[venkats2001]

Originally Posted by arvind71181

Using the normal car seat belt after 3 years is too too soon. I used the 5 point belt for my daughter till she was around 7.5 years old. Only after that she was put on the adult seat belt. The 3 point belt is only for use for booster seats and not directly.

My advice, please use the 5 point harness as long as you can, it is much more safer, especially for younger kids. Hope this helps

Thank you sir, that was exactly what even I have been thinking. I will look for options accordingly

Originally Posted by arvind71181

Using the normal car seat belt after 3 years is too too soon. I used the 5 point belt for my daughter till she was around 7.5 years old. Only after that she was put on the adult seat belt. The 3 point belt is only for use for booster seats and not directly.

My advice, please use the 5 point harness as long as you can, it is much more safer, especially for younger kids. Hope this helps

Can you please let me know which car seat you were using?

[arvind71181]

Originally Posted by venkats2001

Can you please let me know which car seat you were using?

This one:

https://www.chicco.in/products/80586...car-seats.html

[venkats2001]

Originally Posted by arvind71181

This one:

https://www.chicco.in/products/80586...car-seats.html

Thank you. I do not seem to find this available online for sale. I will check out in the stores if available somewhere in Pune

[libranof1987]

Guys, which one is better? My daughter turns one next week so I want to get her a car seat now. My car (EcoSport) has ISOFIX mounts but my wife's car doesn't.

https://www.amazon.in/Graco-4Ever-Co...by&sr=1-5&th=1

https://www.amazon.in/CHICCO-Unico-B...&s=baby&sr=1-1

This one is ISOFIX-compatible. Any issues using it with seatbelt?

[mithun]

One of my friends told me that it's always practical to fit a child seat on bigger cars like sedans/MUVs than on hatchbacks like Swift/i20. Also taking out or installing is very difficult in hatchbacks

Is there any truth in that?

[BenjiRoss]

Originally Posted by mithun

One of my friends told me that it's always practical to fit a child seat on bigger cars like sedans/MUVs than on hatchbacks like Swift/i20. Also taking out or installing is very difficult in hatchbacks

Is there any truth in that?

Not true at all.
I've used many car seats in my Xcent which has the same space as a grand i10.
With narrower car width and smaller cars ots a little more difficult but usually becomes simple after a couple of practices. I constantly remove and refit my car seats in my car.

[Miyata]

Originally Posted by mithun

Is there any truth in that?

Truth in that lies only to the extent that there is relatively more space to move around in bigger cars so a clumsy(-ier) person might feel more at ease fitting the same child seat in a bigger car!

I do off and on move the car seat between a hatchback and a sedan and felt equally at ease in both. Never tried in an SUV, but can very well imagine the process.

[amitahirrao]

Originally Posted by arvind71181

Using the normal car seat belt after 3 years is too too soon.

My advice, please use the 5 point harness as long as you can, it is much more safer, especially for younger kids. Hope this helps

It's not advisable to use 5 point belt after 3 years because the strength of 5 point seat belt is designed for weight of 15kg child ~ 3-4 year child.
It is same with isofix child seats, the isofix anchors are designed and tested for the weight of 30 kg. In this 30kg, 15 kg is car seat weight and 15 kg is child weight.

Please follow manufacturers instructions and those are there for a reason.

The blow moulded seat like R for Rabbit, Luvlap and mee mee will not keep your child safe. Invest in a good child seat that had solid injection moulded plastic parts.

[satya180]

The XUV300 being crowned the 'Safest Indian Car' was honestly quite a bit of a surprise for me, and the fact that the child safety score was the highest scored by any Indian car was an even bigger one. I really respect Mahindra for pursuing the cause of Occupant Safety so seriously, without which it would not have been possible for them to get this score. Such things never happen by fluke, they have to be built that way. This news instigated me to complete my review and post it here:

One of the first things I did after it was confirmed that my wife was pregnant, was to look for a car seat for our baby. Obviously, being an enthusiastic to-be dad, these things are not just exciting, but often turn into days, weeks and months of reading and research. For me and my family, safety was the most important criteria, so I set about looking for the safest child car seat available. I read detailed reports of GNCAP crash test results of various Indian cars, but I used to just glance over the child safety bit by just reading the score, never the details.

After going through most of the reports from their respective websites, I realised almost all of the child car seats used in the crash test were by Britax Romer. Specifically for infants, the BABY-SAFE2 i-SIZE seemed like the most commonly used seat. I went through their website and was immediately impressed with what I saw. The 'Made in Germany' tag subliminally appealed to me quite strongly, because being a mechanically inclined guy with automotive component manufacturing background, Germany holds a very special place in my heart. When we visited a few years back, the sheer 'overly thought out and over-engineered' feel of the place, the beauty of doing anything systematically to produce better results, the commitment to deliver 100% at work made me fall in love with the country, and I still believe that's the only country apart from the Netherlands I would want to shift to. Trains are on time accurate to the second, wow!

