Baby capsule or reversible car seat?

We're currently looking at options to set things up for when the our baby arrives, and it appears we have two options.

1. Get a baby capsule that can connect to a pram (it appears there are a couple available).

2. Get a reversible car seat so that we can use the car seat for longer, and get a pram with a bassinette carrier for when bub is small.

There's also a vague thought that we use a baby carrier for the early days instead of a pram, but figure there are times when we'll be out and not wanting to be wearing a baby, but also not wanting to put them on the floor or anything like that (eg, at church).

DH is preferring option 1, I'm preferring option 2.

Are baby capsules really that easy to get out of the car without waking the baby? We were looking at one yesterday and couldn't even find how to detach the capsule from the base, which is a bit scary.

Is it awkward to be removing a baby from a rear-facing child seat?

So far it appears that most people we know have used the reversible car seat option rather than the baby capsule. It would be great to hear people's reasons for going the way they did to help us make up our mind.

BW

I went with rear facing car seat (convertable i think they are called...can be changed to forward facing when bubs is old enough) mainly because they get longer use out of it. A capsule only lasts til a certain point then you will need a car seat anyhow.

I dont find it hard getting a newborn out of rear facing...they are so tiny its easy! Its when they get to DD2 age (9 months) that it gets harder!

I have a normal pram that has attatchments to enclose bub when in the pram to keep them warm and snug.

Hi BW - we used option 2 and it was great!
A rear-facing seat is no drama to get bub in/out of at all. Much more cost-friendly than a capsule(our DD was very long and was a big feeder so she wouldve been out of the capsule very quickly!)
We also had a basinette with our pram - was fabulous - she actually slept in the basinette for the first few weeks in our room, then in the bassinette in her cot.
HTH!

I used a capsule - would highly recommend hiring one for the first 6 mths. MUCH safer option, and I found it easier to use when they went to asleep, can easily take whole capsule out and carry in to friends/relatives house without waking them. JMO, but safety was my biggest reason for using capsule.

Pram wise, I brought a bassinette style with interchangeable seat, used it for about 3 mths then became a pain and never used it again. So brought a phil and teds instead(love it!).

Good Luck!

I am a huge advocate of using a baby capsule. There have been threads about this in the past, I'll see if I can dig them up for you :) We just had the SNS capsule though, and a bassinette for the pram as well (I love them too ;))

Apart from being safer for a newborn, capsules are also just really handy. Being able to pull your baby in and out of the car without waking them up, whether it's to duck into the shops, or just when you arrive at someone's house, is simply fantastic! We used our capsule for almost six months, and I loved it. I know alot of people get by with the reversible seat, but I would not be without a capsule for future bubs. To me, the safety issue is just too important.

Snap Janie, good minds think alike!!

Hehe Shell :lol: Never mind good, GREAT minds LOL!

BW, I can't find the threads I'm thinking of just yet, but if you scroll through this section, check out all of the threads on car seats and capsules, there's lots of interesting info out there :) There might be some more in the baby section, I'll have a look.

It's completely a personal choice. You can always hire baby capsules if you don't want to purchase one.

I personally don't think it's worth getting the whole pram/capsule thing, you only use the capsule for such a short time, but the pram gets use for a couple of years so you want to make sure you are happy with the pram.

Also, you can only use capsules up until your bub is 8kg (around 6 months old), and it is now recommended that your child faces rearward until at least 12 months of age so you will need a convertible car seat regardless.

I just used a convertible car seat for both of my boys with no problems. When they are little it's easy to transfer them to their bed or pram if they are sleeping.

I highly recommend getting a baby carrier, I wouldn't be without mine! I have an Ergo carrier and it is the best carrier for my back that I have found. Carriers are great in the early day when bub is colicky or overtired. I use my Ergo over the pram when going to the shops, it is heaps quicker and easier.

Best of luck :)

I guess it also depends on how much money you have to spend. We didn't really have the funds to have both a capsule and a car seat later (even though you can hire capsules fairly cheap through the council). So we opted for the convertable car seat. Especially since we knew we were having a long baby and felt she wouldn't be in the capsule for long. We had no problems getting her in and out of the car and we were lucky she often stayed asleep during the shift (I have a friend who used a capsule and her baby still woke when she was moving it in and out of the car).
If you get a good quality convertable seat, they can be just as safe as the capsule (IMO). I also have concerns about leaving babies in capsuels for long periods of time (in one go) because I have heard it can damage their backs... and since I've always had a tempremental back I wanted to try and avoid that for DD.

HTH - good luck making your decision!

