Maxi Cosi Tobi

This car seat was voted the safest by Which magazine so when it came to choosing a new car seat for our grandchildren we opted for this one. We bought it from John lewis where the staff were very helpful and told us a lot about safety aspects and then showed us how to fit it to our car.

The car seat is a stage 2 one which means it is suitable for children about 9kg plus so should last your child from around 1 year to about 3/4 years.

Fitting the car seat is actually so easy that I managed to do it by myself with just following the drawings in the booklet! I was very worried that i wouldn't be able to fit it as it always looks so very complicated but I was able to do it without very much of a problem at all! The diagrams in the book are very straight forward and universal. The seat belt is used to secure it in place and if you pull it tight enough then you shouldn't have any movement on it at all so it is very steady and secure.

The chair is very well padded it certainly looks comfortable and it feels it too. There is a head rest which can be pulled out for when your baby is bigger and needs more space.

To secure the baby in you use the straps and then tighten them. This is easy to do you don't need to be strong to do it. Unfastening the straps takes a bit of force to release them which is a good idea as it means that your toddler can't manage to release it themselves!

It is very well padded. When my granddaughter is in this seat she looks very happy and it has a lot of support so if she falls asleep she has a nice soft side to fall asleep against.

The material is a bit raised in places so if you have a car sick baby or have some spillages it isn't really very easy to clean but I have found that a good scrub with a baby wipe and using the hoover usually does the trick!

You can buy this car seat in a variety of colours from just plain black to really bright blue. We have this lovely red one and it looks really smart against it's black base.

They cost around £170 which sounds expensive but when you think that this lasts several years then it's actually rather reasonable. It doesn't take up that much room in the car either, it actualy takes up less room than the car seat we had before this one which is aimed at newborn babies.

i definitely recommend this but make sure that someone professional shows you how to fit it first.