Chantelle and I have been on a bit of a buying spree in terms of Jessica as of late, having in quick succession bought her a brilliant Bambino Roadster car and booster seat as well as a too cute for words Chariot feeding chair system, much to the horror of our bank account balances of course! :)
(Never mind the ultra cute duck-laden non slip rubber bath mat thing, with squishy bath toys, now that Miss Dribble Monster baths in the big bath!)
Of course, this is what I should have written well over a month ago when we first bought all of this stuff, but seeing as I have been a bit slack on the life and Jessica blog posts as of late, I’m only picking up on this one now!
With Jessica fast outgrowing the little baby seat that comes as part of the pram, we needed to invest in a proper car seat for her, and as such we set out to the mall, targeting in particular both Toys R Us and Baby Boom. I didn’t realize the variance in terms of what is being offered in the car seat range, but it quickly became apparent that you get what you pay for, and so we both decided on the Bambino Roadster chair from Baby Boom, a middle of the range car seat ringing in at R1,500.
The nice thing about this one, apart from the fact that it appears to be quite rugged, very adjustable and rather padded, is that it can be used for group classifications 0+,I,II and III, bearing a weight from 0 to 36 kg – in other words this is a car seat that can last us for a number of years! Another bonus is it comes with a base that turns it into a rear facing seat for Group 0+, perfect for us at the moment with little Jessica who still hasn’t quite hit the weight mark which allows her to be forward facing in a normal car seat.
(And on top of all this, I even happen to like the design!)
Installing the seat is a little tricky and so it is best to keep the manual close at hand when attempting this, though we did run into quite a major obstacle when installing it in Chantelle’s Hyundai Getz – our seat belts are too short to do the necessary wraparounds properly!! Nevertheless, we have jury-rigged it to an extent that it will work for now until we can flip it around to be forward facing, though it does mean Chantelle can’t have any front passengers sitting next to her when she drives!
In any event, Jessica fits snugly in the chair, sits quite comfortably, and is seeming to enjoy the view offered by the higher seating position.
As for the pram’s baby chair, well that now inhabits my car for when I need to take Jessica on short hops, like to day care for instance.
So yeah, I’m pretty happy with the purchase we made and will definitely recommend the Bambino Roadster to any parent concerned with the safety of their baby whilst travelling – it’s well built, quite flexible in terms of use, looks good, well padded and comes in at a fair price when ignoring the bottom of the range stuff.
Nifty.