i-Size Car Seats

i-Size is a new European-wide car seat regulation (the first phase of a safety standard called R129), which aims to make car seats safer. It's designed to keep children rear-facing for longer, provide better side impact protection and make car seats easier to fit correctly.

i-Size requires children to sit rear-facing until they’re at least 15 months old. This is longer than the earlier regulations, which advise children to sit rear-facing until they weigh 9kg. 

Some new i-Size car seats will enable your child to sit rear-facing up to the age of 4 years, if you wish. Why? Because studies show it’s safer. Swedish research found that rear-facing car seats can offer up to 75% more protection if your young child is involved in a car accident.

Up to the age of 15 months, your child’s neck is not yet developed enough to withstand the forces of an average head-on collision. The excessive pressure on the neck of your baby might lead to serious neck injury. Rearward-facing seats can help to spread the forces of a head-on collision over a greater area of your child’s body, leading to less pressure on your child's head and neck.

Under the older regulations, car seats only have to be tested for protection against accidents where the front or back of the car is hit. They don’t have to offer side impact protection (although many do), even though around 25% of car accidents involve a car being hit on the side.

i-Size now legally requires car seats to ensure side impact protection.

i-Size aims to reduce the confusion around car seat suitability. Currently they're categorised by weight - but we often don't know the weight of our toddler or child. However, we do know their age, and so we end up matching weight with age. However, one 9-month-old baby may have a very different weight to another. 

i-Size is now being categorised by height. So the best thing to do is to measure your child's height regularly – although the likelihood is, we’ll be matching height with age.