I am a little late to this party, but it’s Child Safety week this week. Over the past two years, I have spent a LOT of time researching car seats. I got a little bit obsessed with it when Sam was ready for a stage 1 seat.
One of the perks of my role as a Britax Mumbassador is that I get to hear about their latest products ahead of their official release. There have been two car seats which I have been waiting to see for a while.
The first is the Britax XTENSAFIX, which allows children to remain in a five
point safety harness up until age of 6. This helps combat the issues of
moving children too quickly to an adult seat belt, when they may not be
ready. It is a stage 1-2-3, forward facing seat, so lasts from 9 months
until around 12 years (35kg).
Sam is very tall for his age, and has almost outgrown his stage 1 seat now. I was worried he would have to go into an adult seatbelt much too soon. The XTENSAFIX sounds like it will prevent this! Britax are kindly sending me one to review, as soon as they become available in the UK. They’ll have an RRP of £220, and has isofix, top tether and seatbelt fitting options, so it is compatible with almost all cars. It is due to arrive in the UK in the next few weeks!
The other car seat I have been keeping my eye on is the Britax Max-Fix. This is Britax’s first ISOFIX rearward facing seat which is suitable from birth to 4 years (18kg). Research shows that rearward facing seats are safer. If your car (and child) allow you to use rearward facing, I’d definitely go down this route.
My two both hated being rear facing though, so for me it was a case of weighing up the risks. I knew I was more likely to have an accident if they were rear facing, as their screaming was so distracting. I chose to get them both forward facing seats as soon as possible, which made car journeys much happier for us all!
The Max-Fit is 20% lighter than any of its competitors and it comes boxed, ready to install, without any complex fitting procedures. It looks great, has all the safety technology you would expect from Britax, and retails at £275. It is available now.
It still scares me that 70% of carseats installed with via a seatbelt connection are incorrectly fitted, while 96% of isofix car seats are fitted correctly. If you order directly from Britax, you can collect your seat from a large number of locations, and they’ll install it free of charge.
This is not a sponsored post. I just wanted to pass on the info!
