Maxi-Cosi - CabrioFix i-Size Car Seat

That's what we did. Maxi Cosi baby bucket until she was 1 - we had an isofix base in each car so we could just clip and go. Rear facing seat until she was 4.5 (she sized out by weight about a fortnight before she started school). Then into a high back booster. We bought a 0 - 12 one for the car we use least when she sized out of the baby bucket (age 1 - 4 she probably did 10 journeys in that car because of work patterns and COVID etc). Would not have trusted it under 1 but it was an excellent RF toddler seat and now it's a perfectly usable booster and as we kept the box, we've taken it on holiday the last couple of years to use in the hire car. It means we've covered everything in two cars with 4 seats, and not having to switch between cars.

For car seats, while basically all infant carrier are safe in crash tests because they all have the same basic concept, not all are supportive for newborns and especially tiny and premature babies. They can put babies in a chin to chest position which can restrict my their airways. And some seats have really bulky inserts which fit a newborn well but have an awkward transitional stage where they’ve outgrown the inserts but don’t fit properly in the seats. Some of the more supportive ones are Avionaut Pixel/Cosmo; BeSafe Go Beyond; Britax BabySafe; Maxi-Cosi Cabriofix; Cybex Cloud Z. You can sometimes get these seats in bundles.

We have an Oyster 3 and do use the car seat adaptors fairly often - mostly when popping to appointments or if I need to do a really quick shop. A lot of seats fit the Maxi Cosi adaptors, we have the Britax Baby Safe Pro and the 360 base, plus a Maxi Cosi Cabriofix for my husbands car (both seats fit the adaptors). I really like the Britax seat we have, it has a lie flat feature which is good for newborns and the 360 base is actually quite handy. When they grow out of the carrier stage a lot of people really like the 360 toddler seats, the only thing I’d say to be aware of with those is that if you have a high centile child they can grow out of them earlier than you expect so you have to buy another car seat and there’s a limited amount of harnessed seats to bridge the gap between a high centile child growing out of an 18kg harnessed seat and being old enough to go into a booster seat with the adult seatbelt.

Which is not a great source of info on car seats tbh, you can go look at the results of the ADAC testing (standard pan European testing that which refer to) tho you might need to use google translate. After accounting for ADAC scoring, Which tend to score seats based on things like ease of fitting and colours of fabrics, and unless somethings changed recently they don’t score the extended rear facing seats very highly even tho they pass the Swedish Plus test which is the toughest test possible. But because they’re mostly not isofix (due to the weight limit of isofix itself) they mark them down for being ‘harder to fit’. Personally I find isofix seats trickier to fit but hey ho. I really don’t want to direct you to fb groups for car seat advice because some of them are absolutely crazy but I’m in one sane one I can vouch for (Car Seat Advice UK) - they are mostly run by independent car seat retailers so some people think they’re shilling for the most expensive seats they sell but if you just join and then search past posts for recommendations you’ll see a tonne of info not only on infant carriers but the next stages too. Toddler seats are where it gets really prone to drama as people have varying levels of comfort with how early to turn their kids forward facing (and depending on if you have a taller/heavier child than average, seats like the Joie spin seats can be outgrown far earlier than you expect). The group I mentioned does heavily moderate so you shouldn’t see any comments that are too crazy but it’s very much a hot topic. For car seats that click on to the pram chassis, many of them fit the Maxi Cosi adaptors, they’re very universal. We have a Maxi Cosi Cabriofix we are reusing from our first born in my husbands car (it’s a great cheaper option) and I’ve just bought a Britax Baby Safe Pro with the spin base for my car. John Lewis had an offer on which made it about £100 cheaper than anywhere else but not sure if that’s still on. Our pram is an Oyster 3 :) it’s mid-tier so a bit pricier than your Joie option but it’s less than an iCandy, Egg, Bugaboo, Uppababy etc. The Oyster 4 has just been released which can convert to a tandem but otherwise seems to be pretty much the same as the 3. I saw lots of prams while on mat leave with my first and I don’t think I ever once thought oh I should have gotten that pram instead and we are reusing it for our second. It does everything we want it to: folds easily and compactly, not too heavy, good storage underneath, both me and 6ft4 husband can use it comfortably because the handle extends out, brake is easy to use and you can’t accidentally kick it on, bassinet worked nicely, the main seat reclines well and can be parent or world facing, it has a good weight limit of 22kg I think and it handled some fairly rough walks without issue!

Have a look what adaptors they make. Maxi Cosi/universal adaptors fit a lot of seats including the cabriofix which is a good seat and not too pricey either.

Any seat will fit if it has universal adaptors and if it doesn't then you buy them for like £25. Avionaut Cosmo is a great budget option that is also one of the safest. I had the Maxi Cosi Cabriofix which is also a great budget seat and is safe but it has quite short limits so won't last you as long as the Cosmo which is probably the longest lasting infant carrier (or very close to).

It's not advised to have babies in an infant carrier (the one that attaches to the pram) for longer than 30 mins so unless it's a quick drive, in out the shop then it's not safe. We had the maxi cosi cabriofix which is a safe and bduget friendly option but it has low height/weight limits so she's outgrown it now at 10 months. The Avionaut Cosmo will last over a year though and around £130. I had a baby in September so the only bonus of the infant carrier is that you can easily bring it inside to keep it warm before putting a baby in. We switched to the Avionaut Sky (which is suitable from birth too) around 5/6 months and it's been great. Love this seat. Should last her until she's 5 at least.

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!

We don’t have a car but bought a maxi cosi cabrio fix as although it was just for a year, the flexibility of being able to take it anywhere (and put in other cars) was great. It’s also one of the cheapest, glad we didn’t go for a pebble like we initially wanted

We got the ocarro with maxi cosi Cabriofix infant carrier from ukbabycentre.com for £800 (over 50% cheaper than it would have been from mamas & papas!!) We went for the ocarro as we’re in a small cobblestoney town and do lots of dog walks so it’s bigger wheels are ideal.  Definitely try lots out in store first to figure out which ones you like. 

With a secondhand seat you don’t know how it’s been treated or if it has been in a crash. Buy a new seat that has been thoroughly tested. Maxi Cosi cabriofix isize is cheap but safe, you can buy isofix and attach to a pram

We had a Maxi-Cosi infant seat and moved him to the Graco Extend2fit at about 8 months. He had started to hate the bucket seat and I got it on a good sale. He was instantly happy! He just turned 2 and still loves his seat. It can rear face until 50lbs so that was one of the reasons we went with it. We eventually got one for my husband's car (had a Cosco Scenera before)

Agree with this! Our infant seat is MC and I got it for $280 during a sale a couple years ago. So price and the fact that the seat was light were big selling features. Our daughter (and our arms lol) were happier when we switched her to a convertible seat around 6 months. We went with Clek Fllo for that... liked it so much we bought another for baby#2 due in a couple months. But definitely agree that the screaming is a sign that baby is either over the infant seat and/or they are making their opinions on car rides known now that they're leaving the potato stage lol.