wooo!!! new carseat!!! :) updated with pic

[purple13]

i made a 150 mile roundtrip to milton keynes yesterday and came away with a brand new rear facing car seat

its the britax 2-way elite and connor can stay rear-facing in it til he's 55lbs it was the only one that fits in my car so i didn't have much choice in the end, but i'm really pleased.

i asked the lady who fitted it for me what her opinions were on stage 1 rear-facing seats (they've got a big selection of equally expensive front-facing ones too) and she said that they're definitely the safest and that demand is slowly picking up.

the reason they don't get marketed here (despite being obligatory in places like sweden) is because so many forward facing seats are improperly fitted in this country that the manufacturers don't see the point in selling a seat that's more complicated to put in cars i find that really sad

 

[beanie]

oooh sounds fab. we went looking for a rear facing one as Cally was bursting out of her baby one, but all the ones we could find were really bad at side protection and after weighing up all the risks in the end we decided to put her in a front facing one, which she went in two weeks ago. I wish we had known about the one you have got. Its so weird to see them in a bigger car seat, they look so grown up. I hope they do start raising the issue though, very few shops we went into knew about the new recommendations we tried to get as close to a year before transferring Cally but I couldn't do up her straps, the chubs that she is.

 

[purple13]

LOL bless cally - connor's just simply too long for his now, his head's way up over the top of the infant carrier! he's just under 9kg but i figured that he probably meets 9kg when he's fully clothed so am not worrying too much about that

TBH ours isn't as good with side impact as the newer britax model, but the newer one wouldn't fit in the car and our car has a 'good' side impact rating according to ncap... hopefully we'll never need to find out!!

 

[ASD123456]

Ohhh purple13 we are looking for a high weght limit rear facing. Who did you buy it off? Are you happy with the Britax one? It's crazy how hard it is to get hold of rear facing for babies over 35lbs in the UK. Was it expensive? Sorry for all the questions but I am struggling to find a suitable carseat.

In an ideal world I would have the Maxi Cosi Prioir combination from America but that would be a bloody hard task to do considering price and shipping and also you don't know if it's been chucked aout and damage whilst being shipped!!

xxx

 

[Sherlock]

Ooooo we hope to be making a trip there soon also for the same reason

Can you take piccies for us please? I'd love to see pics of it fitted.

Our LO still has a bit of time before being too big to be rear facing in his current seat and I am still trying to decide which rear facing till age 4 might be good for us.

Did you get the link to that store from the rear facing website?

My OH worries that a rear facing won't fit over the footwell of our car but I reckon it would. I just don't want LO to be forward facing at 9 months or so as I've read the studies etc and I know which way I would prefer him to be facing. He is used to it so its no biggie to keep him that way.

Out of interest, did they know what seats fitted what car. We have a Britax atm and am not sure what will fit ours. Must make more calls.

 

[Sherlock]

Ohhh purple13 we are looking for a high weght limit rear facing. Who did you buy it off? Are you happy with the Britax one? It's crazy how hard it is to get hold of rear facing for babies over 35lbs in the UK. Was it expensive? Sorry for all the questions but I am struggling to find a suitable carseat.

In an ideal world I would have the Maxi Cosi Prioir combination from America but that would be a bloody hard task to do considering price and shipping and also you don't know if it's been chucked aout and damage whilst being shipped!!

xxx

Did I not give you the link to the rear facing website which lists all the stockists?

http://www.rearfacing.co.uk/buyersguide.php

 

[Sherlock]

I'm leaning toward the Recaro Polaric personally.

 

[Clydesdaleclopper]

I think we are going to try to get a BeSafe IziKid shipped over from Sweden as a trip to any UK stockists of rear facing seats is not really an option for us.

 

[ASD123456]

Ohhh purple13 we are looking for a high weght limit rear facing. Who did you buy it off? Are you happy with the Britax one? It's crazy how hard it is to get hold of rear facing for babies over 35lbs in the UK. Was it expensive? Sorry for all the questions but I am struggling to find a suitable carseat.

In an ideal world I would have the Maxi Cosi Prioir combination from America but that would be a bloody hard task to do considering price and shipping and also you don't know if it's been chucked aout and damage whilst being shipped!!

xxx

Did I not give you the link to the rear facing website which lists all the stockists?

http://www.rearfacing.co.uk/buyersguide.php

Yes you did give me that link before and it was very helpful, thanks, but I was just wondering if purple had been to a place I was unaware of. No harm in asking

I think we are going to go for the Brio Zento after some looking around.

 

[Sherlock]

Yes you did give me that link before and it was very helpful, thanks, but I was just wondering if purple had been to a place I was unaware of. No harm in asking

I think we are going to go for the Brio Zento after some looking around.

O for sure

I think it was the MIlton Keynes place listed on the rearfacing site she went to. I've not found any others there other than that one.

We are going to try the place down in Weymouth first I think and see if that one fits and is one we like. If not Recaro will be what we will try for.

 

[purple13]

yup alex, it was from 'in car safety' in MK - it was the closest stockist of rear facing seats to us... i called them the day before we went to check that they had seats in stock - didn't want a wasted journey

our seat was £185 and i'm really pleased with it. the newer britax one is £250; its quite a different looking seat and a bit more substantial looking. they had another 2 rearfacing seats in stock but they were isofix and our car doesn't have the points. and they're getting the nordic secura in in february i think...

our particular seat uses the headrest of the passenger seat to help secure it - there isn't a huge amount of legroom in the passenger footwell any more, but connor's safety is worth a bit of adult passenger discomfort. the newer britax seat requires a gap between the car seat and the passenger seat so probably wouldn't be ideal for a small car. also, the main reason we struggled with a seat that would fit was because our rear car seats slope down quite steeply - all things worth bearing in mind if you're importing a seat without getting someone to install it for you.

clydesdaleclopper - i really liked the look of the izikid too; i found it on a couple of disability websites in the UK being sold for £800+ what an appalling rip off!

sherlock - i'll add some pics later; my computer has 0 memory space to upload anything so i need to sort that out first

 

[purple13]

off to the shops this morning:

 

[Sherlock]

That looks really comfy and he'll have loads of room as his legs grow and it tilts more upright.

We are trying to find a weekend to make it to Weymouth to try out the seats he stocks there.