four wheel drive baby

[Sparksdisco]

Im expecting my first baby in december and love going off road with the missus. we have been busy buying all the nessary things for baby and when it came to the car seat i thought id write a post to see if anyone dose a lot of off road driving with baby?

My main questions are

what type of car seat do you own?

Would you buy it again?

How seriousley do you go off road with a baby?:twisted:
(This question is for my over concerned mother in law. Dont you love em?):angel:

how durable is you car seat?


I have a D1 for more adventerious days and a prado as the shopping trolly/ soft offroader

info would be great

[Scouse]

When Little Scouse was younger, he was in a convertible seat/capsule & that was used in our P38 & RR Classic. His first trip would have been at around 7 weeks old.
He's been along on a few, actually lots of 4x4 trips but obviously nothing that I would consider extreme although I have managed to get myself stuck (as usual).

At around 1yr, the capsule was turned around into the forward/sitting position so he can now see the trouble we head to :).

The only problems have been him getting covered in dust & head movement when he was very little. There are a few different types of head padding available for capsules though so one of those fixed the 2nd problem.

He's just turned 2 now & still likes going on trips. It was actually easier when he was a baby though as he can get into more strife these days ;).

[Cap]

I have a 20month old boy. We didnt take him on any trips that involved head movement, either from vehicle swaying or corrugations/rough terrain. It is recommended that children under 12months are not exposed to this kind of activity, so we took precautions and waitied until he was over 1yr.

I know its something you dont wanna hear, but at the end of the day would you take the risk?

[brianwood]

I have a 20month old boy. We didnt take him on any trips that involved head movement, either from vehicle swaying or corrugations/rough terrain. It is recommended that children under 12months are not exposed to this kind of activity, so we took precautions and waitied until he was over 1yr.

I know its something you dont wanna hear, but at the end of the day would you take the risk?


Bollocks Stooge. We did the Gibb River Road at its worst, with friends who had a 6 week old baby. She's 9 now. Nothing happened to her at all, sept maybe she's a little slow and her teeth haven't come through yet:Rolling:

[Utemad]

We have a 3 week old in a convertible car seat like Scouse described.
However I wouldn't want to take him on a 4wd type trip for quite a while.
Normal camping sure but wouldn't do any real off road stuff.
The seat is in my wife's Corolla so he hasn't even been in the Landy yet.

You wouldn't get far anyway. It is all 'feed, change nappy, settle, sleep, repeat' every few hours.
Never mind all the crap you need to take with you when you go anywhere.

Seriously you won't have the time or inclination to go away on a trip like that for a while anyway.

[clean32]

form about 5 months old we were back on the road, a convertible seat/capsule is brilliant, but stops are often. at 18 months he was in a kiddy seat, loves the land-rover because he can see so much more.
personally i wouldn't be to keen until baby can hold there own head, then i would say no problem, but just keep away from the really hard tracks.

[Bushie]

All of our kids have been 4wding and camping from a very young age, my (now) 21yo daughter was away with us for 5 weeks, when she was 6 months old, crossing the Simpson.

If you take reasonable care and use a bit of sense then I can't see there being any problems.

As for

You wouldn't get far anyway. It is all 'feed, change nappy, settle, sleep, repeat' every few hours.
Never mind all the crap you need to take with you when you go anywhere. all it means is that you travel a bit slower, stop more often and take your time to smell the roses. If you want to travel with bub - put your mind to it and away you go.


Martyn

[Utemad]

All of our kids have been 4wding and camping from a very young age, my (now) 21yo daughter was away with us for 5 weeks, when she was 6 months old, crossing the Simpson.

If you take reasonable care and use a bit of sense then I can't see there being any problems.

As for
all it means is that you travel a bit slower, stop more often and take your time to smell the roses. If you want to travel with bub - put your mind to it and away you go.


Martyn

Touring is different to 4wding in my mind. Even if you need 4wd for the touring. I'm picturing 4wd parks and state forests etc.

[rmp]

JFDI.

Both my kids were offroad by 4 weeks. A baby wants food, sleep and comfort. Where it gets it, it doesn't care, could be in its bed at home or in a carseat. Both mine just slept through some pretty rutted tracks, rocked them to sleep.

Start them young and fewer dramas later on, if you leave big trips till they're 5 it's too late.

If a baby is going to have a bad day, typically they have a bad day wherever they are whatever they're doing.

Be prepared to stop for a b/feed, nappy change and it'll be all good. Make sure the people you are travelling with understand that.

Your life does not need to entirely turn upside down because of the arrival of a baby. You can still take the kid out into the bush, just needs a little more time and equipment. You can still go out to a restaraunt. You can still do things. But if all the kid knows is being quietly at home for the first several months of its life, that's a problem when you want to do something different.