MG

We used a capsule for DD1, rear seat for DD2 and capsule for DS. I think a capsule was great for a winter baby as we had him all rugged up in it to go out to the car not having to unwrap him to put him in a carseat. DD2 was December in Darwin so that didn't apply although we did find the car had to be cooled down before we put her in so if she had of had a capsule it would've been cooler I guess.
If you can borrow a capsule i say do that option but if you have to buy one and a car seat I wouldn't bother.

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It's completely a personal choice. You can always hire baby capsules if you don't want to purchase one.

I personally don't think it's worth getting the whole pram/capsule thing, you only use the capsule for such a short time, but the pram gets use for a couple of years so you want to make sure you are happy with the pram.

Also, you can only use capsules up until your bub is 8kg (around 6 months old), and it is now recommended that your child faces rearward until at least 12 months of age so you will need a convertible car seat regardless.

I just used a convertible car seat for both of my boys with no problems. When they are little it's easy to transfer them to their bed or pram if they are sleeping.

I highly recommend getting a baby carrier, I wouldn't be without mine! I have an Ergo carrier and it is the best carrier for my back that I have found. Carriers are great in the early day when bub is colicky or overtired. I use my Ergo over the pram when going to the shops, it is heaps quicker and easier.

Best of luck :)

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Some good points Trish!

Yes, you will definitely still need a convertible car seat even if you use a capsule. You can hire a capsule if you don't want to buy one. We were lucky enough to be given one, but my mum hired a capsule for her car and it was brand new! And it only cost $100 for 6 months.

I agree that you want to be happy with your pram......so I would make sure if you get a travel system that it's really what you want in the long term, not just for the first few months.

We don't use a capsule but never had any hassles in getting DS out of his SNS reversible car seat. I am looking to buy a peanut shell sling though to avoid the hassle of getting the pram out of the car when shopping.

We did buy a pram with a bassinette attachment and he slept in that for his first four weeks, then went to the cot. He still has his first morning nap in his pram.

SG
xo

Just another point to add to the discussion, safe-n-sound are the only brand that actually test there seats so in my mind they are the only ones that should be on the market.
The reversible seats also have so much extra padding for our little bubs in the early days that i really doubt that the capsules are any safer than a reversible.

We used our safe-n-sound reversible for so long with DS and we were completely happy with it, but it really is a personal choice.

I had also wondered about the safety aspect of things. So the capsules are safer than the convertible car seats?

Looks like hiring a capsule at first is going to be the better option.

DH is also a big fan of prams with big wheels... I'm glad we have lots of time to figure all of this out!

BW

We used a capsule and DD was in that for 12 months so we got a great deal of use from it. It was one that clipped in and out of the car which was so wonderful as she would often fall asleep in the car in the early days so we were able to transfer her out of the car and into the house without waking her. The other thing with the capsules is that you can unclip them from the base and they fit on a shopping trolley which is so handy if you are going to the supermarket with a newborn.

We will do the same with #2 as it worked so well for us. We are currently trying to source a travel attachment clip for the Phil & Teds so that we can clip the capsule on to the pram as well.

There is a brochure out on car safety that lists the safety and ease of use of the major car seats and capsules. Think is it put out by the RACV or NRMA. I have seen it at childcare centres and maternal health centres. You may want to check that out.

We bought the SNS meridian convertable car seat (I HIGHLY recommend that seat :) ) When we first bought DD home from hospital that is what we used.

Within a week I went to babies galore & bought a capsule. We both found it too fidgety getting her in & out of the seat especially when she was asleep.

We also go to church on a Sunday night so we had her rugged up in the capsule in the lounge room, then straight to the car, then straight into church. She stayed snug as a bug & warm & we never looked back.

We also have a pram with bassinette attatchment (I have some pics in my gallery now) It's an Emmaljunga & I LOVE it while bubs is a newborn. I admit though I much prefer my phil & teds for toddler & older (whole nother thread there though LOL)

I think if your not in a position to buy a capsule & a convertable carseat, then I'd suggest looking at hiring one as they are quite cheap. But if you're thinking of having more babies later on then it will end up being cheaper in the long run to buy one & hold onto it for any further babies (Like we did)

As the others have said the convertable car seat does the job fine & will last from newborn to approx 4 years depending which seat you get (My DD is still in her car seat, shes tall for her age & still has growing room left, money very well spent. Bubs will go into DD's carseat when he outgrows his capsule & DD will move into her booster, she will be about 4 yrs old by then I'm guessing)

Its personal choice but at least you have lots of people on here to give you honest opinions from their experiences :)

Good luck making your decision, so exciting starting to buy the "bigger" baby items :)

First 3 kids I have used a convertible seat. Had a normal pram that layed fully flat for NB bubs.

