Scottish Elises

Well, as a few of us are soon to become parents / recently become a father, I thought I'd start a thread to discuss / support each other through the process. I am really excited, although we have a few months to go yet till the bundle of fun arrives.

First of all, where are peeps going for the prams / baby seats? What requirements are important?

We have been to the Pram centre and John Lewis so far and have been massively disappointing in finding what we need. Perhaps we are being too fussy, but we can only find one option that fits some of our requirements.

We reckon our requirements are to have a pram, a car seat and to start with a sling type carrier, then later a rucksack carrier.
We do not want a huge monster pram; - don't see the need to have something too big or expensive; and don't want to get sucked into the racket which appears to be the baby equipment market (saw one pram at £2000 FFS!!!).

What we would like is an Isofox car seat, that can come out of the car and attach to the pram. We would like the seat to be tilt-able and to be forward or rear facing in the car. Also, some seats seem to be adaptable to accommodate the child as it grows. Any recommendations? So far we have found a seat that is isofix and will attach to the pram, but does not tilt or have the option to face rearwards and is only suitable for up to one year olds. We have been told that all of our requirements exist, but not all together on the same product. If we could find something that fitted a few more of our requirements it would be progress.

I suspect we may end up with the only option we have found so far, but would be keen to hear if other's have better suggestions as to where to look / what to get / what the priorities should be.

Hi Dom,

It's a total minefield and a bit like cars in that budgets could be limitless.

Our focus was safety first then budget second, brands entirely unimportant.

We ended up buying the britax bsmart 4 pram with carry cot and push chair plus car seat. The car seat was rear facing only but a £7 mirror from Tesco means we could see her face. Most decent new born car seats, particularly as part of travel system, are rear facing and do up to around 1 year old. I think the ones that say they from 0- 4 years etc wouldn't be as supportive for a baby, plus being able to carry them about in the car seat that clicks into pram base is very handy for first few months.

We looked in pram centre, depressing shop that, Jan Stewart (I'll not write on a public forum what I thought of that!) And the place over near asda govan which was very good. Ended up buying from kiddicare.com who were excellent and mighty cheap, we were around £350 for the travel system!

Not saying you will, but if you buy the britax car seat I have an isofix base you're welcome to.

Have fun shopping! Anything I can help with just shout (although I've had one so not exactly an expert)

Cheers,
Chris

We've got some decent advice from a place in Killie. Too much info to post on here at the moment, but happy to get on a call with you when you're free later?

(Yes, that probably also doubles as an announcement that we're expecting a wee one too )

Ps I managed to fit car seat, pram base and changing bag in the Evora for a trip to the ferrari exhibition at the riverside last year.... Not sure how that would work in Elise though

Quinny Buzz fits in an Elise. We live in the country, so it's not fit for purpose out here, so we decided that Elise would only be used with papoose style transport at end location

I cannot believe I am contributing to this thread..............

http://www.stirlingpramcentre.co.uk/

Firstly, congratulations Dom (and Shug!)

Funny how the dads always tend to make the pram their thing isn't it!?

My wee one is 4 now so this is written from reasonably recent experience, although not as much experience as some on here have!

Dominic wrote:
What we would like is an Isofox car seat, that can come out of the car and attach to the pram. We would like the seat to be tilt-able and to be forward or rear facing in the car. Also, some seats seem to be adaptable to accommodate the child as it grows. Any recommendations? So far we have found a seat that is isofix and will attach to the pram, but does not tilt or have the option to face rearwards and is only suitable for up to one year olds. We have been told that all of our requirements exist, but not all together on the same product. If we could find something that fitted a few more of our requirements it would be progress.

Yeah, that simply doesn't exist.
The protection you need for a baby is very different to the protection you need for a toddler so it isn't possible to have a one-size-fits all seat.
You don't need tilt adjustment for a baby- they should only face rearwards as it's safest and they will always be in a semi-reclined position which they are quite happy in when they are awake and perfectly comfortable to sleep in.
Once they get into the next stage up (forward facing) you can think about tilt etc but that doesn't need to interface with your pram and it's a long way off for you yet.

Dominic wrote: We reckon our requirements are to have a pram, a car seat and to start with a sling type carrier, then later a rucksack carrier.
We do not want a huge monster pram; - don't see the need to have something too big or expensive; and don't want to get sucked into the racket which appears to be the baby equipment market (saw one pram at £2000 FFS!!!).

Everyone is different but...... I could not imagine not having a 'buggy'. Sling/rucksack carriers are great but not as a sole option for carrying the wee one around. They get heavy pretty quickly and imagine if you go shopping and you're carrying half a dozen bags and a child!? Sod that- take the buggy and the child and bags can all go in that.

