The best baby and toddler car seat and accessories (in our opinion)
Like everything else, picking the best car seat (or cot bed, or pram or whatever), was not easy. Everyone we asked had an opinion and of course if you did not pick what they had picked, you were invalidating their choices. It is a minefield…
In case it helps anyone, here are the car seats we have bought (and loved) and the car accessories we never knew we needed but have come in handy).
How to choose the best car seats for your family?
We went with Cybex, the reason being we liked the rotating based which could be used with both the first (infant, from newborn) and second car seats (from 12 months on approximately).
Also, it had that German robustness and the necessary cult following from friends and family (ha!) and all the awards in the world.
Cybex Base Z2 i-Size Rotating Car Seat Base
Costs £209 and you can get it from John Lewis or Online4Baby
The base we chose was the Cybex Base Z2 i-Size Rotating Car Seat Base, which as the name states, rotates to one side so you can seat the child facing you and then rotate it backwards or forward depending on the age.
We had no issues with it and it was relatively easy to install – and easy to remove and swap cars, for example.
Cybex Cloud Z2 i-Size Rotating Lie Flat Baby Seat
Costs £249 and you can get it from John Lewis
There are quite a few ranges from Cybex and letters and we got confused at times. The range we got was the Z, from the Platinum Range.
The Cybex Cloud Z i-Size Rotating Lie Flat Baby Seat has won multiple awards and we also liked the look of it, but also it promised a few more months than others. It said it was suitable for children up to 18 months, but we made the switch to the next chair at around 12 months.
What we also liked about this chair was that you could attach it to the BabyZen Yoyo legs, by adding these adapters. This made life easier when ours was little and we were happy with out set up.
Cybex Sirona Z2 Baby Car Seat
Costs £319 and you can get it from John Lewis
Again, absolutely no issues with this car seat which is still serving us very well – we started using it at around 12 months and I would buy it again.
We have always appreciated the fact that this car seat rotates and definitely makes life easier.
Ours is grey, which we found more ‘forgiving’ than a black, for example (thinking about crumbs and other bits). We used it rear facing until around 18 months and then changed it into forward facing.
Baby and Toddler Car Accessories
Skip hop car seat protector
Get it from Amazon USA for $20. You can get a similar one from Amazon UK/ Europe here.
Something I did not know I needed. You can pick the best car seat in the world but the seat under it will still be dirty… so I would definitely recommend one of these car seat protectors.
Skip hop back seat organiser
Get it from Amazon USA for $20 or Amazon UK for £33. There are hundreds of other variations of this online.
Skip Hop backseat baby mirror
Get it from Amazon USA for $27 or Amazon UK/ Europe
This was handy whilst our daughter was rear facing and worked a treat.
Brita by Munchkin retractable car shade
Costs £9 from Amazon UK/EU and $13 from Amazon USA (but you get 2!).
In the US, you have a larger sized one for SUVs which is really good too.
We have tried a variety of options (with the best one prior to this being this Brica option), but all literally went out of the window when someone learned to say ‘Mummy, please open the window’. So this one works now too .
Urban Kanga Travel Car Seat
Costs £139 from Amazon UK / Europe.
From 9kg this seat is really portable and you can fit it inside your suitcase or just wear it as a backpack on your flight and put it in the overhead bin (if you don’t want to risk luggage getting lost – we always take ours with us as we have had horrible experiences with filthy car seats at rental companies (and others so old it was appalling), we bought a second cybex (slightly different model which was all in 1, In terms of the seat and base) and sent it with our luggage but it broke… so now we do not take any chances and this Urban Kanga has been a godsend. Our cost per usage is under £1 right now 🙂
We have purchased everything on this list and would do so again. I hope it helps in some way!
xo
Mrs. O
PS. Click here to find out more about our Potty Training Edit as well as our Baby & Toddler Travel Essentials.