Merry

Britax Baby Car Seats : Thoughts on a 15 Year Love Affair

September 9, 2013 by Merry 2 Comments

One of the nice bits of blogging in recent years is undoubtedly the opportunity to work with brands – and one of the responsibilities is to try and work with brands that mean something to you. I’ve learned that along the way, no doubt and had some great fun doing so. Some brands, mostly ones that now feature in my sidebar, are brands I do have fun with but which I also believe in; places I’ve holidays, products I really do use.

Of all of those, Britax is the one I have the greatest history with. A Britax car seat accompanied every one of my girls home from hospital and it is the only brand of 5 point car seat I have ever bought. I say the girls, because the boys would have had the same brand but instinct stopped me buying a carseat for Freddie (I borrowed one which was of course never used) and a friend brought one to the hospital for Bene after fear stopped me from buying one in advance for him.

As soon as he was heavy enough for one, I went out and bought Bene a Britax carseat. It was the only one I could afford at the time from their range, which limited my choice to some extent, but I trust the brand, trust the design and made my decision based on that.

Here they are, Fran and Maddy in the car seat I did admittedly choose at least partly for the fabric 😉 Brand awareness was so much less strong back then but I did know about Kiddicare, who at the time were a small shop just tucked into a street in the north of Peterborough and I trusted them. They told me to get a Britax, so I did.

We got a new one for Amelie.

And despite Amelie and her lack of sleep/eczema/asthma/sheer Amelieness nearly putting Max off having more kids, Josie got to use it too 😆

Josie comes home. Honestly, it was 2004. Will you look at that brand placement in the photo 😉

There is lots of choice on the market today; forwards facing, backwards facing, 5 point and (and can I just say they terrify me and I wouldn’t even consider one) seats which don’t have straps but wedge the baby in with a sort of thick impact bar instead. For me, I stick with what I know; I’m comfortable with a five point harness, partly because I’ve always used them and it seems right (although not necessarily scientific!) to keep to the same for all of them. There is some variation in research and it seems to come down to the wedge seats having some benefit in a front/rear collision (slightly less whiplash risk) but being less safe if the car rolls than a five point harness, with at least one test showing a baby could come out of the seat altogether. There is a good review at MotherGeek who makes the point that both designs have been approved for safety by the powers that be and has photos of her child in both types.

Can I just say, how very discomforting that the statutory test used to approve a car seat for safety might do it as a static roll rather than while moving? What on earth is that supposed to prove?! I prefer the honesty (while allowing for the fact that they are testing an opposing brand) of the Britax video which is a moving car. I will link to it, but their site is down today!

Anyway, we drive a tall people carrier, which I have in fact almost rolled a version of once, so I’m comfortable that 5 point harness is better for us.

In terms of backwards and forwards facing, the most stressful part of having Bene in a car for me was that I couldn’t glance at him while I was driving while he was in a backwards stage 1 seat. I was terrified he would just stop breathing and if I was alone in the car with him, too much of my attention was focused on listening for him all the time. I know lots of people prefer toddlers to sit facing backwards, but it was in all our interests for Bene to be visible from the drivers seat as soon as possible and lots less stressful for the girls since I stopped having to ask them to check he was breathing all the time.

Luckily for Bene, at this point lovely Britax asked me to become an ambassador for them and offered me an updated version of the Versafix Stage 2 seat to review, something I’ve been excessively tardy about doing! The Versafix, roughly x1.3 the cost of the one I had just bought for him from an older range at £225 was the new, all singing and dancing and generally rather pretty Isofix stage 2 seat which had just arrived. We passed on our new-but-old-design to a lovely friend of mine who was expecting again.

Isofix is new to me since the last time I was buying these sorts of car seats. When Josie had one, the only option really was to buckle the seat in using the ordinary safety belt. This has always worked but it did make me nervous, not least because it wasn’t hard for another child to accidentally release it without an adult noticing. Since then there are now seats with a sort of extending foot that sits on the floor in front and holds it steady and seats that attach to Isofix bars rooted in the innards of the main car seat in new cars. Our car only needs the seat to be attached in this spot, rather than also requiring a third point which is a belt that fixes over the top and into the boot.

I love the safety aspect of this. The stage 2 seat ratchets into the car and clips fast, making it rock solid and impossible to remove unless you are daddy. (He does swear at getting it in and out a bit but he has so far remembered how eventually each time!) You can still belt it in quickly if you need to – such as when I used it for a taxi a while back – but for normal use, it feels so much safer to be clipped in.

