The Sunday Review – Trunki Boostapak Car Seat / Rucksack

When I started ParentWheels, I received lots of requests for more reviews of car seats for older children such as group 3 seats or booster seats. We received the Trunki Boostapak from Jojo Maman Bebe to review and guess what? It's not just a car booster seat but also a fun backpack for your little ones to enjoy.

The Boostapak is made by Trunki who seem to totally understand travel with children. The Boostapak is ideal for taking on holiday because it allows your child to take their own hand luggage and feel very grown up doing so. The contents of their backpack will be protected by the hard shell of the seat into which you place your precious cargo! The backpack has been approved as a size suitable for taking as aeroplane hand luggage. And, as a bonus, when you get to your destination, you can use the booster seat to ensure that your child can travel safely in hire cars, taxis or relative's vehicles.

The Boostapak is made with the same care and quality as Trunki's suitcases. It is bright and bold and appealing to parents and children alike.

As a car seat I found it very easy to fit as the instructions are printed onto the seat itself. The booster seat is a little more advanced than many other booster seats as it has a fold-out fabric flap which you sit up against the main seat of the car (note, the flap has ears which make it look a bit like a little monster sitting in the back of your car!). The flap has a red seat-belt guide that helps you place and locate the car's seat belt correctly to ensure maximum safety.

The cover of the bag/seat is removable so that you can give it a good clean as and when needed.

As a back-pack the Trunki Boostapak is quite heavy because of the firm seat shell inside it. As such, it may not be suitable for some small 4 year olds, even though they are officially old enough to travel in a booster seat.

Despite this, I think the product is a really great idea and I'm surprised I haven't seen or heard more about it before.

I can't wait to take Lara on holiday or to her grandparents in the future with this car seat come backpack from Jojo Maman Bebe.

Images courtesy of Jojo Maman Bebe

The Sunday Review - Britax Evolva Group 1-2-3 Car Seat Review

This post was first published on www.parentwheels.co.uk in November 2010.

I get a lot of opportunities to review child car seats which is why it is so significant that the Britax Evolva Group 1,2,3 Car Seat is the one that I chose to spend my own money on recently when I bought a car seat for my parent's car (the grandparents).

I chose the Britax Evolva for the following reasons.

1. I am continually impressed by the quality of materials of Britax products


2. It is a brand I know well and trust


3. A Group 1,2,3 car seat lasts from 9 months right up until 12 years. This means it is good value for money as I shan't need to buy a new one for my parent's car, ever.

The Britax Evolva is ever so slightly tricky to install. It requires you to pass your car's 3-point seat belt, folded, through two holes on the back of the base. Our first few attempts at this were quite stressful, partly because the cars we tried it in had short belts that offered little flexibility during installation, but partly because of unfamiliarity. Since then we have taken the seat with us abroad and have had to fit it and remove it from taxis and hire cars so have become quite accomplished at it – it gets easier and, as ever, Britax do offer red guides on the seat base to help you through the installation process.

Once installed, the Britax Evolva car seat is very easy to use. The belts are well padded and release easily. The belts loosen from around the chest and I found the belt fitting and tightening to be intuitive. The headrest is very easy to move up and down and offers great padding around the head.

The fabric of the seat is very high quality and looks really smart. As your child grows older the seat adapts to them. After Group 1, the integral harness is removed and the seat is used with your car's normal seat belt.

The only thing I don't rate on the Britax Evolva is the cup holders on each side of the base. Maybe it is useful for children to have somewhere to stash their drink, but to me it reminds me of people-carriers in the USA with integral cup holders to hold the super-size sugar-laden soda drinks, not really what I am planning for my toddler.

Image courtesy of Britax.

The Sunday Review - Britax King Plus Group 1 Car Seat Review

This post was first published on www.parentwheels.co.uk in October 2010.

We recently tried out the Britax King Plus Group 1 car seat with our 1 year old daughter. As a group 1 car seat it is forward-facing and is suitable from about 9 months to 4 years old.

The Britax King Plus is not the funkiest of car seats – the grey base gives is an every-so-slightly 80's feel about it. It isn't all bells and whistles and is not even the most advanced of Britax's group 1 car seats but it is easy to use and represents the good quality and value for money that we have learned to expect from Britax car seats. All of the materials are of high quality, particularly the hard-wearing seat covers.

The most impressive thing about the King Plus seat is its ease of fitting. The whole seat flips forwards from the base leaving you plenty of room to easily stretch your normal 3-point seat belt over the base and into the very clearly marked red slots which guide you. We managed to fit the seat on our first attempt (this is very unusual!) using just the label on the side of the seat which shows pictorial instructions. We then validated this against the instruction manual.

We found the headrest on the Britax King Plus to be extremely easy to adjust to our daughter. It was a simple mechanism that required little explanation. The headrest offers great padding and impact protection.

The straps on the King Plus threw us to start with as they extend from the middle rather than responding to a tug at the top like our existing car seat. We have found that Britax car seats do seem to have the most comfy-looking, thickly-padded shoulder belts around.

