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.

How I Save £2,228 a Year Being Green!

Last week I took the Tesco Greener Living quiz and found that, according to Tesco, I save my family £2,228 a year by making small changes to my lifestyle that help both the environment, and our finances.

The survey asked me a series of questions about my household activities such as the temperature at which I run my thermostat, whether I have a Hippo water saving device in my toilet cisterns, and whether I've insulated my home.

I don't feel extraordinary, but I managed to give positive answers to all but three of the questions which accounts for my massive 'savings'.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Yes, I KNOW I use the tumble drier too often and I KNOW it is just about the most expensive electrical item to run in my entire house but as a working mum, in the winter, I find it indispensable. I have however, invested in a small collapsible clothes airer that I can put up in my (bliming freezing) garage and I also have an electricity monitor attached to my meter so I am painfully aware of the cost to me of using the goddam tumble drier. Apparently, if I reduced my reliance on it, I could save another £58 a year.

I DIDN'T know that there existed such a thing as a shower water regulator – I shall investigate! Thank-you Tesco.

And I DID know about Solar energy but I haven't yet found a supplier who acknowledges that as a working family, we really don't want to buy back energy during the weekdays because our energy consumption is nil during these times – if it costs me the same as normal to use power during the evenings and weekends, I'm not interested.

So, with my £2,228 worth of savings, what am I going to splash out on? Ummm.... nothing! I don't feel like I'm saving anything. To me, this is real, every day life. I'm not about to buy us an overseas holiday (that WOULD counteract all of my green efforts, wouldn't it) and I'm not going to buy us a day out or any goodies. I'm going to just keep on doing what I'm doing. Saving water, reducing energy usage, re-using where possible. Small, simple steps that make a real difference.

There were one or two questions I felt were missing in the Tesco Greener Living Survey such as questions about metering of utilities, water usage/re-use and general product re-use but I guess that these aren't in the interests of Tesco because they can't sell me anything to solve the problems. Despite this, I feel the survey is worthwhile, and thought-provoking.

Now, I'm not going to get into a discussion/fight about Tesco and their attempts to reduce their enormous impact on the nation/globe because I'll probably shout at someone... but if you do fancy reading about their attempts to reduce packaging (weight) then you can do so here.

I'd be interested to know what your scores are! Are you a green dreamer? or an eco-saint? how much cash could you be saving?

Christmas Celebrations - The Gallery

This is my entry to this week's gallery where the theme is 'Celebrations'. This photo is one of my favourite Christmas photos and, as if I needed a reason to inspire me to make our Christmas celebrations extra special for Lara, then this is it.

The photo is of myself and my younger sister just after having opened our Christmas presents on Christmas day. I don't know how old we were but I can see the magic of Christmas in our eyes (and no, its not just red-eye!).

A short while ago I posted a blog about choosing presents for Lara based on the things I loved most - in this picture you can see my much, loved Tiny Tears doll in an outfit and blanket that my Mum knitted for her, and Butterbear, my Wuzzle! I believe that my little sister got Rhinokey that day too. If you've no idea what I'm talking about, google Wuzzles!

I really hope that I can make our first family Christmas in the new house as lively, fun and celebrationary as I remember it from my childhood.