Important but less essential, the seat tips back comfortably or sits up straight, the straps are comfy and easy to use – and he hasn’t wriggled out of them – and it’s nicely padded and a pretty colour and it buckled and adjusts easily. The only thing I have left to do is take the cover off to wash it, but I can’t seem to find a car ride free day to get that element tested out.

There is no doubt we are on the home run now when it comes to buying car seats but I can pretty much guarantee I will have Britax in my car for the grandchildren. (Did I really just say that?)

Disclosure: we received a Britax Versafix in exchange for this review. Views are our own.

Reviewing School Uniform… the blog may revolt!

August 22, 2013 by Merry 6 Comments

In a complete fall from grace as a home educating blog, I took Asda up on an offer to review school uniform. Needs must, there’s a whole lot of uniform has been required over the last few months 😉

I went ot the kind of schools that had complicated uniforms bought from fusty suppliers with oaken pigeonholes and ladders to climb up and get the gymslips. I’m woefully ignorant as to where my state educated peers bought their uniform but I can only assume that supermarkets stocking such things has been a major step forward. I was at least able to kit Josie out for summer term overnight in one food inclusive shop but winter term was looming and Josie and I were locked in a battle as to whether she would look cute in a skirt or pinafore or have trousers (her preference). To be fair, she never wears skirts at home but looks lovely in her summer dress and I was being a needy mother about it.

Luckily ASDA stepped in and offered a £20 spend in their school uniform shop.

Since I was then able to try out all the versions of uniform for free and with no guilt, I did. She got a pinafore, skirt, trousers, 2 polo tops and a pack of socks for £20 – I think that’s pretty good value.

To her own surprise, she’s fallen in love with having her knees on show after all, so my heart strings can be properly pulled as she trips off into year 4 and does her first winter term. I’m still a bit of a novice at uniform, but it looks nice, seems well made and frankly, if it doesn’t last till the summer, the odd extra £3 spend on a skirt won’t be the end of the world.

It does mean I’m back to naming things. Thankfully I can also stick names into things thanks to namelabelco who sent all the girls clothing name labels, sticky lunch box type labels and very cute foot shaped shoe labels a while back. These were more primary age design, with a cute picture and comic sans writing but SO cute that everyone wanted them in their clothes. The iron in ones were much quicker and easier than any I’ve used before and the foot ones make my heart melt. Very sweet indeed.

Hard to believe 3 of them go back a week today. I’m not ready for the summer to be over at all.

Disclosure: we were sent all these items free for review.

We are UNBORED: review of a great book.

August 18, 2013 by Merry 6 Comments

When I was a kid I spent a fair bit of time staying at my Nana’s house. It was a place with a huge garden, workshops filled with those satisfying grandad style machines made of cast iron, the smell of oil, a bike to ride, swings, snooker tables and a kitchen ever ready to bake in, mix up potions and consume huge bowls of porridge. One of my favourite things was the old manuals, annuals and stories left over from my mum and aunt’s childhood. I can still remember the story of Inca the pony almost word for word and the Chalet School and Cherry Ames books form part of my own library of loved old books now. But the bits I loved the most were the articles on crafts, on living wild, on making fires and cooking over them, fixing yourself a pair of snow blindness glasses from grass should your plane crash unexpectedly…

I was most disappointed when I joined big school (not much Chalet School adventure there) and Guides (nothing like the manuals of the 50’s at all); somehow the past seemed better. It was perhaps partly that that made me want to keep my girls out of school so they could spend more time just being and scrabbling in the dirt, making their own entertainment and games. By and large it worked, though I think I might have had to ban all gadgets for it to be perfect – and I’m too much of a techno geek myself to do so. But it is one of the things I most wish for them – and am most sorry about – somehow our home town doesn’t have the scope for such things. I long for them to have the run of Dartmoor like Max did, just playing and being and exploring and improvising.

This game said it all to me yesterday; I would have played Famous Five or Swallows and Amazons and they played The Hunger Games but the effect was the same. Two hours of intense fun and hot pursuit in an imaginary world and the joy of the game ending with a well earned breather.

***

In the last little while there has been a flourish of books that appeal to the daring do of kids and we own plenty of them. They’ve been adored books at Christmases, encouraged them to try new books from snippets inside them, inspired new activities. I don’t think any of them have been quite as admired as UNBORED though, which we got sent to review recently. It appeals to me for so many reasons, at least one of which is the fantastic, evocative illustrations in three or four tones of line drawing and colouring that mix with the photos throughout.

