Compatible car seat or not?

[cpaxbell]

Hi! This is my first ever Mumsnet post but thought you all would be the best people to ask! My husband and I are expecting our first baby in August and we're starting to think about what we'll need to buy!

I've been looking at pushchair travel systems that include a carry cot and pushchair that fit on the same base. Some of these bases will also fit a car seat but the car seats that tend to fit are only suitable up until the child is around 13kg. Then we'd need to buy a bigger one! I've seen seats that are suitable from birth to four years in Mothercare but they don't appear to be compatible with pushchairs 🤔

So my question is, how useful did you find being able to attach a car seat to the pushchair wheels and is it worth probably having to buy another seat when your child is a bit older?

Thanks in advance for your help!

We could of bought a catr sear that went on on our pushchair but we didn't. It's not good for baby to be in a car seat for too long as it bit good for the spine. Baby should be able to stretch out as much as possible.

Personally I’ve been really happy with a sling for the majority of the time and a pushchair with carrycot very occasionally (pushchair gets used a bit more now I can run with him). I didn’t like the idea of a little baby in a car seat for hours at a time, and it!’s not recommended either.

On reflection, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with the carrycot and would have bought the infant insert you could buy for our (lay flat) pushchair rather than dropping £100+ on a carrycot we used a handful of times and he grew out of at 4 months but that’s just me.

We have a Joie Every Stage and it’s been great so far. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to unclip the car seat and bring it in when he’s asleep for example but our car isn’t isofix compatible and he’s really heavy so it would probably be a real pain anyway!

I think you can get away with it with your first child but by DC3 when I was doing multiple school/nursery runs etc. I found it invaluable to be able to clip the car seat on and off the pushchair frame and not disturb a sleeping baby or faff with another set of straps.

Just curious, but why is a sling - where baby can’t stretch out - ok and a car seat not?

We didn’t use the clip onto buggy car seat very much, likewise not a sling as we had a baby who always stretched to the max and moaned if restricted. Especially in a sling, funnily enough

We didn't buy one. With all the warnings about how long you can put a baby in one we couldn't see a use case where we'd have him in the car seat and transfer him to the base.

Instead we went for a joie stages which stays in the car and will last a long time and use the pram bassinet

I was never keen as I knew it isn't good for baby to spend too long in a car seat so always intended to use the carrycot. As it happened, the Maxi Cosi car seat we chose (based on safety ratings / good fit in our car), was compatible with the peak we chose anyway. When DD was born, she had a condition that required frequent hospital trips and the fact that the car seat worked with the pram was a godsend for nipping in and out the hospital. Although she was a small baby, car seats are heavy and it was much easier to wheel her to the appointment (where she was removed from the seat for physio), without the hassle of having to set up the full pram each time.

Pram not peak

In the sling you can position them upright so their airways are unrestricted and their back falls into a natural curve.

Car seats hold them in an unnatural position and can restrict their breathing if they are unable to support their own heads.

With that said, I bought the car seat clips for #2 and used it twice because it didn't make life any easier and she looked so uncomfortable. I would buy an extended rear facing seat suitable from birth of we another and stick with sling and lay flat pushchair for out and about.

We have this - maxi cosi car seat with uppababy vista. I've found it invaluable as I have one of those babies who sleeps best in the car. So instead of her screaming round the supermarket in her pram which she hates, I drive til she's asleep then get to do the shop in peace. I'm just careful she's never in it for more than 2hrs a day and transfer her between it and the sling. It's also handy when visiting people as somewhere to sit her that isn't my knee if I need to pop to the loo etc.

I think most prams and travel systems will only fit an up to 12 month car seat. I had the mothercare orb pram and the maxi cosi cabriofix. I found it really useful sometimes when nipping to shops as if baby fell asleep in car I could just pop the car seat onto pram and carry on shopping without waking up the baby.

And that first 12 months they do a lot of napping during the day so if you like to get out and about the smaller car seats that go on a pram to me we're totally worth it for flexibility. Also handy to put them in all ready and carry them to and from house from car (which the 0-4yr car seats you couldn't do as they stay in the car).

I then at 12 months bought an I size isofix car seat which lasts till 4 years.

Thank you for all your advice! It's given me plenty to think about ☺️ particularly with regards to not leaving baby in the car seat too long!

It's fiiiiine! Don't worry. Get the car seat and adapters. You won't use it very much but for those times when you're popping around quickly and in and out of car/shop/car/shop and the baby is asleep it's fab to plonk him straight on to the pram rather than disturb them to lie them in the basinet attachment. If you're doing a longer shop or a wander from the car, put them in the basinet so they can have a stretch. Honestly, some people are so hysterical about guidelines and rules. It's all fine.

Its useful when the weather is cold and you have to get from the car to the house as you can put them in the seat snuggled under a blanket while still indoors and get them straight in the car without them getting cold (they're not supposed to be in snowsuits etc in the seat as the straps can't be tightened enough)

Thanks! Our local Mothercare is closing down and had 40% off all the Prams and car seats so we've had a good shop about and ended up getting one in there with a compatible car seat 😊 I can definitely see it being handy for really quick errands and I slept in the car a lot as baby so maybe my little one will be the same, I still do it on long journeys haha! Phew I actually did know about the snowsuit thing, my friend had a nightmare getting her father in law to stop doing it when he was babysitting!