Light lie-flat car seat

[birdofthenorth]

Can anyone recommend a lie-flat car seat that doesn't weigh a tonne? And preferably doesn't cost the earth?!

I'm pg with DC1 and we will have to do a number of long car journeys because DH works in a different city several days a week, and I am optimistically hoping to be able to join him most of the time whilst on maternity leave. I say optimistically because I'v no idea how possible 4 hour journeys with a tiny infant are -may have to re-evaluate!! But our in-laws are 3 hours away too, so there's likely to be some long journeys at some stage, and I've read lie-flat seats are safer in such circumstances?

You might want to check the Which reports - I know when I last looked (which was some time ago) they found that these seats weren't safe in the event of a crash.

Hi,

We had the Jane Carrera (not sure if they make them any more but if not I bet you could find one 2nd hand on ebay) - it is an all-in-one travel system where the pram top detaches from the chassis to become a lie-flat car seat, and also can be used as a backwards-facing car seat later on.

Obviously only a good recommendation if you haven't yet bought another pram or buggy / travel system.

Good luck.

The only lie-flat baby car seat recommended by Which is the Britax Baby Safe Sleeper, which is about £130-140. Hope this helps

That's very helpful all, thank you!

I found the Britax Baby Safe Sleeper is quite heavy to carry around, but also feels nice and sturdy, which made me more confident it would do its job in the event of a crash. I could lift it with one arm so could transfer it from car to house easily enough, but I wouldn't want to carry it across town or anything!

The Safe Sleeper sits across two seats in the back of the car and hooks onto the seatbelts via some special adaptors, as far as the instruction manual indicates. It also clips onto the B-Smart 3 and B-Smart 4 bases (B-Smart being the new Vigour/Vigour+ from Britax) so it can be used as a pram.

However, it isn't suitable to be used as a carry cot, because of the harness. The lining is all relatively easy to remove and reattach, and can be bunged in the washing machine. There's also a platform inside that can be raised to sit the child up a little, but that's only usable when it's not being used in the car. (One of the necessary hooks disappears into a recess if you raise the platform.)

Hope that helps a little! I can't tell you too much about whether it's good or bad right now, I've only had a play with display models. Mine isn't delivered until next week and my LO isn't due until July.

I went for the Safe Sleeper because my family all live at opposite ends of the country. So there's likely to be a lot of 4+ hour journeys for the LO and lying flat is meant to be better for their spine than being put into a car seat for that length of time. I also have wishful thinking that maybe they'll sleep through the journey so I won't need to stop...

we also have jane matrix - i did read though that the chance of cot death in a long journey with a rear facing seat more than compensated for the differences in safety so thats something else to think about. we found drives of that distance no problem at all, DD slept so well in it!

here is a link to the Jane Carrera Pro Matrix travel system (think MumNWL and I are both talking about the same one). Have not done any research into safety but TBH really don't think it would be able to be sold if did not meet EC safety standards.