Our Top 5 tips when choosing a new carseat

We don’t want to recite statistics at you today. Suffice to say that car crashes are real and possible and we want everyone including our little people to be safe on the road.

By choosing and using your carseat correctly you can minimise the risk of injury in the event of an accident significantly.

Tip 1 – Is it easy to use?

You’ll be using this seat a lot. Is it easy for you to use? When you go to the hire company or the baby shop ask them to put the restraint on your backseat in the position it will be fitted in. How easy is it for you to get a baby in and out of this restraint?

Tip 2 – Is it easy to adjust?

We also suggest you test the adjustment mechanisms on the inbuilt harness – do they loosen and tighten easily? And when its time to adjust the shoulder straps can you do that from the front of the seat or do you have to completely uninstall it, adjust them then try and reinstall it each time?

Tip 3 – Is it affordable?

Price isn’t a great indicator for quality – and that’s a good thing. There’s something available for most budgets on the market today. Don’t feel like you’re a bad parent or being cheap if you can’t afford $700 for a carseat. The biggest price tag doesn’t ensure you have the safest seat. Have a look at the CREP results. The Child Restraint Evaluation Program (CREP) is a consortium of government agencies and motorist organisations whose aim it is to provide independent and consistent information on the levels of child protection from injury in a crash provided by individual car seats and the ease with which they can be used correctly using a very simple star system with 1 out of 5 being the lowest score and 5 out of 5 the highest. Of course if you don’t wish to buy your baby capsule we have a range of high quality, clean and safe baby capsules for hire.

Tip 4 – Is it travel system compatible?

This tip relates mainly to baby capsules but gee the travel system concept is a good one! Imagine you’ve been driving around for ages and finally, finally!! the baby is asleep. Well now it would be nice to grab a coffee or do some shopping right without having to disturb the baby. So if you have a travel system compatible capsule you can just pop your capsule straight onto your pram frame and you’re off. Lots of pram companies sell adaptors to match your capsule to your pram and of course we offer a range for hire.

Tip 5 – Longevity

How long can you use this restraint for? For the early days we would recommend you consider hiring a baby capsule just for convenience, saving $ and ease of use. When you are ready to move out of your hired capsule into a carseat make sure you consider just how long this next restraint is going to be useful for. Try and find a restraint with the highest shoulder height markers for ending use so you can use the seat for a long period of time. If you hope to keep your child rear facing then an extended rear facing seat with a tall shoulder height marker will be idea for you. Or maybe consider getting one of the new Type G restraints – these use the inbuilt harness up to an average 8 year old meaning you don’t won’t ever have to buy a booster seat.

Using our tips we hope that you can get the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to buying your child car seat. Choosing the right restraint is an investment worth making.