Best car seat for 9 mnths +?

[midivydale]

Hi all,

Please could any of you point me in the right direction? My lo has outgrown his infant car seat (maxi cosi) and we need to buy a new one. Any recommendations would be greatly received as well as any local (ish) places to go to for shopping and advice.

I really dont want to drag ds to john lewis so any tips would be great.

Thank you so much

CX

[hellosailor]

the maxi cosi priory (called priorfix if you get the isofix version) scores highest in the which? ratings as the next stage up car seat with a traditional 5 point harness.

The german 'kiddy' range of carseats which have a safety bar instead of traditional harness also score very highly, in fact they come out on top, but we bought one and had horrendous problems, our toddler literally fell out of it several times while we were on the motorway - we had fitted it correctly - and after some rather dubious and lengthy interaction with kiddy it emerged that this is a fairly common problem, that and older children being able to push the bar out.

if you google it you find lots of reviews from parents who have turned round to find their baby in the foot well or standing up on the seat. Kiddy told me that they are working to rectify the safety issue by designing a special insert to try to keep children in the seat in these instances.

I spoke to John Lewis about this (we obviously had to return their seat) they were shocked that Kiddy were trying to supply an insert to make their seats safe secretly through their customer services in Germany, and only when parents contacted them highlighting the safety issue, and yet as one of the leading suppliers of the seats they had been told nothing about the safety issues and the insert, and it was not available in stores)

When I sent Kiddy a final email imploring them to make the safety risk with their seats public before a child is seriously injured or worse, their correspondence with me abruptly stopped, as I knew it would, because they simply cant afford to acknowledge such an email. I found 2 other parent reviews on line where they said that Kiddy were willing to correspond with them and acknowledge the safety issues they were finding with their seats right up until they urged them to make it public and then Kiddy stopped replying....I have a couple of friends with kiddy seats who love them and have not experienced any problems, but personally I would not want to take the gamble and my advice would be to steer well clear

[Undiscovered]

Hi,

Thats intesting to know HS. We have a 16 month old who has just had a growth spurt and we are now popping out of the top of our Cybex Aton 0+. We were hoping to get a rear facing next stage, but it won't fit in our ford focus (or it would, but I driver wouldn't!!). We were going to go for the Kiddy seat and have seen two types of reviews - either (1) brilliant, brillant - best by far - much better than 5 points and (2) the same as your post!

Think we are probably going to go ahead with the Kiddy and see what happens on a few test drives (the 16 month old is a strong wriggler though so am worried).

MID - we went to Peppermint on Northcote Road and they were really helpful. There's also somewhere in Petts Wood I think, but I haven't been.

x

[snowboarder]

We have an isofix kiddy pro for our now 3.5 yr old - we got it a year ago when he started breaking out of his 5 point harness. It's been good for him but I did try our younger son in it at a few months ago at about 14m and he didn't manage at all well - started slipping down in the seat as HS describes! I thought it was because it wasn't really set up right for him but maybe just not great for the younger ones - it is very upright. It is much better for older toddlers and it will last us hopefully. Youngest has been in a second stage rear facing seat since 10m which has been great.

[Strawbs]

I got the maxi cosi pearl from mothercare old kent road.. mini strawbs is very comfy in it x

[Mrs Bigsy]

we've got a britax evolva, really sturdy, lasts through group 1,2 and 3. was in which best buy review

got it from precious little one, online baby retailer, cheaper than john lewis, next day delivery

http://www.preciouslittleone.com/products/38/group-1-2-3&pageNum_rsCategoryProducts=1&totalRows_rsCategoryProducts=85/

[The Nappy Lady]

We had a rear facing seat for my youngest from 9 months to over 3, she's still in it now but forward facing at 4 years.

It's been brilliant - came from the place in Petts Wood, they couldn't have been more helpful. You do need to book an appointment for advice & fitting, there is parking outside (pay & display).

Do at least look at www.rearfacing.co.uk. It isn't for everyone but personally keeping my youngest rear facing til gone 3 was no issue at all & gave me peace of mind especially on longer journeys.

[bluesuperted]

Another big fan of rear-facing, we have the Britax Two Way Elite in our Golf, goes behind the passenger seat and fits fine but we are a small family. Son loves it and actually hated being forward facing on holiday this year. We bought ours from the excellent In Car Safety Centre in Milton Keynes.

A dad friend asked me why we keep E rear-facing at the weekend - I gave him a few reasons whilst not being preachy but his comment 'don't you think it's unfair to him' made me giggle as it reminded me of this hilarious (and informative) blog post:

http://1000reasonsimabadmom.com/reason-137-i-bore-my-toddler-to-death/

Our son is definitely not suffering psychologically from facing backwards!! Wish there was more information out there about this issue, we are so behind other countries.

[RobMiller]

We went rear facing (check out http://rearfacing.co.uk/).

We chose the Britax 2 Way Elite (http://www.incarsafetycentre.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/30/products_id/46), because our car had passenger footwell storage which make the models with a supporting leg unsuitable. We've been really pleased with them and our twin boys are still using them. The boys are tall, but we only turned them to forward facing at 3.5 years old, and they were really happy facing backwards (even though they're quite tall).

We bought ours from the In Car Safety Centre as the Petts Wood shop didn't stock this model at the time. I can thoroughly recommend the Petts Wood people though - they were really happy to help, even though they couldn't provide what we needed.

[midivydale]

Thank you so much everyone! All this is very helpful. Thank you