One of the selling points of the Britax King Plus is the 'click' mechanism on the belt which 'clicks' to indicate when the belt is tight enough. I expected this to be a great thing to resolve arguments between myself and my husband on whether the belts were tight enough. Actually, I found it miselading – it seemed to click frequently, and often when I felt that the belt was far too lose. I think I am happier using my own judgement when tightening the harness.

The Britax King Plus has quite a deep recline so that when you are travelling on long journeys, your child can be more relaxed. The recline function doesn't require you to take the seat out of the car so it is possible to recline the seat without even waking your child!

The Britax King Plus car seat retails for around £179.99 but can be found at the major retailers such as Amazon, Halfords, Boots.com and Kiddicare for a little less.

The Sunday Review – Maxi Cosi Axiss Group 1 Car Seat

The time has come to move Lara out of her Group 0 infant carrier into a “real” forward facing car seat. Lara is tall (like her Mummy) and heavy for her age so by about 6 months her feet and head were beginning to poke out of each end of her infant carrier. Lara has been using a Maxi Cosi Axiss Group 1 forward-facing car seat for about a month now and she has lots of little friends who are on the lookout for their next car seat so I thought I would share my thoughts so far on the seat that we bought her.

We bought a Maxi Cosi car seat because we had no complaints about our Maxi Cosi Cabrio infant carrier. It is high-quality, has a great safety record, is easy to use, easy to clean and looks great. There was no reason for us NOT to buy a Maxi Cosi replacement.



We chose to buy a Group 1 car seat. Maxi Cosi don't seem to make many car seats that span safety Groups. We did have the option to buy a Group 1, 2, 3 car seat from a different brand that would last Lara right up until she was 11 years old but we figured that by the time that Lara is old enough for the next size of seat, there is likely to be another monkey waiting in the sidelines who will be able to use the Group 1 seat. We also felt that until Lara is old enough to get in and out of the seat herself, that it would be easier to put her in and out of a raised seat specifically designed for smaller children.

The Maxi Cosi Axiss appealed to us due to its unique design feature. The whole seat swivels to face towards you making it easier to place your child in the seat and giving you more space and freedom of movement to fasten the belts securely. I'm a tall Mummy and I had been finding it hard on my back to bend down and into the car to fix the infant carrier in place so I was totally won over by the swivel function of the Axiss and hoped that it wasn't just a gimmick. The seat has about 9 different levels of recline for children of all ages.

For the luxury of a swivelly seat, you can expect to pay around 15% more than for the other Group 1 seats (Tobi and Priori XP) in the range. So is it worth it? Well, I certainly feel that it as made the process of getting Lara in and out of the car almost stress free and my back hasn't suffered at all. The seat is the great quality that you would expect from Maxi Cosi and the belts are very easy and intuitive to fit and tighten with great comfy shoulder pads to keep your little one comfy. I love the car seat but I still can't help worrying that we paid an awful lot of money for a product that Lara will grow out of in about 3 years time.

The car seat looks complex to install but, as with all Maxi Cosi products, it actually is a breeze because their special red/green indicators tell you once the seat is correctly fitted and fastened. It is fitted using your standard 3-point seatbelt and is very sturdy and secure once installed. For safety reasons (and because it rattles), the seat must always be facing forwards when the car is in motion, even if there is no-one sitting in it. Due to the bulk of the thing and partly due to the nature of the fastening, this car seat doesn't seem like the kind that you would want to take in and out of the car frequently.

My only complaint about the Maxi Cosi Axiss is a small, yet significant design flaw. The convenience of the swivel seat is almost totally negated in certain circumstances. The catches that you have to release in order to swivel the unit are on both sides of the seat, this means that if the seat is in the forward-facing position (which it is when we pick her up from the childminder in the evening), and you approach the car on your own, with a heavy baby in your arms, you don't have enough free hands to be able to release both catches. I find myself having to either place Lara on the front seat while I swivel hers around, or else placing her into her car seat without bothering to swivel it – in which case I might as well have bought one of the cheaper Maxi Cosi products. It's annoying, but I've learned to prepare the seat in advance (where I can) ensuring that I swivel the seat around before I fetch Lara in from the childminder.

You can read an alternative review of the Maxi Cosi Axiss at the Baby Genie blog.

I have ordered a second car seat for use when Lara is staying with relatives. Quite tellingly, I've chosen a much cheaper product that looks as if it will be easier to take in and out of the car. I've also plumped for a group 1, 2, 3 combination seat because I felt that for a 'spare' car seat, it would be better value for money if I didn't have to keep changing it every few years. I shall let you know how I get on with the alternative seat, and whether it can compete in quality, if not value, with the Maxi Cosi Axiss.

The Maxi Cosi Axiss is available in a subset of their standard colour range (red, blue, brown, pink white and black I believe) and can be found online from £185 (or less on a good day - ours was a bargain).