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Britax Römer BABY-SAFE i-SIZE product test: the feedback thread

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  • Hi, thank you for giving me and my 9 week old Alfie the opportunity to test the Britax Romer.
    1. What did you think of the car seat when you got it?
    very heavy box and the car seat was attached to the base, not very easy to remove from box on your own due to weight. The car seat is an ideal colour for us black with blue. Felt lighter than my current car seat and liked the look of 5 point harness which I dont have with my other seat. It looked well padded, really impressed.
    2. How did you get on installing it in your car and adjusting the straps and headrest?
    my husband installed it, found it easy to fit the base. He noticed due to incline of my seats the seat doesnt lie flat. After reading the instructions I managed to adjust the straps up and down along with the head rest. However found it really difficult to loosen the straps and fasten the buckle. After my husband had looked at it and compared to our maxi cosi he guessed at where the button was likely to be, this could be improved in the manual. The buckle was really difficult to fasten but i put it down to being new.
    3. How comfortable do you think your child is in the car seat?
    my son looked comfortable and padded so safe and secure, however after our first trip I panicked as his head flopped forward whilst asleep on three occasions. On each occasion I stopped the car and moved in, at this point I considered using my other seat. Instead I removed the insert and he seemed better. I also contacted Britax as I read online about an inclination adapter. They are now going to send me one, so I will see how this works. Alfie is comfotable though other than when i am struggling to fasten the seatbelt.
    4. What do you think of the lie flat seat and adjustable base?
    Like the fact both are adjustable however require Britax additional wedge apparently. Yet to receive and test as I think Alfie must be too upright and he can't hold his head yet.
    5. Would you recommend this car seat to a friend?
    Yes due to how light it is, and how easy to remove and click back onto base. Improve the buckle situation and inform people that if there is an issue with the lie flat in certain cars they have a solution. Great customer service received by Britax. Thank you.imageimageimageimage

  • Oh he looks so cute hannel! Congratulations!  Really interesting about the wedge (knew I should read the instructions) that might be the issue with my seats too so I will have a look at that, thanks!

  • Hannal just read your review...

    If you remove the car seat so just have the base on the rear seat before you secure the isofix into the slots....there should be a grey Buton type thing. If you push that whilst lifting up the isofix base from the end that's touching the rear seat back, the isofix should then lift up and click into a more horizontal position. Then plug your isofix in with it in the angle to suit you. Unless you've done that and it's still slanted! Just a thought incase you didn't realise x

  • Hello

    Thanks for all the feedback so far, everybody. It’s great to see your lovely babies in the car seats 

    We can see that some of you have been struggling either with the instructions or with adjusting the harness – or both. And Britax have asked us to post up the following statement from them: 

    "We’re sorry to hear that some of you have struggled with the harness adjustment and the supporting instructions, and we’ll definitely take your feedback on board. 

    "You may find it helps to view the car seat's installation video on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmIdxxXFLgM  

    "It only take a couple of minutes to watch but it’s a great way to quickly understand how to use the BABY-SAFE i-SIZE. 

    "If you're in any doubt about anything, though, do please feel free to give us a call on 01264 386034 and we’d be happy to answer any questions you may have." 

  • I'm glad theyre taking it on board. i have to say, their customer service was excellent when I called (to find out how to adjust those dammed straps!). That buckle definitely gets intercepted by the fabric around it, hopefully they will change that design in future. 

  • 1.     What did you think of the car seat when you got it?

    When the seat arrived I thought the box was massive and fairly heavy! I opened it up but then struggled to get it out of the box because it had been delivered with the seat attached to the base. I then spent 20 minutes attempting to work out how to detach the seat from the base as I couldn't find instructions anywhere how to do it. It turned out I was pulling the right bit but I wasn't strong enough to yank the seat free of the base and pull lever at same time. Thankfully my husband came home and saved me just before I lost my temper with it!


    2.     How did you get on with installing it in your car and adjusting the straps and headrest?

    Installation into the car was easy. HOWEVER adjusting it was a nightmare, we couldn't work out how to loosen the straps in order to put our baby into the seat. It was through guesswork and having previously had a different car seat that we worked out where the metal catch was to enable us to loosen the straps. As with other reviewers the padded crotch buckle catches every time I try and click the buckle closed. It's quite fiddly trying to hold the pad out of the way whilst clicking the buckles closed and is a pain when it's pouring with rain and you have to faff about with it.

    Even worse than this it was only 1 week into testing it we worked out how to adjust the base so our son was at a more comfortable angle. Nowhere in the instructions does it mention the base adjustment at all, we only found it out online after I saw an advert on fb for the car seat pop up and I clicked it!


