Looking to buy a new child car seat? We’ve tested and rated 11 leading examples to help you find the best one for your needs
Claire Evans claire.evans@haymarket.com
ADVICE
Photography: John Bradshaw
NAVIGATING THE WORLD of child car seats, with all its jargon and advertising spiel, can be confusing. A child seat can also be a big expense, and it’s one of the most vital pieces of safety equipment you’ll buy for your child, so it’s important to make an informed choice.
The first thing to check is that a seat complies with the latest R129 safety regulations rather than the older R44 certification.
R129 seats are put through more rigorous testing than R44 seats. In addition to the front and rear collisions that are required for R44, R129 seats undergo a side impact collision, and the crash test dummy has 32 sensors, compared with just three before, so more information can be gathered about potential injuries.
R129 also states that seats should be sold with information on the height of the children they’re suitable for, instead of their weight or age. This is intended to help parents know when to switch to a larger seat. They must also keep children facing rearwards up to an age of 15 months, whereas R44 stipulated that this was required only up to nine months.
R129 seats can be secured either with a car’s seatbelt or Isofix mounts, and so can the latest i-Size seats – an enhancement of R129 that stipulates a maximum size for the seat, ensuring it will fit in any i-Size-approved car.
To help you find the best child seat for your needs, we’ve tested and rated 11 examples in four age brackets, using a Volvo XC90 SUV. Although you can still buy R44 seats right now, we haven’t included them in our tests, because they won’t be available after September 2024.
How we did our testing
TO CREATE AN overall rating for each child seat, we considered four key areas: ease of use, practicality, value for money and safety, giving a rating for a number of aspects within each category.
Rather than simply basing our scores for practicality and ease of use on our own opinions, we asked Claire Waterhouse and Julie Dagnall from independent advisory organisation Child Seat Safety to assess each seat. Between them, Claire and Julie have more than 50 years’ experience in the road safety industry, and they specialise in child car seat fitting. They
