Joie - Signature i-Level Infant Car Seat

You can attach most car seats to the pram with the right adapters (apart from seats with fixed isofix base) - the claim that car seats that can be attached to the pram are inherently less safe is just bs. All car seats sold in the UK need to meet the safety standards, and some car seats including many car seats sold as part of travel system choose to meet higher than the expected standards. Additionally, if you buy a travel system most bundles don't come with a car seat or you can choose which one is included in the bundle, or you can choose your own outside the bundle.  Finally, the baby needs a carrycot for the first 6 months, when I was pregnant with my first I was not able to find a single pram with proper wheels that had the carry cot that wasn't travel system. So even if you don't plan to ever attach the car seat to the pram or buy one that cannot be attached you'd still most likely need to buy a travel system pram. Travel system simply means that carcass with wheels is separate to the baby holder (seat, carry cot or car seat), you can choose which attachments you want to use. We got the joie chrome dlx travel system, joie i level seat for new born phase as it lies flat and then joie i spin 360. We were planning to have 2+ kids so the plan was to have younger in the I level seat and older in the ispin until ready for highback booster as I don't think our car would have fitted two I spin seats comfortably. The pavements are rubbish where we live so the bigger wheels and better suspension of bigger travel system pram are so much nicer than the tiny wheels of our smaller and lighter travel pram. Our car is also so small that if we ever needed to take the baby in for errands we'd struggle to fit a pram with carry cot in the car.

Bear in mind you tend to get echo chambers recommending the same things again and again but a lot of the time the people making the recommendations are either repeating what they see others recommending, they are talking about the one seat they have used with no way to compare it to other options or they are financially motivated (e.g. influencers, retailers). I used to work with car seats and also have gone down many, many ADHD rabbitholes with them over the last ~16 years, so have more knowledge on this topic than most though appreciate I don't know everything. But am happy to answer what I can. **Seats you mentioned** IMO, Pixel Pro is a lovely seat but the Avionaut Cosmo has many of the same features for much less money. The brilliant thing about the Avionaut seats is the positioning of the baby which is achieved with their inserts, which work differently to most baby seats. The Pixel has a more complicated insert which means you can essentially custom fit it to any age/shape of baby and it will always have a perfect fit, whereas the Cosmo insert is simpler, which makes it easier to use. Do you need a 100% perfect fit? Not really. Good enough is OK. Cosmo will give you a very good fit at pretty much any age, which is a lot better than most infant car seats do. I don't rate the Maxi Cosi 360 seat at all. It's fine, but it's nothing special and there is no way that it justifies the price tag. It's a shame, because Maxi Cosi used to be the absolute stand out gold star in infant car seats but their offerings over the last few years have been gimmicky and don't last long enough. Joie i-Level used to stand out from the competition in terms of offering the "lie flat" type seat at a much lower price point than its competitors, but these days it's not the only one on the market and there are options at various prices. It depends what you want really. **General things to note** The vast majority of car seat brands and travel system type prams on the market today use what used to be called Maxi Cosi type adapters or multi-brand/universal adapters. Notable exceptions are Silver Cross, Graco, Ickle Bubba and Hauck. For some prams you can buy two types of adapter, e.g. Silver Cross do an adapter for their own car seats and then a different one for other brand car seats. The Maxi Cosi/universal type has a distinctive shape, the bottom of the adapter is unique to the pram but the top of it will have a sort of 3D "U" shape with the middle of the U filled in. You can learn to spot this. When you see prams with a list of compatible car seats, what that means is that the company have in their factory or marketing office a selection of currently-popular car seats, plus any of their own branded car seats of course. They will test the set up with those models and list them as being compatible. There is no way that any pram company is going to test every single car seat on the market, but the compatability list is much longer in reality. At a bare minimum, if you see an older version of a car seat listed (e.g. Cybex Cloud Z) then a newer version (e.g. Cybex Cloud G) will be compatible the exact same. Also when you see older models (e.g. Maxi Cosi Tinca) newer models by the same brand (e.g. Maxi Cosi Pebble 360) will 99% of the time be compatible. Then you can extrapolate if for example Joie list that their prams take Maxi Cosi, Joie, Cybex and Recaro, but another pram company lists that their prams take Besafe, Avionaut, Maxi Cosi and Cybex, you can see that all these brands use the same system of adapter and should in theory be cross-compatible. There are a few rare cases where seats from a certain brand have an issue with the depth of the hooks or the adapters on certain models but this is very very few combinations. 99% of the time all works fine. (Avionaut work with this type of adapter, so no worries about finding a compatible pram.) You DO NOT NEED to spend upwards of £400 to get a good quality safe high performing car seat. About £150 without base, or £220 with base is about the going rate for the minimum here. IMO, it makes sense to consider whether any features you like (recline/inserts/weight/rotation) is worth whatever extra the cost is. You don't need a base which takes the next stage seat. It doesn't save money (unless you find a fantastic deal) and it's not more convenient. This is a con which only benefits the car seat company. There is one possible exception and that is Besafe Beyond. **Questions for you** You say a toddler car seat, but you're referencing infant carriers. How long are you hoping to use this first seat for? Do you plan on having more children? What do you actually want from a car seat, when you say it's a "good" seat, do you mean safety and quality or something else?

