[shibujp]

I have two kids, the elder one 11 yrs and the younger 5 years. Both of them have been using car seats since their first step into the car...yes... including the journey from the hospital to my apartment right after their birth. My son used the car seat till he was 10 years old from the time of birth in 2013.

1. The safety aspect is unquestionable. The seats hold the kids safely in especially till 1 year old, when the rearward facing seat provide support to their neck muscles as you brake, turn etc.
2. Hold your infant or toddler in your arms as you travel is equivalent to holding a 3-15 kg projectile in your hand with the weight concentrated in the head in the even of a crash or an accident.
3. Kids pick up the importance of being safe early on and this translates into helmets, seat belts etc as they travel.
4. Select good quality baby seat even if they are pricier. Toddler seats cost from 4k upwards while seats for ages 6-12 cost more starting at 8-10k.
5. Seats for older kids are secured by the car seat belt and one useful feature I looked out for were the extensions on the head rest that prevented their head from flopping about as they sleep.
6. All associated activities drinking from bottles, munching on biscuits etc are all calmly executed from the premises of the car seat.
7. As a father it gives you the privilege of taking your infant or toddler on those jaunts, grocery runs without need for your wife or any other person - priceless in my book and also makes the home ministry more inclined to your future car purchases.

In short don't think twice but a car seat. Yes if you are starting it on a toddler it's going to be difficult but as a parent you owe it to them to keep them safe.

Drive on,
Shibu

[digitalnirvana]

Looking for booster seat recommendations please, that can be fixed on ISOFIX anchors. I have found this on Amazon but open to better ones. The children in question are 8 and 9 year old and so I need something that can be used for school runs. This will be new to them (we have not used car seats before). I prefer to get a backless booster seat instead of a full child seat as that will be easier to store, and to convince the adults and children to actually use.

Lifelong Cuppy Booster Car Seat for Baby - ISOFIX Child Seat for Safety - Car Seat for Kids 3 to 12 years - Light Weight, Backless Belt Positioning & Machine Washable Fabric -Safety Standard ECER44/04 https://amzn.in/d/asdCjo7

[BullettuPaandi]

Originally Posted by digitalnirvana

Looking for booster seat recommendations please, that can be fixed on ISOFIX anchors. I have found this on Amazon but open to better ones. The children in question are 8 and 9 year old and so I need something that can be used for school runs. This will be new to them (we have not used car seats before). I prefer to get a backless booster seat instead of a full child seat as that will be easier to store, and to convince the adults and children to actually use.

Originally Posted by BullettuPaandi

I remember when I was browsing about this a year ago that there's recently been a new regulation from the EU

It has been a while since I last looked into this, so kindly verify the info on this post.

Such 'Booster Seats' basically try to retro-fit your children as adults on the car seat, to be able to use the seat belts on them. These don't provide nearly the same protection as seats with backrests under the old regulation, let alone the new one- which takes into account of side impacts. You will anyway have to convince them to use the seat belts, without which these are useless. It's unclear from your post as to whether you are aware of how 'less-than-ideal' these are; so just having these said to avoid any false sense of security- for you and/or anyone browsing here with a similar requirement.

Now, as for the recommendations, I don't have any direct product suggestions. But, here are a few things you need to look out for:

1. You need seats that mount via ISOFIX (apparently, the old regulation allowed those that don't as well, perhaps under a different certification or group).

2. You also need to check the fitment of seat belts with your children on them- the seat belt should pass through their shoulders and pelvis just like it would on us adults.

• For visual aid, it shouldn't be as pictured in the Amazon product page- that seat belt passes through the pictured child's neck and chest. In case of frontal impact, the belt would strangle the pictured child by her neck and ribs/stomach.

• So, it is crucial for you to test fit and ensure if the seat belt passes through your children's shoulders and pelvis.

3. With such seats, there's also an issue of kids just sliding down the seat and not being in the proper position for the seat belt fitment. So, the seat should also not allow improper posture.

Edit: Needless to say, with such restrictions, the kids will find even booster seats as inconvenient. While I don't know how much more harder it could be to might as well convince them to use proper seats with harnesses, I'd still suggest to reconsider. If proper seats are a definite no, don't take this post to mean 'booster seats are useless' either; they are certainly better than nothing, given anchoring to chassis & proper fitment of seat belt is ensured.

