Which car seat to buy?

Hi all. I need some about choosing a car seat for soon to arrive Miss Audrey Armani. The wife’s family has no experince with such things, so once again I turn to Forumosa. What do you all recommend?

Bunji cords and a roof rack…but then the youngcowboy always has been a rather good sport about things like this.

Developed a very strong grip also.

Do you have a budget? If not, get the best one you can.

Seriously though, if you can get one that you can easily attach/detach, that would be good (especially if you might end up travelling in more than one car. Also, if it can easily swap from being front facing to reverse facing, that’s a bonus.

Buy a decent brand.

I have perused many a car seat for my littlun and have discovered that from 5,000 to 25,000 there is no difference in the safety ratings stamped on the sticker, on the sides. There is however quite a large difference in the quality of the fabric and cushioning. As the safety performace was the same throughout the ones I looked at, I opted for the one that was going to be easiest to clean when he threw up his full bottle of milk all over the back seat, and that seat turned out to be one of the cheaper 5,000nt models. A British brand, but I don’t remember the name of it and it isn’t really important. It simply had a wipable covering and removable, wipable cushion on the inside.
My kid’s seat is adjustable in angle and can recline from about 45% degrees to a more upright 80 degrees, but some of the more expensive seats for smaller children can recline to almost flat, for sleeping babies with little strength in their backs to support them on long distances (I think these seats can’t be used for too long though as the max weight of child is limited). It is recommended that most seats are placed in reverse until the child reaches a certain weight, and that is because the over shoulder body straps cannot easily hold the child in the seat when it is still small and very maluable. There are always instructions with the seat to tell you how to instal your seat, so don’t worry too much about the weights and when to turn the seat. Most child seats hold children up until they are about 15-20 kilos in weight, and then must be replaced with a booster seat, which holds them for much longer, until they can wear a seatbelt. A few retailers have told me this or that about certain seats, only to be proved completely wrong when I have read the English instructions out, in fornt of them. They will guess and give false information from their assumptions about the seats they are selling. Most good seats are imports from either Japan or Europe, and usually only come with English information and no Chinese, so this is a plus for you, but the salespersons can’t always understand what they are selling.

Oh, and of course you do know that you should never fit a child seat in line with an airbag right? Fit it in the back seat.
On some model cars the rear seat belts, when fully extended will activate a ratchet mechanism which prevents the seat belt from being extended again when it is realed in, until its fully realed in state, when the ratchet disengages. This is perfect for child seats as the car’s seatbelt is the anchoring for the child seat and will have some give in it, causing the seat to always be movable, unless the seatbelt has the ratchet mechanism, which will hold the seat firmly in one possition, until the seatbelt holstering clip is disengaged. You can check to see if your has this ratchet mechanism by simply pulling the rear seatblet out, until its end when the ratchet, if fitted, will engage and you will hear a clicking sound as the belt is allowed to real back in.

Edit: For a good selection of children’s car seats go to a shop situated at the south west corner of the Ren-Ai road and Gwang-Foo south road intersection (near the memorial hall)(assuming you are near Taipei). Look for the K.F.C. and then look up to the second floor next door, you will see an infancy shop catering for all baby’s needs. I recommend this shop for most hardware needs such as pushchiars/strollers, seats, thermometers, prams, cots etc.

car seat for infant or car seat for older?

infant… soon to be arriving.

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Bunji cords and a roof rack…but then the youngcowboy always has been a rather good sport about things like this.

Developed a very strong grip also.[/quote]

Brilliant solutions… :unamused:

I think we’re just going to put Miss Audrey in some velcro jammies and stick her up on the the back seat with a quick flip of the wrist… how does that idea grab ya? :sunglasses:

But seriously, thanks Irishstu and sulavaca for the input. We’re down in Kaohsiung near Siaogang, and there’s some places here with seats here to look at.

You’re very welcome. I’m always happy to help any minority that wishes to ensure the safety of their child or themselves.

I recommend Britax car seats. They’re known for high quality and safety ratings. We’ve used the Roundabout and the Marathon.

Visit the link below to get info on their products, as well as learn what safety features are important to consider…such as 5-point harness, rear/front facing, baby’s weight consideration, etc.

britaxchildcare.com/

You’ll want to consider if you’ll need to be able to detach the car seat from a base so you can tote baby in car seat into the house, restaurant, store, stroller, etc. Convenient, but you’ll have to buy a new car seat when baby soon outgrows it.

Also if using a car seat on an airplane is going to be a factor for you, check that the car seat conforms to airline safety standards.

