Safe travels with a child, about RWF car seats

As you know, we travel a lot by car. Both in Poland and Europe, as well as when traveling further afield. That’s why today we want to touch on an insanely important topic when it comes to traveling with a new family member…. Choosing a car seat – seemingly simple and yet not.

When buying our first car seat (or infant carrier, if you prefer) we delved into ADAC tests, stars, recommendations, recommendations. We walked around the stores, looked, touched, talked to salesmen who unanimously, wholesale recommended one manufacturer.

After all, we’re not going to save on safety (!), so we bought the car seat that performed best in the tests. For this, of course, we bought a base, which increases safety and is super convenient. No more tangles with belts, plus you can quickly unbuckle and clip Bobas into the car :)

Safety and test scores were also important to us, as we took the seat on all trips with Olive, including to Sicily, where we also traveled by (rented) car. You can read about how to rent a car on vacation here.

It’s been 9 months, and Olive is already starting to grow out of her carrier for us, and it’s time to go on the hunt for a new car seat. Oh the horror! ;)

RWF?

While the first seat (carrier) is easier to fit in the car, choosing the next one can already be problematic. One thing we know for sure: only and exclusively RWF! Why?

Let’s start with what RWF even means : Rear Way Facing, or rear facing.

And why RWF? Let the video below answer this question:

 

But what do you mean? Rear-facing?

Oh well! Since birth, Olive has been riding rear-facing and we see no problem with this, even when we travel with her alone. One of our essential gadgets in the car is a mirror, so you can see exactly what Bobas is doing (is he sleeping, is everything ok, etc.), and at the same time Bobas can see us too.

Rear-facing driving itself is much safer, as the video above was about.

Choosing a RWF car seat

Unfortunately, choosing a car seat for an already larger Baby Boomer is not a simple task. We are just exploring this topic, as we do not yet have experience, and time is pressing.

Therefore, we asked for help from a specialist, a guru in the field of RWF – Kuba from the Eight Stars store in Lodz, Poland, to answer some important questions that will dispel our doubts :) In addition, we also asked for information on how to choose your first car seat, which may also be useful to you.

How to buy your first car seat?

Nowadays, shelves in stores are overflowing with different models of car seats. Manufacturers wanting to make it easier for us to choose offer packages: carts so-called. 3-in-1, where we buy the stroller right away with the car seat. Easy, simple and convenient. How do we find our way through the maze of this information and what should we pay special attention to when buying our first car seat?

K: First: Stationary. The seat should be matched to the car, it’s silly to spend a few hundred zlotys on a seat in which the kid’s head will fall forward. You go to a store that knows what’s in the grass and ask to try on a few models.

Second: Don’t take a seat signed by the brand of the stroller manufacturer. Such car seats are primarily in the 0-9kg, 0-10kg or 0-11kg weight ranges and are very likely to end up with a headache titled “My baby is six months old and has already outgrown the car seat, now what?”. Look only at car seats in the 0-13kg group. Admittedly, there’s still 0-18kg or even 0-23kg, but it’s best for you and the little one to start with a seat up to 13 kilograms. Another pain of the kit seats is the lack of any serious testing. The seats pass an approval test which in itself says nothing about the seat. It could be a safety seat, or it could be one that evacuates through a sunroof during an accident. We don’t know, we don’t gamble if a child’s life is at stake.

Third: Choose models equipped with a five-point harness for the child. It’s pretty non-obvious and not many people will tell you this, but the difference between a 3pkt and a 5pkt harness is noticeable. Such a seat holds the child much better during a collision or accident. Such seats are not more expensive, there are just fewer of them. But that’s probably a good thing, because from a whole shelf of seats you narrow down your choice to a few models ;)

Fourth: Tests. Once you’re stuck with these few models, check out the scores in ADAC, Warentest, OAEMTC, etc. tests. Take a peek especially at the “security” tab and look for those that got 4 or 5 points in this section. Don’t take the manufacturer’s word for it if it says “The seat has passed a crash test at the XXX institute” and doesn’t state the result.

Fifth: if an isofix base is offered for the seat, and you have the funds for it and can fasten it in your car then buy it. Such a base definitely increases the stability of the car seat and the convenience of mounting it.

Sixth: Only here check the compatibility with the stroller, while remembering that the position in the 0-13kg seat is safe, but not anatomical, so it is recommended not to keep the child in it when it is not necessary. On a longer trip, it’s a good idea to take breaks every 2 hours to stretch your bones. In the case of newborns, even a maximum of 30 minutes is said. So it’s a good idea to use the carrycot as much as possible, instead of a car seat strapped to the stroller’s frame.

Seventh: Choose a color :)

When should we buy a bigger car seat?

Car seats are marked by the weight of the child, but should we really wait until the child exceeds the indicated weight to buy another one, or is it better to be guided by the child’s height? For example: what if the child is already growing out of the first one (the head sticks out above the backrest) but has not yet reached the weight of 9 kg (is it worth buying a seat from the 0-25kg range)?

K: If we are talking about the first car seat, it can be lowered at the point when the child can sit independently and stably. In this case, 9kg is an approximate value, nothing magical happens when the last missing 100g is tapped on the scale.