This time round I am opting for a capsule that goes up to 12kg. Isla is still only 10kg at almost 21 months. So I could still have her rear facing in her current seat but turned her about 6 months ago due to her being a right little rat to get into her seat & I honestly think I would have broken her pelvis trying to get her to sit so I could do her buckles up.
So I am confident I will get a lot of use from a capsule. My main reason for goin gthat option this time was I have a kia carnival with what will be 4 kids all in child restraints & it will make it easier to get to the older kids in the back row to do up & check their buckles if I can remove the rear facing seat easily rather then climbing over it.

I personally (only from what I see not experience yet) think that carring the capsule around will be awkward & heavy. I see mums with their bubs in capsules & they just look uncomfortable. So I wont be using mine to carry the bub around in unless I am going shopping or something & can put them in the trolley along with the shopping LOL.

I dont think the pram & capsule would really work for me as I need to be able to push a trolley with shopping etc at the same time. So I would just put the capsule in the trolley.

I know I've read literature, from the RACV if I remember correctly, that states the SNS capsule as being the safest option up to 8kgs. Maybe use our friend google ;) and see what you come up with.

hehe great thread! I was looking into this, and heard lots of pros & cons re capsule versus seat. In the end I've gone with a capsule, as I like the idea of being able to move bubs & not disturb. Also, DH is big & will carry one quite happily - whereas friends of mine that were both quite little didn't like the idea of lugging bubs in a capsule. I know I'll have to get a convertible seat later, but that's ok, i'll see what's around later.

When I looked into hiring, it was nearly half the purchase price, so I've just bought one, given I hope to have a 2nd child so I'd get the use.

Also, the capsules (according to the SnS website) do till 12 kg, so you'd get some use out of it (but depends how strong you are, as to lugging it around with 12 kg of bubba!).

FYI, the site with the testing results is here (am I allowed to post this? mods, remove if not). From what i've seen, the convertible seats and the capsules are pretty comparable (provided you keep bub rear-facing as long as possible).

And bear in mind, I haven't used mine yet - so it's all theoretical so far :rofl: but DH and I are both safety nuts.

Hi BW,

We used both types. at first we had the capsule, but i found it too tricky getting in and out of the car, and also, my back and stomach muscles were pretty weak after the pg, and i found taking out the whole thing too strenuous, but i guess if i stuck with it, it may have gotten easier! also, DD didnt like the angle, she born with a fair bit of mucus and for the first month and a bit was a bit phlemgy. so we made the switch to the reversible car seat and haven't looked back (they sit up a bit). i have found transferring bubs from seat to bassinette on the pram really easy, especially as a newborn. she would barely rouse.

for the pram we have the bugaboo (gecko model) and havent looked back. we used the bassinette for 6 months which was great as she slept really well in there and it was nice to have her facing us (especially if she went psycho at the shops! LOL!). the fact that the pram then converts into a stroller style is also really great. she was in the facing us position until a couple of weeks ago, but has decided that she is a big girl and now prefers to face outwards, although in this position we have found it trickier to get her to sleep as she wants to look around.

HTH! and good luck with all the buying!

Yes a capsule can be uncomfortable to carry around, but we only really used to keep baby in it for short quick trips into the school or shops.

We had a convertable car seat with DD and then went out and got a capsule as it was a bit fiddly for us having her in the car seat, plus when we knew we were going out, I could feed her, put her in the capsule, where she would fall asleep, finish getting ready and then transfer her to the car all without interuption.

We have brought a second capsule as we are having twins. We were going to buy the new kind, but opted for the older kind, the one with high sides that sits in a big blue bucket(IYKWIM). As when talking to the baby store owner, we had the other one picked but she advised us that on safety testing the bucket one is safer (SNS). This was a cheaper option so I know it wasnt done from a sales point of view.

All the best making your decision.

We've gone for the capsule option - we bought a used SNS Unity on ebay for about 20% more than it was going to cost to hire for 6-8 months.

I think I'm now leaning towards the car seat and pram with bassinette option. DH is big and boofy so getting the capsule out and lugging it around isn't going to worry him. Me however, different story. Also thinking in terms of how I'll cope with an arthritis flare... carrying the capsule is going to be quite hard, seat belt buckles in car seats and prams/slings are going to be a better option for me in terms of what I can manage. Often it's my fingers that go first and worst if my arthritis gets bad and gripping things is hard.

