Road to Perfection: BeSafe with Your Choice of Car Seat
We ruined car seat number one within a few weeks of our little one’s birth: for some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to take her on a 4-hour car journey without a break or a nappy change. By the end of the journey, the seat resembled a portaloo after four days at Glastonbury.
After that, we thought we’d be clever and buy a lie flat car bed rather than a car seat. Whereas babies aren’t supposed to be kept in seats for longer than a couple of hours, they can be kept in a car bed for much longer – possibly even long enough to get out of the city on a Friday night. What we didn’t realise is that the little one would not take kindly to being laid into a coffin-like plastic box all on her own on the back seat of the car. We ended up Googling ‘can baby die from crying’ and practically performing an emergency stop in the middle of the M4 to yank her out of the thing.
The BeSafe iZi Turn i-Size therefore arrived at our house as something of a saviour. Full disclosure here: we were provided with one for the purpose of this review. We use it in our Bugatti Veyron – sorry, I mean Nissan Qashqai (2014) 1.2l – on the nearside rear seat. The seat uses the isoFix system: you pull some plastic levers on the side which causes a pair of long prongs to spring out and bite onto the fixings in the car.
The instruction manual thankfully contains pictures as well as words: the manufacturers clearly realise that the idea of a parent of a newborn having the time to sit down and read something is truly laughable.
The seat itself is attached to the seat base. I have to be honest and declare that this took me a long time to figure out (I didn’t read the instruction manual, remember…) – I almost yanked the seat off the base before realising. The manufacturer states that the seat lasts from 6 months to 4 years (by which time, your little one should be able to drive the car) – so the fact that the base can’t accommodate lots of different seats shouldn’t be too much of a problem. We started using the seat for our little one when she was in fact 3 ½ months old, as she was already above the minimum stature height for the seat (61cm) by that age.
The advantage of the combined seat-and-base design is that you don’t need to fiddle about slotting the seat into the base, and waiting for permission from some magical lights to let you go ahead and drive. The disadvantage, however, is that you can’t easily carry your child somewhere in the seat.
The other feature of note is that the seat rotates, which is extremely useful when placing your little wriggling treasure into and out of the seat. However, you do need to remember to turn it around so that it faces the rear before setting off!
The little one always initially protests when we put her in the seat, and then even more so when we clip her in. However, whizzing her around in the seat seems to give her a massive surprise, and causes her to stop crying. I doubt that’s a deliberate design feature of the iZi Turn, but it is an extremely useful one.
The only downside to the seat is that some of the materials feel a little plasticky – but it doesn’t affect function in any way, and the cushioned bit where the baby sits feels very comfortable.
Overall, it’s a great seat, and I can’t see myself using anything else for the next few years. Now if only BeSafe could also help our little one to BeClean, BeAsleep and BeWellBehaved, we’d really BeTalking.
• The iZi Turn car seat has been developed by the Scandinavian child seat manufacturer BeSafe.
• Suitable for approx. 6months – 4 years
• Approved to the latest UN R129 (i-Size) regulation
• Rear Facing (61-105 cm) and Forward Facing (88-105 cm) options
• 360° rotation for front-on access
• Isofix compatable
• Dynamic Force Absorber™ in the headrest to protect the child’s head
• Adjustable headrest and a set of two cushions placed underneath your child’s bottom and at the back that can be adjusted and taken out individually
• Find your retailer here
Looks good quality but maybe a bit fiddly