When it comes to driving with your baby in the back, only the best car seats for babies will do. We asked parents to put 11 of the top car seats for babies to the test. Find out how they fared right here.
Once armed with the best car seats for babies, you can get your most precious cargo from A to B safely in comfort and style.
If you’re a first-time parent, it can be daunting working out which is the best pram or the best baby carrier to buy. And the same goes for the car seats. After all, there is nothing more important than your child’s safety. So it’s important to get it right.
To help you make the right choice, and make the process a little bit easier to navigate, we’ve hand-picked the best car seats available and asked a panel of parent reviewers to put them to the test. We chose parents with babies of different ages to get a sense of the best car seats for various stages of development and made sure all of the car seats featured are suitable from birth.
Over the course of several weeks, parents tested these options out with babies aged between 11 weeks and nine months old. Based on their exclusive feedback and comprehensive reviews, this is our roundup of the best baby car seats for 2023.
Credit: Cybex
We say: This is an excellent rear-facing car seat with exceptional safety features, a stylish design, and – our favourite bit – a rotating base. In other words, you don't have to be a contortionist to get your baby in and out of the car.
The Cybex Cloud Z is perfect for parents who want a smart-looking car seat packed with safety features. The seat itself is easy to remove and install in the car, but it's also designed to make it easy to take your baby in and out of the seat as it rotates to face the car door.
Until you've used this type of seat, it's difficult to convey just how handy this feature is – it really makes light work of taking your baby anywhere in the car. The swivel base also makes this seat a good choice for anyone with a back problem or other injuries that can make taking a baby in and out of the car seat tricky.
Installing a car seat can be a challenge but this one is a good choice for extra peace of mind. The support leg, which attaches the base to the car, has lights that indicate when everything is correctly installed. There's also an alarm that sounds if the base is incorrectly secured.
The seat also has a removable newborn inlay for added comfort, and the height-adjustable headrest has 11 different settings so you can customise it as your baby grows. Outside the car, your baby can lie flat in this seat thanks to the recline feature. It's also compatible with selected pushchairs to create a travel system.
Tested by: Hanna Cesek, mum to Noa, six months
'It was very hard to find anything wrong with the Cybex Cloud Z car seat,' says Hanna. 'It looks great, it's easy to use and – the piece de resistance – it has a swivel base! I think that alone makes it well worth the price. Why wouldn't you choose a baby car seat with a swivel base if you can afford it?! After all, you take your baby in and out of their car seat every day for at least a year. And this base can be used with Cybex's next seat up, so it could last your child right up until they're four years old. Apart from it being heavy to lift and carry, I pretty much love everything about this seat.'