We had the travel system type which is by far the most popular these days.
So it's a frame which can take the car seat, a carry cot or a buggy seat. We could have done without the carry cot bit to be honest, that wasn't used much but I thought the rest was excellent. We got an iCandy Apple but I'm not sure you can get that anymore and yeah it was expensive at about £900 all-in four years ago.
Some people are happy enough with the smaller stroller type buggies which are much better if you use public transport but we borrowed a couple for holidays etc and never got on with them.
Car seat wise, go for the MaxiCosi cabrio-fix (seems to win most awards) and get the isofix base which stays in the car. Most travel systems have adaptors to take it. And if you want a car seat which goes into the pram then I'm pretty sure it will need to be a travel system.

I think you're thinking about it too much to be honest. You're looking for stuff that doesn't exist because it's not what a baby needs- tilt and reversability is not needed for a new born.

When are your sproglets due?

Sorry for the seloc link, but I think I've sent this to Shug at least already:

http://wiki.seloc.org/a/Children


/no idea if it's any use.

Thanks for all the pointers so far guys! Very helpful

H8OAG wrote:I cannot believe I am contributing to this thread..............

http://www.stirlingpramcentre.co.uk/

You are not the only one Iain!

Will probably give them a visit.

I once was an authority on these matters but it's now almost 16yrs since we were planning everything for our first arrival so very out of touch

Congrats and best wishes to Dom/Shug/Ed/any others in the new/impending arrival scenarios

PS that seloc wiki page is bloody good

woody wrote:Sorry for the seloc link, but I think I've sent this to Shug at least already:

http://wiki.seloc.org/a/Children


/no idea if it's any use.

Congrats to and best wishes to the dads (and mums) to be


Bear in mind that although 'travel systems' (ie. being able to mount car seat on buggy chassis) are convenient, expert consensus is they're not ideal for baby's spine development. In practice, I'd say we used out car seat:pram adaptors twice! So don't dismiss a pram base/conversion/whatever option for longer days out and walks.

We found John Lewis in Edinburgh superb (back in '08) - but it all boils down to the knowledge of the assistant(s) I guess. They patiently let us try lots of options in car seats and also boot space, and price matched the grim-at-the-time Leith Pram Centre. Surprised JL in Glasgow not so good? Some buggy systems looked great online, but were over-priced, poorly made tat when examined in stores.


If you want bombarding with hundreds of differing pram/buggy recommendations…. We loved the Bugaboo. Relatively light, compact for town/shops and Fiesta car boot, yet perfectly capable and stable off road, in strong gusting sidewinds, etc.

Jason - your wee fella is 6 this year?

So already at school? How time flies!

rossybee wrote:Jason - your wee fella is 6 this year?

So already at school? How time flies!

Yes, scary how time flies isn't it! I thought you knew. He turned 5 in Nov.


Guess all us dads with post-toddler kids would give the same advice: savour every moment you can, cos it feels like one blink and they're at school!!

jasonliddell wrote:

rossybee wrote:Jason - your wee fella is 6 this year?

So already at school? How time flies!

Yes, scary how time flies isn't it! I thought you knew. He turned 5 in Nov.


Guess all us dads with post-toddler kids would give the same advice: savour every moment you can, cos it feels like one blink and they're at school!!

Sage advice

Kim, at 5' 5" is now the shortest in my house, Calum (12) is growing and changing and eating like the younger son in Outnumbered....

Hi Dom,

If it helps I am pretty current in this area we have a 21 month old and another due in a week!

First of all, where are peeps going for the prams / baby seats? What requirements are important?

We went for the Quinny Buzz 3 pram system for our first and still really like it. We liked the automatic open feature of it, saves you hopping on one leg while pushing the pram up/open with the other. We got it from Mothercare, but using their price match. Basically find the thing you want online, print out the listing so that they can confirm the price and they'll then match it. The good side to that is you get it from a place you can easily return to if there are problems or issues.

That matched with a Maxi Cosi car seat and your sorted. The car seat will clip into the Quinny frame with the adapters you get with it.

What we would like is an Isofox car seat, that can come out of the car and attach to the pram. We would like the seat to be tilt-able and to be forward or rear facing in the car. Also, some seats seem to be adaptable to accommodate the child as it grows. Any recommendations?

If you get the maxi-cosi familyfix this will satisfy the isofix requirement, the car seat can clip into it and then makes it adjustable so you can tilt etc. The base can then be used for a higher group car seat when the little one gets older.

As far as a carrier is concerned we cant see past the BabyBjorn carriers.

Hopefully that helps a little,

Graeme