The premise of the book is fabulously 21st century too while keeping all those traditions of the get on and do book that I so approve of. It mixes clapping games (oh, we have such a responsibility to keep those playground games going) with geocaching, making a mouse house with lolly sticks or learning to blog, interesting facts about the history of travel tucked in with a excerpt from 80 Days Around the World. It balances the old and the new so beautifully, so engagingly and so inspirationally that it is hard not to just want to leap up and “do!” instantly.

I love it. It is a beautifully made, beautifully bound, instantly heirloom book that every home should have. And you can buy it for less than £20, which is frankly a total bargain. This book makes me want to be a child again; the sections on you, home, society and adventure are all fabulous, all mind expanding and all beautiful and the sentence at the beginning “kids spend too much time staring st TV and computer screens, videogames, MP3 players and mobile phones…” has just made me kick all of mine off Animal Crossing. And made me kick myself back off this laptop to go walking 😆

This is what Maddy has to say about it:

“There is certainly a lot to interest you in it because it tells you things you thought you might need adult supervision to do and also good ideas for old things decoupage (in the book it suggests using this to decorate a skateboard). There are crafts which are inspiring and masses of tips for activities such as geocaching and building dens, making guitars and so on. It makes these things seem accessible to try. It has survival ideas, camping ideas, igloo making and quick shelters. There is a real mix of modern and old – from rock music, to interesting facts and making Lego robots and how to use apps for exploration to making bombs from cola and mints.”

Maddy gave the book 9/10 – she didn’t have a reason for it not getting 10/10 except that she hasn’t read it all yet!

I give it 10/10 🙂

“Use the World, or the World will use you”. Good advice.

Disclosure: We were sent this book free to review by Bloomsbury. All views are unbiased and our own. The link to Amazon is an affiliate link which would give me a (very very very) small commission.

Day trip to #venturecove at Elveden Center Parcs

July 22, 2013 by Merry Leave a Comment

You might remember that I mentioned in my Center Parcs review that the kids play area at Elveden had been closed for refurbishment. Last week we were invited back by Centerparcs to see what they had done with it, to turn it into Venture Cove, the new activity spot for kids and families within the pool area. (Oh, that’s a bit weird, the press release has me and Bene on it!)

I’ve had a mixed relationship with the old play area. The sand was annoying, though the kids kind of liked it and it felt a bit dowdy and stuck away at the back. The water was not quite warm or deep enough for an adult to be happy if they were half in and half out and you did feel quite isolated as it was only for ages up to 8. Add to that the fact that adults couldn’t do the flumes, making it hard to coax nervous smalls on to the for the first time and it was ‘okay’ but I wasn’t sorry when my lot wanted to move on. We tended to end up with me and the toddlers in the play area and daddy out in the main bit with the bigger girls. As I said, in our trip this year I didn’t really miss it, because the lagoon and the addition of noodles and play floats to the pool for sharing, made the main area just fine.

I’ve got no photos of my own from the day since a very hot train journey wrestling Bene, a car seat and talking to Josie kept all my hands free, but I do have a couple taken by the lovely Lindy for the Tots100. Thanks both 🙂 (Also, just added some in from the CP photographer, so thanks also to them).

The new cove is very different to the old one, even though it is in the same space. The sand and low walls are gone and the baby and toddler end is now a walk in ‘beach style’ pool with water tracks and gates to play in. There are benches in the water for parents to sit on and a mini slide plus a big slide for adults and babies to go on together or toddlers to manage alone.

Down the other end is a bigger change. There are still three flumes (nominally aimed at children rather than teens and adults) with lovely coloured lights inside but anyone can go on them. So if, like us, you end up with a family spread across a lot of ages who want to be together, anyone can go on them. There is masses of water everywhere, falling from a gantry of steps and scramble nets and walkways; buckets pour water, sloshes of water suddenly cascade down on you and fountains spray up while torrents fall down.

It’s very wet, loads of fun and really quite noisy in that ‘waterfall’ sort of way. Josie loved it, as did her little pal. A great fun, sensory experience that will cater far better for families who want to spend some time in there while the little ones can poddle about.

I loved the way it had all been themed to be a sort of ‘not quite pirate’ feel, very holidayish, not cheesy, neither too boy or girl. Loved it. I kept expecting the Black Pearl to sail into view 🙂

Well done Center Parcs, you’ve come up trumps. Now I just need to ever be able to save up enough to come in school holiday time!

Disclosure: We’ve been a Center Parcs family all year and on this occasion were invited over, given a day to swim and explore and enjoy goody bags as well as lunch out in the very lovely Hucks.

We’ve loved our year with Center Parcs and thorough recommend you enter this months competition to be in with a chance of a trip like we had in May. This month, it’s a nature challenge.

This post first appeared on Patch of Puddles.