    3.     How comfortable do you think your child is in the car seat? ? Please post up the pictures of your baby in the car seat

    My son seems very comfortable in the seat and particularly seems to like being higher up than his previous seat as he as at similar level to his older sister and can see out of the window. We used the seat to drive to a wedding which was 3.5hrs drive each way and he slept for 2.5hrs each time so it was obviously comfortable!


    4.     What do you think of the lie-flat seat and also the adjustable base?
    I think both features are great. We didn't get a chance to use the lie-flat seat as the 'flatness' lessens depending on the size of the child and my son is 9 months . The adjustable base is brilliant but the instructions with it are non existent and need seriously changing as they don't mention at all the base even adjusts let alone how to actually do it. Not everyone has access to youtube in order to watch a video and if it isn't in the guide then they wouldn't know to look it up in the first place.

    My other issue was that I physically cannot get the seat off the base by myself. In the 6 times I've attempted it I've only managed it once. I'm not sure if I'm just weakling but no matter how hard I pull the grey lever I can't seem to release the seat properly from its base. End up waking my son up and getting myself in a stress because of it!

    5.     Would you recommend this car seat to a friend?

    I am torn with my answer to this question. Although the seat is attractive and feels very safe and secure there is alot of elements I don't like about it. I'm not sure if these niggles would be ironed out with continued use (which we intend on doing) and with more practise. So I am undecided on this. Currently I would say no but it's very borderline and in a few more weeks time my answer could be different.

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  • I have just watched the instruction video and thought it was really good. It's reassured me I'm doing it all right! 

  • Thanks for the opportunity to test this car seat out with my 9 week old son, Aiden. 

    1.     What did you think of the car seat when you got it?

    The car seat looks lovely and I really liked the colours especially the blue as we have a little boy. It was quite heavy to lift out of the box as it was attached to the isofix base already but the seat itself is lighter than my current car seat (Ickle Bubba Galaxy)


    2.     How did you get on with installing it in your car and adjusting the straps and headrest?

    My husband installed the isofix in the car and found it very easy to do and didn't need the instructions (I did check them after though!). It attached very easily to the isofix points in our car and the green indicators made it clear when it was safely attached. However, I have had the same problem as a previous reviewer where the green indicator on one side shows partially red unless you apply pressure to the seat. It causes concern over safety as you aren't confident the seat is secure even though the instructions have been followed carefully. 

    The instructions weren't very clear for how to adjust the straps but luckily it was similar to our current seat so we managed to figure it out. We find we have to adjust the straps every time we use the seat just to get Aiden in and out as it is very difficult to fasten the buckle unless the straps are loose. 


    3.     How comfortable do you think your child is in the car seat? ? Please post up the picture(s) of your baby in the pushchair (to upload a pic, click the little camera icon at the top right of the 'Add your reply' box)

    Aiden seems fairly comfortable in his seat, it is padded in different areas to his current seat but he still nodded off very quickly in it. I will attach photos in the following post as they are on my phone and I'm currently using a laptop. However, it wasn't as easy to place him in the seat and therefore we haven't managed to place him in asleep without waking him up due to the harness and buckle requiring adjustment every time to fasten. 


    4.     What do you think of the lie-flat seat and also the adjustable base?

    This was easy to use but not as necessary in our car as the seat was around the correct level anyway. Again the instructions weren't clear on this but my husband figured it out without them. 

    5.     Would you recommend this car seat to a friend?


    I would possibly recommend it as part of a travel system because it does have useful features and the isofix base is much easier to click in and out than my current car seat. I think Britax could be clearer with the instructions (and possibly not have them stored in the base). The video would be handy to have and I wish we had viewed it before using it. 

  • Hi everyone, sorry for delay in posting my feedback- house full of poorly children so haven't had chance to get pictures!

    Anyway, thank you for letting Nancy and me test this seat it has been lots of fun!

    My feedback is as follows:

    1.     What did you think of the car seat when you got it?

    My first impressions were very positive. I thought the seat looked good in the blue and black colour and it appeared to have good quality fabrics and materials. It looked huge and spacious compared to our current seat! I really liked the rounded shape and the harness and padding looked really comfy for Nancy. Although she was 12 weeks at the time of testing she was only 8lb 14oz so comfort and support were really important to me. The base also looked really sturdy in comparison to our current isofix base but I was a little worried about it taking up too much space in the car (see below for further comment).


