car seats

[Anifersgirl]

Hi all

I'm after advice about car seats. I know I've read somewhere that you're not supposed to leave young babies in car seats for more than two hours, but I'm trying to find out why, what age this applies to and what the potential problems are.

We're in the process of looking at travel systems and wondering if we can get away without getting a carry cot and just going with car seat then moving to pushchair.

Any pointers?

Thanks in advance

It's not good for them to be held in that position for too long and a carry cot allows them to lie flat and stretch out. I personally wouldn't have used the car seat instead of a carry cot/ lie flat pram even for less than two hours. DD was in the carry cot until six months because she just slumped too much in the push chair attachment so it was well worth the money, especially when you need to rock them to sleep in it in the middle of the night!

It depends whether you're planning to use the car seat as the main place where your baby 'lives' when s/he's not in his/her cot. It's definitely not recommended for that because car seats don't let them lie flat. If it's solely for pushing dc around town or whatever, and then going in the car, then it's probably ok.

FWIW dd1 had a bouncy chair during the day and a Nature's Nest at night. Her pushchair had a lie-flat setting as well as a sit-up setting so we could use that from when she was tiny. Not that she ever liked it - the sling was way better for transporting her - both in and out of the house!

What are you planning to use the car seat for?

hi

it's not good for their posture, their spine shouldn't be held curved like that for long periods with them strapped in tightly unable to move. when asleep they need to be lying completely flat ideally.

fwiw i am having my second child soon but don't want to use the heavy pram i had with my first baby.

so what i'm going to do is get a sling to get me through the first couple of months and then go on to a pushchair.
as long as you get a pushchair that can recline flat and has some support built in, this is apparently fine for a 3 months or so baby.

hth

we didn't buy a carry cot, used the car seat in the car and moses basket in the house and plan to do same this time

Please do NOT push them around in a convinience bucket. Car seats are bad for babies. They are safer than a car crash without one but other than that they are a factor in SIDs, poor liver growth and development, poor spinal growth and future skeletal problems, chin to chest breathing issues and low oxygen sats.
Our infant carrier stays in the car permentantly and we halt all journeys with a baby after 2 hrs for a 30mn break as per recommendations.
Personally I think ALL infants should be in a proper carrycot with a SIDS safety approved ventilated mattress but if not, then a lie flat pushchair is WAY safer than a car seat.

Hi!
I am getting a Jane Matrix pro car seat, that can lie down across two seats in the back of the car or can be put into a sitting postition if you need to that is suitable from birth. Then it can be in a sitting up position once your little one is older.
You can put this car seat on various pram systems as well.
One thing I would say is be careful about what you are carrying little one in as you can do some damage to yourself as the carrycots and car seats can be heavy and arward to carry meaning you could be pulling muscles or worse due to bad manual handling.

Have a look at www.childcarseats.org.uk - I found it pretty useful.

The health guidelines for car seats are obviously going to guide you.

but that aside i believe that a car seat should be chosen for it's safety and be the best that you can afford and the fit for your car not the convenience of whether it fits with your pram.

My car seat didn't fit the pram chassis but it was never an issue dd moved from car to pram without an issue.

Also the carrycot is really useful my dd slept in hers for 6 months so we didn't have to have a large cot in our room or the extra expense of a moses basket which she would have grown out of in no time. Plus as we stayed away from home a number of times in those first 6 months she didn't have to get used to a different bed we just took her carrycot with us.

Finally, our carrycot had a slight reclining back which was really useful as dd had reflux and our hv recommended we use it when needed to help the reflux which was great. A car seat only made the reflux worse because of the sitting position.

Trafficone you seem to have a very strong opinion about this one. I'd be very interested to learn more about the research that shows that car seats cause all these problems - would you be able to provide links? The only research I can find online linking car seats to SIDS are for studies carried out in New Zealand and Quebec - the New Zealand research indicated that in the cases of SIDS in car seats, the parents were also smokers, which was considered a major contributing factor, and in Quebec the researchers said that existing respiratory complaints could not be ruled out. I'd love to read more about the other potential hazards you list.

Obviously none of us want to put our children into unnecessary danger, but I'd be very interested in seeing the scientific evidence before drawing my own conclusions - hence the question above.

To answer your question Octaviapink we've got an inherited moses basket (and yes we're getting a new mattress, before you start having an aneurism, Trafficone) which we plan to use in the house and take when we go visiting. The car seat would be for the car, and when we're out and about. Of course now, with three months to go, I'm envisioning myself strolling around Kew, and taking long walks every day along the canal, but I'm only off work for three months, and i have a niggling suspicion that when it comes down to it, I'll be lucky if I get as far as the corner shop, in which case the carrycot may be an unnecessary expense for something that only gets half a dozen outings in the first 3 months.

We've also got a tiny car, so traveling with baby, pram and other stuff is already going to be a stretch - another reason why a car seat was looking like a good option.

Sunshiney I may follow your example and go with a sling to start with and then move onto the push chair as soon as possible - which push chair did you go for?