I haven’t seen Britax sold locally, but if I had to buy one again while in Taiwan, I’d order online.

whens the little one due? ours is almost too fat for hers…

the reason i ask is we have an infant rear facing only that will last until bub is 4-6 months. then we will install a bigger rear or forward facing one once her neck is stronger.

i recommned an infant specific one to start with, preferablu one that simply comes out of the car and attaches into your stroller. combi do these sort of modular systems as does quinny. but quinny is super pricey… cool tho.

prices here are obscene - you can buy quality a multi-use (car seat & stroller)in canada (for example) for cheaper than one of the two items here.

if anyone is coming to visit, or something along those lines, you may be better off having them bring one that you research on the net.

costco (in canada) sells good ones - perhaps you can see if costco has any/can bring one in at a reasonable price?

The prices here are indeed unreasonable and can be found much cheaper elsewhere. I am not sure if the import tax and the rarety of such items has a helping hand in making these imports unafordable to many here.

[quote=“honeybird”]Also if using a car seat on an airplane is going to be a factor for you, check that the car seat conforms to airline safety standards.
[/quote]
Just curious, do any of the locally sold car seats contain the tag stating that the seat conforms to airline safety standards? I didn’t see any when I went looking, so I bought from the US instead.

If you’ll be flying to the US, you might want to look into this, as I heard flight attendants may refuse to let you use your seat unless it has the proper tag.

sounds like Serendipity. She’s due next week, and will take her first car ride from the hospital to the sit month center a week after that. If that timetable works for you, then we’re both in luck!

The wife likes it too. They’re doing a basinette/stroller two for one deal down here somewhere. I’m skeptical of gimmicky things, but others have mentioned the advantages of a clip-in clip-out car seat: I’m listening.

Yes… this may be an issue for us as soon as next summer. Does anyone else have experience with this?

head over to parentpages.net - their forum had a discussion on airline standards recently. i will see if i can dig it out later.

We have a Britax for our oldest son, it was given to us by someone who had brought it over from the US. He really likes it (and we do, too). I recently read reports about Britax and how it is one of the few seats that have a five-point harness that holds up to accidents, I’m always a little skeptical about research like that but it might be worth your time reading up about that yourself.

I do have some contact with people who are online retailers for Britax in the US if you are interested in looking into that brand.

[quote=“scomargo”][quote=“honeybird”]Also if using a car seat on an airplane is going to be a factor for you, check that the car seat conforms to airline safety standards.
[/quote]
Just curious, do any of the locally sold car seats contain the tag stating that the seat conforms to airline safety standards? I didn’t see any when I went looking, so I bought from the US instead.

If you’ll be flying to the US, you might want to look into this, as I heard flight attendants may refuse to let you use your seat unless it has the proper tag.[/quote]

Yes… this may be an issue for us as soon as next summer. Does anyone else have experience with this?[/quote]

I should clarify I was speaking from my experience being from the U.S. where the FAA creates the airline safety standards I was referring to. So I don’t know how car seats sold outside of the U.S. are safety measured, labeled, and what not.

On U.S. sold car seats, if it meets airline safety standards, there is a label on the car seat…and it should be also written in the owner’s manual which should be attached to the car seat at all times anyway. You can also call the car seat manufacturer or airline to see if your car seat meets standards. Again, U.S. based airlines can help you with this as they should have this information at hand. Not sure about other airlines.

As of today, the use of a car seat is not a requirement for babies flying in the U.S., although it’s highly recommended for safety reasons, of course.

When we used our Britax on board, we never encountered airline personnel checking to make sure the seat was approved for safety. But, I too, have read you may be asked to check in the car seat if it doesn’t meet standards.

Helpful links regarding FAA, labels, and car seat use on planes:
carseat.org/Legal/FAA_Childproof.pdf
saferidenews.com/html/Airplane_Eng.htm

Please check for current facts/details with your airline before traveling.

Like AWOL, I recommend using the infant car seat first.

With our son, I didn’t find a car seat/stroller combo (aka travel systems) I was satisfied with, so I bought a Combi stroller that could hold a wide variety of other manufacturer’s car seats. And separately bought a Century (I think) infant car seat. Unfortunately, Combi doesn’t make that same model anymore.

Anyway, I liked the convenience of the clip-in, clip-out car seat as it was nice to have a clean, safe, comfortable place for baby to sit in when we:
-went shopping/used shopping carts
-dined at restaurant
-needed a second set of arms to hold baby (like being outside of home, alone with baby and no where to put him when you need to free your hands)
-needed to bring him inside but he fell asleep in the car seat…fewer chances of waking him up
-needed to go out but it was also baby’s naptime…we put him in the car seat, rocked him until he fell asleep and then easily put him in the car still asleep to make our outing.

Our Century infant car seat model was great also b/c you could clip the seat into the base or secure it into the car without the base. Convenient if you have 2 cars…just keep the base in one car.

We got a great car seat/ stroller combo. Its big but light and strang and easy to use.
Its a Graco. The big black top o the line model. It has the car base that can stay in the car and lets you take the seat in or out instantly. It also converts into almost any type of pusher, stroller, pram or seat that you could want.