Idk girl but I’m a FTM and its on my registry. Looked at joie then looked at nuna and we said “fuck it, we ball!”

I tried them both out in person! We did Joie first and it was fine absolutely would have worked. Then went to see the nuna and we could tell the difference in quality. My husband lovedddddd the Nuna Swiv and it was so lightweight and easy to move around compared to the others it made the choice really easy.

Central Chidlom has loads but prices are going to be similar across the city, the one we got (can’t remember exactly which but it’s Joie and is whichever was the highest rated on which that was available here) was about 3x what it costs in Europe - this isn’t hyperbole, I actually bought the same seat in Europe when we visited for a month. Check FB marketplace and maybe some of the expat mum’s groups on fb although they are pretty strict on who they let in

Joie or graco are both fine. They do a lower level seat than the stages if you’re no longer rear facing. Other brands are also fine thanks to our highly regulated system. As a run-down of the rules here: New car seats are R129 compliant. Also known as I-size and are based on the height of the child. Some older style seats are still sold, but will be listed as R44. These are still completely legal and safe but the R129 moves from a weight based system to a height based system, includes more directional crash testing and longer rear-facing on models including the 0-15m age option. Child car seats in the UK are highly regulated and tested. Buying from Halfords, they won’t be selling any seats that aren’t tested and compliant so feel free to spend less than £100 if it suits the needs of your children. Children under 15 months / 74cm must rear-face. Children over that may forward face or rear-face. Children up to 105cm must use a 5point harness. Any child over that can use a seat-belt high back. Most children here tend to start forward facing somewhen between 2 and early 4 but rear facing is obviously safer etc. If you’re happy forward facing both kids, look between £60-£100 for a basic R129 seat that still meets all relevant regulation and testing.

I know I sound like a broken record with the other comments but the joie car seat isn't the best. If possible, see if you can get an infant carrier (a good budget one is the maxicosi cabriofix or a spin option is the avionaut pixel pro or cosmo) and then get a next stage seat when they're older. Also, car seats go by height/weight, not age. Joie tends to be outgrown quite early (too early for a child to then forward face safely) and they are really bulky seats. I'd definitely go for a separate infant carrier. Pram wise. I regretted my travel bundle - Egg3. If I had my time again, I'd buy a cheaper pram and stroller and buy a better car seat. We just bought the Lejoux+ stroller for holidays and it's great. I see us using that now instead of the Egg stroller. So don't be like me lol

I do believe it is this seat which is a good budget one. If you're on Facebook, I recommended joining the Bump to Booster group. The admins are experts and are so good at giving good non-judgemental advice. This is a good seat once baby fits but all isofix seats have a set weight limit, usually around 18kg for low budget seats which doesn't tend to last children long enough so then it would be recommended to buy a longer lasting seat which is double the money. I got the maxi cosi cabriofix with base with my travel system (had to ask for others as the pebble wasn't very supportive or recommended) and now I use the Avionaut Sky. We switched around 6 months and love it so I can highly recommend that. It lasts until 25kg which should see my low centile baby until she's old enough for a booster. It was pricier at £300 but it lasts 10 years so we'll get lots of use out of it when we have our next one too. It really is a minefield so don't worry. I went down a rabbit hole when I was pregnant and had a panic attack that my baby would die if I would bought the pebble. All my friends have them and they're fine seats. My baby wouldn't die if she were in it but them hormones are brutal!

I got the Joie too! I don't have my own car but my husband has a small SUV. It was nice to turn the seat to the other passenger seats and spend the time getting him all secure in the pre heated car before spinning him to the rear facing position.

I had a joie seat when he was small, was a lovely fit on my seats. Not sure if the puma seats are the same. If you don’t get an answer here, you might be better off going to a shop and have them try a few to see which ones fit nicely