Enjoy your kid and your life and your wife, there's no need to choose just the one.

[Sparksdisco]

Bollocks Stooge. We did the Gibb River Road at its worst, with friends who had a 6 week old baby. She's 9 now. Nothing happened to her at all, sept maybe she's a little slow and her teeth haven't come through yet:Rolling:

Yea want to plan to do the gib river road when bubs is about 6mths old
I dont realy see it as a issue as long as we stop lots and actualy see the countryside rather than drive past it. because after all your there to look at the countryside.

[Utemad]

Remember, life evolves just like technology....people didn't think so much about safety of small kids out 4WDing years ago...you just did it ;)

I was sent a scan of a slide of me in my car seat from when I was a baby. Dad had bought a nice safe new 1979 245GL Volvo to protect his family.
I was in a cane basket on the back seat :D
I assume I got the same treatment in the G60 Patrol we had.

[Scouse]

Actually, it was easier out in the bush when LS was a baby. Now he can run around & get into strife whereas before, where you put him is where he stayed :D.

[Utemad]

The old cane bassinette's were all that was available pre early 1980's.....they were not exactly what you'd call secure in an accident :eek:

In a previous car my older brother got the front seat as a baby. Dad removed the front passenger seat and built a frame to take the basket. Then put a flyscreen sort of mesh over it to hold him in if they crashed.
Must not have wanted to do that to the new Volvo.

[Blknight.aus]

once the baby has some head control its all good.

when we started taking alex out it was in a rewards facing seat with a light shoulder harness to help stop him rocketing out in the event of a front on and a strap over his blankets to stop him from coming out in any other event.

he loves it and Im gravely dissapointed that I couldnt take him and connie to the cape in big red.

[George130]

We had our middle child out on day trips at only a few months old. Current bub has been to ill for any trips other than Hospital.

Our car seat is one of those convertables. just get extra head support like scouse said and they will happily sleep or wake and enjoy it.

[abaddonxi]

In a previous car my older brother got the front seat as a baby. Dad removed the front passenger seat and built a frame to take the basket. Then put a flyscreen sort of mesh over it to hold him in if they crashed.
Must not have wanted to do that to the new Volvo.

My parents went off to a parachute maker and got them to sew up a mesh guard 1" super stiff webbing strips sewn about two inches apart. This went over the basket and attached to another strap or two, that ran down the back of the seat and bolted at each end to the seat belt mount.

I had a harness, over both shoulders and around waist in the same stiff webbing, it attached to another vertical strap, and could slide up and down the strap.

Dunno where I got the obsession with car seats from.:angel:

[Hastykiwi]

All of our kids have been 4wding and camping from a very young age, my (now) 21yo daughter was away with us for 5 weeks, when she was 6 months old, crossing the Simpson.

If you take reasonable care and use a bit of sense then I can't see there being any problems.

As for
all it means is that you travel a bit slower, stop more often and take your time to smell the roses. If you want to travel with bub - put your mind to it and away you go.


Martyn


Absolutely. We have been out 6 or more times with our baby Zoe. She is now 7 months old and has already done calcup dunes twice, the powerlines track in perth, plus other outings.

My wife is an occupational therapist and has some inkling of whats happening inside her head. Violent shaking of the head is not advised, but with appropriate padding you can prevent this. Ironically its probably the touring side of things that tends to be worst, with the repetetive corrugations hammering away at the car. The real fast stuff up over dunes has to be managed, ie don't go balls to the wall.

The likes of the extreme stuff like powerlines on a wet a muddy saturday in July, is not so bad cause we just crawl it, ie everything just happens in slow motion which is ok, with again, appropriate padding and support around her head.:)

On the up side she is probably the easiest to mamage of the three kids, (the others are 5 and 8) as she just smiles, eats, (necessary feeding stops), and sleeps.

Have edited this post say, that good brand, fully reclined rear facing baby seat, in the middle of the back seat will protect and minimize the movement of the car for her.
cheers
Nick

[abaddonxi]

Oh yeah, upper end of the Safe and Sound range - Royale and something beginning with P - have significantly better padding than the other models.

[Utemad]

Oh yeah, upper end of the Safe and Sound range - Royale and something beginning with P - have significantly better padding than the other models.

Ours is a SafenSound Meridian. Has some sort of fancy head protection thing but I think it is for when it is a forward facing seat. This must have come about in the last few years as my sister has the same seat but 5 years old and it doesn't have this feature.
It has so much padding though that it is a PITA to put the straps on a 7lb baby.

Just googled it. Meridian AHR and Platinum AHR in the convertible seat range. The same seat except Platinum has speakers, a special colour and and a better seat protector. They both have the Active Head Restraint since I think 2006.

I love the ingenuity of our parents trying to make their babies safe. So much easier to go and buy the seat though.