rear facing stage2 baby car seat?

[heiki]

Hi, am looking for a rear facing car seat for my 7 month old who is out growing his maxi cosi. Am having problems getting one, john lewis say they don't exist in the UK? Is this true? Would like him to be in one rear facing until at least age3 or 4. Any ideas?

I had a quick look and couldn't find any a month or so ago - one to look for is the maxi cosi mobi.... but seems only available in europe, you could probably get someone to put one in the post. I did notice that they are big though and didn't want to take the risk of it not fitting in our car.

www.rearfacing.co.uk/buyersguide.php

yes they do exist.
Be Safe is the brand in the UK, just launched in June. Try bumpto3.com - the company Gro who own bumpto3 are the UK distributors.
or contact Mamatoto.co.uk, they will order you one.

they are available more now, but not from john lewis or mothercare. the in car safety centre in belfast and milton keynes sell britax, brio and be safe ones now. there are loads of other places now too. wasn't so many when we were looking a while ago. look on www.rearfacing.co.uk under the buyers guide and this will give you a list. hth

that's because JL wants you to buy one they sell instead

As others have said above - go to the rearfacing site - we have brio zento's and they are brilliant. If you are near enough to make the drive to the in car safety centre at Essex they are fab and will let you try the seats out to see if they fit in your car (details on the rearfacing site above)

i have heard they are harder to fit than front facing and because JL don't fit them for you, maybe they have made the decision not to sell them... bad to say they don't exist in UK though

leningrad - you usually buy a newborn insert or it comes with it. britax first class is one.

The rearfacing website has loads of great info, as well as forums where you can post questions about specific seats. Our 3.5y and 18m DSs travel backwards, we bought their seats about a year ago - the Be Safe Izikid (imported from Sweden last year, but now available in the UK according to other posters), and the Britax Multi Tech (from the car seat retailer in Milton Keynes).

The ladies at the In Car Safety Centre near Basildon (Essex) offer impartial advice on most of the RF seats, and will be able to let you know if a specific seat is compatible with your vehicle. They can even fit it for you if you are able to get to them. Their contact details are on www.rearfacing.co.uk.

Good for you for finding out about RF seats - five times safer in a frontal collision

Leningrad - the Be Safe is sold as Group 0/1, my OH reckons they would be OK from 6 months, and it is definitely more of a "wrap around" seat than the Britax we have. Couldn't you borrow a RF Group 0 seat (from a reputable source, of course), and then buy a RF seat a bit later? The Britax Multi Tech would not be any good for a kid under a year (we reckon), but is very versatile - once your child is over 25kg (around 5y), you can turn it forwards for another 2-3 years, so you get your money's worth.

The Britax First Class has only been tested RF to 13kg (Grp 0+), at which point it MUST be turned and used FF.

We bought a Concord Ultimax when DD outgrew her infant carrier at 7 months (was all we could find at the time), but she wasn't happy in it for long journeys by about 15 months. We've since replaced it with a BeSafe IziKid and she thinks its great - we've had it since she was 19 months, now 25 mths and still happy as Larry. Whilst you can recline it while RF, because our rear seats have quite an incline on them the overall effect is still quite upright and she does tend to flop forward when asleep - I wouldn't have wanted her in it as a little baby.

Loopy, more or less for the same reasons as Tangle has stated - unless you're got a vehicle with insane amounts of leg room, you can't get much of a recline on it. (We've got a large Renault Laguna estate and the seat is still pretty much upright when reclined). If you want a more technical reply, I'll ask him to post later...

thanks for the advice, really helpful