[arthis2395]

We recently welcomed a baby boy into our life and with that, the hunt for the right car seat for the baby started. After reading quite a lot of reviews/suggestions/comments on this forum, wife and I agreed upon the following points.

1. Strict no to no-name Indian brands that advertise R44 compliance. None of these were actually crash tested unlike the ones you would find in the EU or the U.S.
2. We felt a detachable infant car seat (the basket type) was not suitable for us, as we would feel comfortable carrying the baby in our hands (outside the car of course) and that our city is not yet stroller (or pedestrian) friendly. Getting one of those nice ISOFIX/stroller compatible bucket infant seat felt a bit useless in our case.
3. Look for established brands like Graco, Chicco, Britax, etc. that properly test their products and provide R129 adherence.
4. Seat must be ISOFIX compatible. We have a Hyundai Exter that came with ISOFIX anchor points from the factory.

With these points in mind, I started my hunt online and shortlisted on Chicco Unico Evo i-Size. This i-Size model can be used for a height range of 40-150cm and came with good padding side supports. The model was also R129 compatible, which superseeded R44 regulations. The given model was listed for ~INR 25000 on Chicco India website, ~27000 on Amazon India, and ~23000 on First Cry (if you have Club membership).

I went to a First Cry physical store in Chennai and asked for ISOFIX compatible car seats. Surprise, they had only one in the store which was from Bonfino, R44 compliance. They had quite a lot of others on display, none of which were ISOFIX compatible. The sales person pushed and tried to convince me that R44 is the latest regulations and that Bonfino is the best brand for me. I politely asked if they have the Chicco model in the store, if not arrange one for me. He wasn't very interested, but did mention that they ordered one for a customer and they don't keep this model in ready stock as it is an expensive one compared to the typical offerings from other brands.

I came back and made the order on FirstCry, waited for 4 days only for the courier to mark the shipment as 'Rejected by customer'. FirstCry's customer support was of little help and they offered to 'try' to redeliver in a couple of days, but I had already lost my patience. I ordered the same model from Amazon, albeit being almost INR4000 more, got delivered in two days. I used my Amazon Pay card to get a cashback of INR1394, so all in all a good deal. The seat was delivered in a well packed box that had no external damages - a good sign.



The seat was new and came with all the tags - stating this explicitly as this forum has a few posts on Graco shipping used/damaged car seats when purchased off Amazon. There was no such comments on Chicco, but it doesn't hurt to keep an eye out, doesn't it?

Installing the seat in my car was not very easy for a couple of reasons.

1. Hyundai Exter does not come with dedicated plastic frames with lid around the ISOFIX anchor points. The metal anchor points are just wedged between the seat crease:


For example, this is how the anchor points are provided in Fronx:


The company-fitted seat covers from Hyundai don't come with a cut out for the anchor points, so the showroom just tucked the seat cover nicely under the anchor point, making it inaccessible. I had to remove the seat cover from the backrest, cut out a small portion for the anchor points and tuck back the cover all in. This was very challenging as the seat cover is tightly fitted and getting the same fit was a lot tougher than I anticipated it to be.

2. When I purchased the car, I also got the 3D boot mat from Hyundai. The catch here is that the ISOFIX tie down is on the boot floor and the 3D boot mat covers it fully when in place. I pulled out the boot mat, added cut outs on both sides and installed it back:




Once I sorted these two out, I was able to install the seat just fine and secure it using the top tether. The seat's build quality is excellent compared to BabyHug or R for Rabbit counterparts, but those are less than 1/3rd the price of Chicco, so an Apple's to Orange's comparison is not valid here.



Some of the plastics on the seat does rattle when driven around, but it isn't alarming. I will post a detailed usage-based review on the seat in the coming weeks/months. Cheers!

[carcrazeking]

I recently got myself an ISO fix seat from Joie. What a seat in terms of quality and cushioning. I was not satisfied with the regular brands like R for rabbit, baby hug etc as they have very poor cushioning and not advisable for long travel. Got chicco model first the same in the above post and it was good but had lot of movement and rattling noise. May be my unit was faulty so returned it and replaced it with Joie every stage fx. The cushioning, comfort and quality is extraordinary even better than the chicco seat. Initially there was no rattling noise. I recently had to remove it but didn’t know how to do it properly so mishandled it by pulling it hard and shaking it without releasing the iso fix clips and now there is a lot of rattling. But over all I am extremely happy cause my top most priority was cushioning and comfort