Anyway, I wasn't new to shopping for child car seats though, only a few years back we bought a Graco full travel system for my niece. Back then we visited FirstCry and Mothercare stores to check for the best one available, and we found Graco to be the best amongst them. So we bought it, and it served them well for 3 years or so.

So this time too I did the same, we visited the same stores and checked all available, but they dint feel as solid as I would like them to be. I believe child car seats have become cheaper over the years, because I remember paying more than the comparable prices of today. Prices ranged from Rs. 3000 to Rs. 7000, but all of them had a 'Chinese' feel to it, not as solid, flimsy feel and poor fit finish of mating parts. R for Rabbit seemed like the best amongst the rest, but still left me wanting for more. Both the stores did not retail Britax Romer products, so I was left wanting for more.










I went to the Britax Romer India website and sent them a mail regarding buying a BABY-SAFE2 i-SIZE along with the BABY-SAFE i-SIZE Flex ISOFIX base (because it had an adjustable base angle which meant the child car seat angle could be adjusted while still being locked in place). The seat was Rs. 15299 and along with the base came up to Rs. 19999. The price seemed relatively steep, but, it is a premium product with a lot of R&D, legit made in Germany, certified and compliant for the most stringent crash test norms (Euro NCAP), and is kind of the benchmark for safety. Plus the products looked fantastic, premium, sporty, everything an enthusiast dad wants. Basically, after too much research I was reassured that this is the safest child car seat option available in India, period. Didn't feel expensive anymore, infact seemed very well priced compared to the ones that I didn't feel were worth the money at all.

As per the customs of our family, the purchase could be made only after the baby is born. Britax Romer India said they would deliver within 3-4 days upon confirmation, so I decided to place an order in a way that I could bring the baby back home from the hospital in the child car seat itself, since it had an infant inlay too, and the fabric was certified safe for 1 day old newborn use.

That brings me to the next practical issue, convincing parents that a child car seat is safer than the 'safest' embrace of their hands. I had already talked to my parents about the baby coming home in a car seat only, and that there were no excuses acceptable to this rule, to which they agreed, and duly honoured it too! My parents also wear seat belts in the rear seats even when I'm not around, so I consider myself lucky that they listened to me about this. The seat belt in the rear seat bit honestly took years of speaking, convincing, not moving the car until all belted, cars videos etc. But it happened and I'm glad it did.

As planned, I placed the order and the car seat and base arrived at home exactly a day before the baby was to be brought home from the hospital. The packing boxes (there were 2, one for the seat and one for the ISOFIX base) were smart, felt solid (compared to the boxes of some car seats which too were thin and flexible and hardly offered any protection to the contents inside), and felt quite heavy.


I could hardly contain my excitement when the parcel arrived, and I immediately got to unboxing it. First impressions, the seat and the base were quite heavy! And as expected with a tag that says Made in Germany, the seat build quality was leagues above any other brand i had touch and felt before.It was heavy because it wasn't flimsy at all, everything felt plush, there was no play in the plastic parts, everything was well finished and looked like a very premium and well put together product. It was a way better engineered product than not just the other, but also better than what I imagined. The 5 point seat belt with soft pads, adjustable back angle, patented lie flat system, and infant inlay sets it apart from the best amongst the rest.





The ISOFIX base too was quite heavy, and came with clear instructions stuck on the base itself, for mounting in the car. The base angle was adjustable, meaning we would adjust the child seat alongwith backrest angle to get the most comfortable and safe seating/ sleeping position. Also, once it locked into place, it felt solid and felt like nothing could move it. And the child car seat just locked into place and in the perfect position when placed on the base. It has spirit level markers placed on the base and seat to make sure nothing is ever placed in a weird angle. The installation on the rear seat was easy and hardly took 2 minutes overall.


So we got the baby home in the car seat and our baby looked pretty comfortable snapped into the car seat. Taking a 4 day old child home in a child car seat might sound extreme but it was non-negotiable. The drive back home was slow, and the seat held the baby so snug that the baby slept in the first minute itself, and slept throughout the 10 minute drive home.

Once we got our baby boy home, I got to explore the seat in detail, and came away super impressed with the build quality and materials used in the seat. The fabrics, stitching, levers and buttons all felt top class. The seat felt plush, materials felt premium, stitching was flawless and the way everything was designed to fit into each other was perfect.