Provided, of course, that the next seat is also rear-facing. If not, then the seat is used to the end, that is, until the maximum permissible weight of the child is reached, or until the tip of the head is level with the edge of the seat shell.

Seats 0-18kg or 0-25kg are rarely actually good for non-sitting children. It is better to wait until it flaps on the bottom.

RWF car seat and a small car?

We drive a Yaris around town every day, but for longer trips we have a larger car. I have great doubts that it will be possible to squeeze RWF from 9kg into a car as small as the Yaris…. And will it be usable in two cars?

K: There is no car in which the RWF will not fit. There are so many models on the market at the moment that we are always able to choose something. Yesterday, I installed the RWF in a Seicento. I may surprise you, but there are cars, on the other hand, in which I would be afraid to install front-fastening seats. Because they do not take up less space at all, so say only those who do not know how the seat works. And the seat has one sole function – to protect life and health during an accident.

When you put the RWF in the car, you already know how much space it takes up and that more will not. And the seat ahead? You strap him into the couch, and you need to leave enough space in front of him so that in a collision the child does not hit the front seat with a bull’s-eye. How much? I don’t know. It depends on how intense the collision will be and you can’t predict that.

Only 50cm of distance between the edge of the bench seat and the front seat gives you confidence that the child will not meet the seat, although recently some hyper-duper seat in front sent the dummy’s head 62cm forward and yet the manufacturer says that this is how it is supposed to be and so it is great, because there are less overloads. Well actually they are, only in the tests there are no front seats. What scares me the most are front-mounted seats in small cars.

Want a seat for two cars? Sure it can be done. You just have to choose the right chair :)

Which tests to trust?

When buying our first car seat, we were guided by ADAC tests. I read a lot now about Test Plus, which are more reliable when it comes to RWF. Which tests to trust?

K: ADAC is ok when it comes to 0-13kg or 15-36kg seats, but it completely fails at rating RWF seats. When I see a mid-range seat of these front-mounted ones rated at 4* and one of the best RWF also at 4*, the knife in my pocket opens. Assuming what we observe on other tests or in real life, the latter should have these stars with twenty. Hence, by the way, our name – Eight Stars.

On the other side of the barricade is Sweden’s Test Plus. This is the world’s oldest test that checks the overload applied to the neck of a dummy. The T-Standard, or its previous incarnation, was created 8 years earlier than the first European approval defining what a car seat even is.

The idea is simple – a dummy seat is accelerated to 56.5km/h and stopped at a length of 30-40cm to simulate hitting a non-deformable obstacle and crumple zone. A measurement of the overload on the neck of the dummy takes place. If it is higher than the set limit (e.g. 122kg for a 3-year-old, the limit developed by Volvo) then the seat fails the test, because above this value there is a definite chance that the child will end up in a stroller or worse. RWF seats generate about 30-50kg. Some time ago, out of curiosity, they took the best (according to ADAC) available forward-facing seat for testing and it generated…. 197kg. The difference is colossal.

Why exactly the neck? Because it’s the most sensitive part of a toddler’s body, especially one year old like this. During a frontal impact in a forward-facing seat, the cervical vertebrae stretch and the spine bends into a C-shape. Do you know how much the cervical vertebrae can stretch before they break? One centimeter.

Do you recommend any specific car seats, brands and models that are the safest when it comes to RWF?

Which ones have the best value for money?

K: I recommend it, but not here. I recommend only after I talk to the man, look into his wallet, see his child and sit in his car. But yes in general I recommend those with Plus Test :)

What about the docking base?

Are they available in RWFs and do they increase security? Is it worth spending more money on the base?

K: Some RWFs are belt-mounted, some have isofix built into the base, and others use a base. Is it worth it? Here, not necessarily. Isofix in the RWF doesn’t do much work, certainly not as much as in 0-13kg seats or front-facing ones. Actually, it mainly makes it easier to install, while giving us some limitations. A lot also depends on the car. This is a highly individual matter.

Is it worth buying used car seats and what to look for?

For many people, however, spending almost £2,000 on a car seat is a very big deal. What do you think about buying a used car seat?

K: It’s not worth it. The seats are disposable, one bump and the seat in the trash. The used ones can be quite worn out, because suddenly it turns out that they were driving around in some construction worker’s Mondeo, and when there was no baby he was hauling bags of cement in it. Unless you buy from a reliable source, you have good friends, the seat was used for no more than half of the allowed time specified in the instructions (if specified). But in general, it is better to buy a new car seat, and save money on other gadgets, because there is one major difference between them – a bicycle or stroller is not designed to protect life, a car seat is.

And it’s also the case with these seats that an expense of 2,000 zloty is often not needed. Such seats start at 1/3 of this amount.

Summary

Many thanks to Kuba from the store Eight Stars Lodz for his help and answers to all questions. We hope you learned more about RWF car seats and convinced you of the importance and relevance of toddler safety while driving.

And don’t believe the myths titled. the child can’t see anything (he can see more in the rear and side windows than through the front window), there is no legroom (there is plenty of room, seriously!) or he just doesn’t like riding in reverse (the child doesn’t even know he can ride differently).

If you have any questions, please write boldly in the comments. We will be happy to answer them.