life so much easier.

@BertieBotts This is what I'm trying to weigh up whether it's worth paying the £100 to get the car seat base or whether the money could be better spent on other baby items 🤔 If its no different safety wise than using the adult seat belt alone then I may not bother. On the car seat I'm getting the adult seat belt slots across the front of the car seat so it's fairly straight forward for me to do I'm getting a silver cross set with the pram and car seat incl.

Thank you @frazzledbutcalm 😊

They all tend to fit in the same way, it's the part where you wrap the diagonal belt around the back and route it through a slot that is fiddly with some brands. In Cybex it's easy to get it in, but when it comes to releasing it it's kind of held in by a catch so that can be annoying to release. Sone of them seem designed to be used with the seatbelt occasionally rather than regularly.

If you have a local baby shop you can often try them out on a fake car seat with seatbelt setup. Or just try it in your car when it arrives and see how easy it is to do and undo. I haven't tried a silver cross so not sure whether it has anything like the catch on Cybex seats.

If you click through here you can see the safety ratings ("sicherheit" or sometimes auto translates to "security") of base vs no base.

www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/ausstattung-technik-zubehoer/kindersitze/kindersitztest/?manufacturer=Silver+Cross&isofix=false&resultCount=10&page=0&rating.max=5.5

Safety wise an infant seat fitted with the seat belt is just as safe as using isofix. However, for ease for 12months+ I'd buy the base, it's so easy just to carry baby in and out of the car and it clips in, rather than faffing with the belt etc and worrying about it not being right.
I'd then recommend buying an ERF 25kg seat when the babies bigger, as alot of children will hit the 18kg limit of standard seats before aged 4 when they're still too young to go into a high back booster x

If I had my time again, I'd get one (we had planned to, but my pregnancy got complicated). You are right that a belted seat can be equally safe, but only if you belt it in correctly. Ours had a slightly complex design, making it very easy to only have it partially attached - the diagonal part of the belt had to be fitted into place after the child was in the seat. I reckon I forgot about half the time - I was very very tired. The advantage of Isofix is that it's really easy, one click and it's fully in.

We didn't bother with Isofix for later seats, but it's only the baby seat you tend to take in and out of the car; the second seat we had was fiddly to install, but once you'd done it, you didn't have to think about it.