Soon the Britax car seat became my go-to activity to indulge in with the kid. I started using the seat for ferrying the baby around the house after feeding. I can proudly say (later) that I got my baby used to the car seat within a month of him being born.

After the 1.25 month travel ban was lifted, we immediately took the baby to one of our favorite secluded roads for a tiny drive in the Fabia, and the baby enjoyed half the drive eyes wide open, with no murmur or sign of discomfort. The drive back home the baby slept, well, like a baby. My wife was very happy with how the child seat mechanism worked and how well it held the baby in place and how stable it was on bumps and bad roads. She is always a 'Safety First' person, and experiencing this first hand with your own child made her a firmer believer of good child car seats.





Soon, a visit to a nearby temple gave us an opportunity to all travel together, and both my parents praised how safe a proper car seat is, and agreed unanimously that it was much safer and convenient than carrying the baby in their arms throughout the journey. The fact that the baby was looking around, didn't wail/cry even once helped in reassuring their beliefs.





Overall, I'm so glad to have chosen Britax Romer over the others for I know i would never have been fully satisfied with any other seat in its competition. With crash test norms being introduced in India, the use of child car seats has been / will be made mandatory, and with awareness and enforcement, the dangerous acts of keeping infants/ children unrestrained in the car will finally reduce. I find it shameful to admit that the closest of my friends, who own INR40L+ cars, still travel with their child loosely in their/wives lap in the from seat without seat belt. I’ve tried convincing them too, but at this age changes happen only if you want them to.

A recent video of a child falling out of a car while cornering ran shivers down my spine, and highlights how easy it is for things to go bad. Stay safe and keep your family safe.

EDIT: Thanks to the baby, this review took ages to compile and there are two MAJOR differences between the Britax Romer and the Graco travel systems:
1) The fabric used in the Graco makes the baby sweat quite a bit, and 30+ minutes in it make the baby uncomfortable. Whereas, on our first drive from Pune to Mumbai Airport the baby slept for the entire 2.5 hour drive, comfortable and happy.
2) The seat belts have belt pads/cushions near the shoulder/neck area, which the Graco and others lack. This is way safer and more comfortable as opposed to not having them.

Also, the Britax stroller runs so much better than the Graco, we ordered the entire travel kit for the baby. The baby just loves it, and spends at least 2 hours in it every day, right from mini strolls inside the house to the 11am sunlight stroll in our society for 30+ minutes.

Some more images:






Ill also put up a detailed review of the stroller + car seat + carry cot as soon as possible, as I feel its one of the best investments made for the baby.

[Thunder70]

I found Chicco Myfit harness in this website

https://www.ubuy.co.in/search/index/...on/store/store

Is this a genuine site? Can this child seat be used for a 2.6month toddler?

[amitahirrao]

Originally Posted by Thunder70

I found Chicco Myfit harness in this website

https://www.ubuy.co.in/search/index/...on/store/store

Is this a genuine site? Can this child seat be used for a 2.6month toddler?

This can be used for 2.6 months toddler. But, this is US regulations seat. Old technology compared to European one. Check for the seats that's has R44.04 or R129 label.

[Thunder70]

Originally Posted by amitahirrao

This can be used for 2.6 months toddler. But, this is US regulations seat. Old technology compared to European one. Check for the seats that's has R44.04 or R129 label.

Thanks for the info. Where i can find European regulation car seats? If you know any sites can you share it here?

[amitahirrao]

Originally Posted by Thunder70

Thanks for the info. Where i can find European regulation car seats? If you know any sites can you share it here?

I don't know about online platforms but I can suggest you some brands that do sell European regulations seat in India. Britax Romer, Chicco, Graco, Joie and Mothercare. These are the best quality brands as per the sequence. Best bet is to visit Mothercare store and there you will find combination seats for your toddler. If you want to buy online i think you will get all above brands on major e-commerce portals. But invest in some good seat that has solid plastic parts and not blow moulded cheap plastics. The cheap seats you will get from the brands like RforRabbit, MeeMee and Luvlap.

[Thunder70]

Originally Posted by amitahirrao

The cheap seats you will get from the brands like RforRabbit, MeeMee and Luvlap.

I saw these in online but these are not ISOFIX child seats. So as you said better to go to outlets and check which one is suitable and comfort.

[amitahirrao]

Originally Posted by Thunder70

I saw these in online but these are not ISOFIX child seats. So as you said better to go to outlets and check which one is suitable and comfort.

Check Britax Romer Dualfix or Chicco UNICO CAR SEAT. I think these are the best seats with isofix for your Toddler. Chicco seat is for longer range and I found this on chicco india website. Britax romer india website also has this product but it's crossing over 43k.