Also, on the subject of having other children... not sure it's going to be an option for us. Natural conception is impossible, we have two frozen embryos but have crap defrosting rates... and knowing how sick I've got with stim cycles in the past, I'm very much thinking that another stim cycle and caring for a child just isn't going to be an option. This child is very likely to be it for us.

BW

BW, go and look at your options IRL. They all have fiddly buckles etc, and while carrying the capsule may not be practical, at least you can strap/unstrap your bub without leaning into the car etc. And you don't have to do too much carrying if it doesn't suit you. There's probably pros and cons for both in your case.

Another option is to buy the car seat ready, hire a capsule for a shorter period of time, (or if possible borrow one) and then if you're finding the capsule just too impractical you can install the car seat. Just a thought :)

We have both. We hired the capsule and are lucky in that it fit into our pram so we didnt have to wake him when we went out. However he is a long baby and we have just put him into the reversible carseat we bought, and he is a bit more upright now so he seems to look more comfortable.
I did like the capsule though because it was easy to transfer him to pram or shopping trolley etc without having to disturb him but it is only for a short time if you have big heffalump babies like I do.

Hi,

Just to add my bit with dd1 had a reverse car seat hated, dd2 hired the old style sns capsule was ok now With dd3 who is now 3 weeks old, I lashed out and brought the sns unity goes to 12 kilos and the steelcraft Profile pram wich the unity conects to and love it very easy to get in and out of car and clicks straigt onto pram i only use it to cary bub if going into friends houses or just a quick in and out.

Would not do it any other way, once she out grows this she will be in a sns maxirider which converts to a booster eventualy.

Just wanted to add Target have a great sale on at the mo on some of their car seats - I just got one today which was reduced by $100! Its a Safe n Sound Guardian convertable one, which is a recommend by the Roads and Traffic Authority, check out this leaflet which reviews a few different ones:
http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety...tockno4305.pdf

BTW I think the Target sale is only on for a few more days.

Hi BW,

Well I was going to offer my 2cents but it seems that many other lovely ladies have already offered their opinions but I just wanted to say it's very exciting to see you posting a thread like this!! Congrats again!

I hired a capsule for DD#1 and bought a Mountain Buggy pram (big wheels - absolute must have if you want a pram that is really good for proper walks, as opposed to cruising around the shopping centre) with the bassinet. Izzy had pretty bad reflux so the pressure on her tummy caused by the capsule was terrible. She stayed in it for only a couple of weeks before the GP told me to take her out. Likewise the bassinet attachment for the pram was useless because she couldn't lie flat.

DD#2 I have borrowed my SIL's capsule. Elena has been fine in it until the last couple of weeks. She now screams her head off within a minute of being in it and can scream for the entire trip. I've tried her in a Meridien (convertible) car seat and she went to sleep straight away, no problems at all.

FWIW I would hire a capsule (I agree all the literature says they're the safest for a NB) and see how your bub goes. If he/she is happy there, brilliant. If not, you haven't wasted big amounts of money. I honestly can't say that the slightly better safety aspect of a capsule over a Meridien (or whatever) is worth my babies being genuinely distressed and uncomfortable every single time they're in the car. I wouldn't be wasting money on a bassinet for the pram either - just try to get a pram that has as limitless as possible range of reclines (MB are brilliant for this).

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Just another point to add to the discussion, safe-n-sound are the only brand that actually test there seats so in my mind they are the only ones that should be on the market.

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Britax who own Safe & Sound also manufacture pretty much every car seat on the Australian market - and all of them have to pass the tests to be sold so I'm not sure what you are talking about. They also own the testing facility and are on the board for Standards Australia, which is why the standards are so heavily biased in favour of SNS. I wouldn't put too much stock into a brand name if I was you (or Standards Australia since we lag behind the rest of the western world in terms of new seat developments and rear facing age requirements).

We have a travel system capsule for our pram and its great, we use it all the time. The capsule is rated to 13kg so Oliver will be in it until around his 1st birthday but obviously your milage will vary depending on how heavy your child is (length is moot, as long as their head is within the seat it doesn't matter if their legs hang out). I use the pram seat for walking during the week and we usually just take the chassis and capsule on the weekends to save room in the car.

I found the capsule much more snug and secure when Oliver was a new born as compared to the convertible seats in my mum and MIL's cars where he seemed tiny and lost. Plus, we can settle him into the seat in the house, cover him with a blanket, then walk to the car and just drop and lock it onto the base.

We bought ours because we plan on having a couple more babies and expect to get more use out of it before it expires. The hire capsules near us are the Polo capsule which only goes to 9kg so its worth checking that.