Taking a baby car seat overseas (to UK)?

[MummaSue]

Has anyone ever done this? I want to take our baby car seat to the UK. Am just wondering if it will be ok.

TIA!

Sue xx

[onthefly]

Shouldnt' be any problem taking it. The only issue might be if it doesn't conform to local car-restraint regulations...

[*Ang*]

From memory it wont actually fit into their cars as they have different restraint systems ie they do not have the clip that you lock them into at the back of the car. For the life of me I cant remember what its called. So a booster seat that just requires a seatbelt as the harness would be ok but anything that clips in will not.

[Traveller]

Cars in Scotland don't have anchor points so your anchor straps will be hanging useless, but other than that your seat should be ok for local regulations. We used our Australian car seats in Scotland for the 2 and a bit years we were there. If you are taking it as luggage on the plane it's a good idea to get it wrapped at one of those big glad wrap luggage wrapping places (there will be one at the airport). If not you risk the straps getting caught in machinery and being cut off, rendering it useless. If you take it in the cabin you can use it for your baby, but you would need to buy her a seat.

[MummaSue]

Thanks guys,

Traveller, that is good to know. I am going to ring the car hire company this evening and see what they say. I just wondered if anyone had done this before, so thanks!

Sue xxx

[*Ang*]

Thats what I meant! The anchor straps and points!

[Traveller]

As long as the seat straps in with a normal lap/sash belt then it will be the same standard as UK ones, just with the addition of a useless anchor point. Seats here are a higher standard, although I think they were thinking of adding anchor points to cars over there.

[thepixie]

Traveller I thought European car seats used Isofix system which I thought was superior to ours because it fixes the car seat to the chassis?

[Traveller]

Some have them in the UK, but they are expensive to add to your vehicle and the seats are very expensive too. Most people have the seats that are strapped in with the seatbelt, like the Australian ones. In fact I don't know anybody who has the isofix system in Scotland.

[thepixie]

Ah OK.
Friends of mine from Jersey brought their carseat over and it is an isofix type.

[YoYo]

I recently bought a car seat for my DD to use in Singapore and here you also use the base which the car seat clips onto which is the anchored using the Isofix system (and add another 300 bucks to your car seat!). When we holidayed in the UK when DS was 13 months, we hired a car with a car seat, so no need to drag my own along. The anchor straps (as everyone else mentioned) would be rendered useless, but if you can still strap it in with the seat belt, then it should be all good.

[MummaSue]

Thanks everyone! DH doesn't really want to take it - I'm still working on him!

[YoYo]

TBH I wouldn't want to either! But thats just me!

[*Ang*]

Me either! For a start its one more thing to carry and secondly it is honestly not that expensive just to hire one that is of appropriate standard over there. Every time we have needed a car seat in Europe we have either hired or in one instance purchased them ourselves.

[MummaSue]

DH won this one, we're not taking it. I rang the car hire company yesterday evening to find out what kinds of seats they use - as DD is under 12 months I wanted to make sure they didn't give us a capsule, but they told us we actually get to pick which one we want.

YAY!

Thanks for your input guys.
Sue xxx