    2.     How did you get on with installing it in your car and adjusting the straps and headrest?

    The base itself was very easy to install and we had it in within a couple of minutes. It took a bit longer to make sense of the adjusting part. I thought it meant I could adjust it to suit Nancy's needs but it was actually limited to only adjusting to level off the seat depending on the car you have. That was fine- our Zafira didn't need much adjusting as the seats are already quite level. 

    A quick read through of the instructions made the harness adjustment easy to understand. However the actual adjuster button was difficult to manoeuvre- it was a bit stiff and then would jump up too far!! We got there eventually!!! Obviously it was on quite a low setting as Nancy is so small but I still moved it around to see what it would do in future. I liked how much room was created as it all adjusts. 

    The actual strap loosening adjustment and buckles were really good too.... once I found the button! Really smooth and easy to operate and the 5 point harness was a bonus compared to the usual 3 in group 0 seats.


    3.     How comfortable do you think your child is in the car seat? ? Please post up the picture(s) of your baby in the pushchair (to upload a pic, click the little camera icon at the top right of the 'Add your reply' box)

    Nancy seemed really happy in the seat once in. However she didn't like how the shoulder pad were tight round her neck and complained when I was tightening the belts. She was fine once done though. The adjustable harness meant that she was quite far forward in the seat but her overall positioning looked comfortable. I liked all the extra padding etc but she was less impressed by the restriction sadly... However I was confident that she was safe and secure and she did get used to it over the course of the week! (Pictures below).


    4.     What do you think of the lie-flat seat and also the adjustable base?

    In honesty, Nancy didnt seem to be laid flat in this seat at all!! But overall it looked good for her.

    The adjustable base was definately a good idea. I felt much more confident of her overall position in the car as a result and I was happy with how sturdy it was too. The downside was that it took up more space on the seat than our other isofix base which was a bit uncomfortable for our other children who had to sit next to it... with 5 kids and 2 adults every seat in the Zafira is needed!


    5.     Would you recommend this car seat to a friend?

    Overall, yes. The seat is attractive, well made and safe and comfortable for baby. All the things you want in a car seat.

    The main pros were:

    1. Quality

    2. Good design

    3. Adjustable so will last longer

    4. Sturdy base

    5. Simple instructions

    6. The seat wasn't uncomfortable to carry on my elbow and the side buttons were directed away from my hip.

    7. Most up to date design and spec for group 0 seats.

    8. I also used seat without isofix in my friend's car... it was brilliant- I really liked the belt guides- so simple to use!

    The main cons were:

    1. Stiff buttons (?because new)

    2. Wide base uncomfortable for other passengers. Also base itself really heavy!

    3. Seems to be quite upright for a newborn?

    4. The isofix green/red indicators were not easy to see- too small and not in good places. I had to walk around car to see the second button.

    5. It was a pain to keep winding in and out the SIPS, although I like the feature, I kept forgetting to do it!

    6. I couldn't use my universal cosy toes with this due to padding and harness points and it wasn't easy to tuck in a blanket either. I don't use a coat for Nancy when in car as it's not recommended so this was a bit of an issue.

    7. The hood was insubstantial, would be better if showerproof fabric and if independently operated from handle.

    8. When adjusted for Nancy her weight was distributed unevenly- too far forward- so it was a bit awkward carrying the seat around. I think this would be better when she is bigger though and obviously if I had the matching travel system it would be fine!

    Nancy using the seat:

     

    imageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimage

    This was a great experience for us, we a really grateful to have been chosen!

    Regards,

    Hydie and Nancy  xxx

  • I just wanted to follow up on my earlier review to add that having done a 3 hr drive this evening Oliver slept teall

  • Sorry my phone keeps moving what I am looking at so I ended up pressing post instead of the keyboard then! I'll try again!

    I just wanted to follow up on my earlier review to add that having done a 3 hr drive this evening Oliver slept really well. No issues with his head falling forward which was my big concern with his old seat!  I did actually have trouble fastening the buckle tonight for the first time (I said in my review I'd not had a problem).  Tonight was the first time I did it in the car in the dark as I normally do it in the house and yes the padding got in the way as others have commented.

  • Hi everyone, thanks so much for providing all your feedback - it's very interesting indeed, and your photos are excellent too. 

    We're going to lock this thread now, but will pop back to announce the winner of the £100 Amazon voucher soon. 

  • Hello again!

    We're just popping back to let you know the winner of the £100 Amazon voucher for providing their feedback is......Apricot0904! Congratulations. We are going to drop you an email shortly! 

    Thanks again everyone, we really appreciate all your feedback, comments and pictures. 

    You may find it useful to have a read of what our MFM reviewer thought of the Baby-Safe i-Size...

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