11 best car seats to keep your child safe and secure

This is the world's first rotating car seat approved for use up to six years old (or up to 125cm or 22kg, whichever milestone your child hits first). Travelling rear-facing has been proven to be safer than forward-facing, but if your child prefers to face forward after 15 months, this chair is easy to swivel with one hand. It also has reclined positions for nap time, extendable leg space as your kid grows, and is lightweight enough to carry comfortably. This is our top choice for an ISOFIX model.

Joie’s well-padded seat for toddlers can be used from 15 months to 3.5 years – perfect for when your child outgrows a baby seat. We like the quick-to-adjust headrest and harness and there’s good side protection. On top of that, there’s even a little cup holder for snacks. We found it a little fiddly to adjust the seatbelt, and this seat doesn’t recline for naps, but it is still a well-made yet relatively affordable option. The removable cover is easy to wash, too.

However, this won’t work for newborns, and it doesn’t swivel, so it’s a little awkward to unbuckle your child at the end of the journey.

Thule offers up the best of solid, safe Scandinavian design in the elm car seat. Designed for growing children, it boasts an adjustable headrest, deep side-impact protection, and comfy padding to keep your little one snugly in place. We found the ISOFIX installation easier and more intuitive than most car seats on test, and we liked the fact that you can text Thule for installation advice. This seat swivels, has good reclining options, and has a five-point seatbelt. The only drawback is that it won’t work for kids older than three. While not the cheapest option, the elm feels like it offers one of the safest and most secure rides on the market.

If you don’t want to faff about with a different car seat every few years, Avionaut’s sky 2.0 is a great choice – it can be used from day one until your child is six. This design should last your family for years –if you swap to a toddler cushion as your baby grows they can keep travelling rear-facing, which is proven to be safer. This capacious seat is easily installed using a seatbelt, and it passes the Swedish Plus safety test, which goes above and beyond the R129. The seat also comes with a 10-year warranty, plus free replacement (for two years) if you’re in an accident. However, it doesn’t swivel, a feature you might expect at this price.

Maxi Cosi’s 360 range is popular for good reason – these lightweight, swivelling designs are easy to click in and out of the ISOFIX base and can be turned one-handed, which is very helpful when you’re wielding an energetic older baby in and out of the car. An update to the popular pebble 360 pro, the pebble 360 Pro2 now includes a mesh inlay, which is great for regulating your baby’s temperature. During testing, this was one of the seats we rated most highly for comfort and ease of use. It is also certified for use on an aeroplane, so your baby can travel safely in their own car seat. However, like the Inglesina Darwin infant recline below, this car seat won’t work for children older than 18 months, so you need to buy a whole new car seat after just a year and a half.

This car seat is perfect for the day you bring your child home from the hospital until their first birthday. This seat has been designed with newborns in mind, with angles that help them lie flat in a soft and comfy bamboo liner and the seat is easy to swivel when you’re popping your new arrival in and out of the car. After your baby is 12 months old, you can swap out to a bigger seat from the Darwin range and use the same ISOFIX base, but it’s expensive to buy twice when other products will adapt to babies as they grow.

The Doona X is a rear-facing seat that converts into a stroller, so there’s no need to transfer (or wake up) your baby when you arrive somewhere – you can just pop out the wheels from the car seat and go. The design is sleek and has plenty of great safety and comfort features – a five-point harness and padded sides keep your little one snugly in place, and we liked the adjustable headrest and faux-leather-padded handlebar. The newborn insert is made from bamboo and is lovely and soft (and, importantly, easy to wipe and wash), so it’s nice to use from day one. This is a clever, go-anywhere model that we keep spotting at airports, too.

In our full review of the Doona X, we found that it’s very heavy. At 8.3kg, this might not be one for single parents, and it’s a problem that will get worse as your kids grow heavier. It also doesn’t rotate.

Launched this February, the new lightweight ARRA flex from Nuna is a great choice for babies. We thought this was one of the comfiest seats on test, guaranteeing a very cosy baby. There are three recline positions to help your little one get off to sleep and details such as a leatherette handle, removable canopy and a Merino wool insert that feels lovely and soft to touch. If your baby is fussy about car seats, this one might just help them relax and drop off to sleep. The ARRA flex is suitable for newborns and is compatible with travel systems, so you can pop it on a compatible pushchair when you’re on the go.

That said, it can only be used up until your newborn is 2 years old. It can’t rotate, so while you can fix it to a pushchair, it might be fiddly to remove from the car.

Car seats can be painfully expensive but Ickle Bubba proves you can have a safe and easy to use ISOFIX design for less than £200. This swivelling design can be fully rotated and technically can be used until your child is 12 years old. However, we think kids over the age of four or five would feel restricted. We found the ISOFIX base simple to install, and we liked the fact that your baby can be rear-facing until they’re four years old.

Proving car seats don’t have to cost the earth – or look boring – the zoomi is bright, fun, functional, and costs less than £100. Seven bright designs, ranging from foxes to unicorns, will keep kids interested during car trips. The company claims that the different inserts mean that this seat is suitable for little ones aged from nine months to 12 years. However, those aged less than 15 months are not advised to face forward, and we think it will only fit kids up to around five. The harness and adjustable headrest are great, too. This is a good budget seatbelt option for children who are more than 15 months old.

We started using the Joie i-Spin 360 car seat with our newborn and we’ve been really impressed. Everything came fully assembled in the box, which was a massive help. We just took it out and placed it straight into the car. The only bit we had to attach was a side impact shield, which popped into place in mere seconds.

The seat itself is a bit heavy, but that’s to be expected for a seat that is suitable from birth up to four years. It feels solid and safe, too. I did run into a small issue figuring out how to extend the ISOFIX connectors. The quick start guide wasn’t very clear, but it turns out there’s an adjuster button that needs to be pressed, which wasn’t obvious at first. There is a QR code on the guide that links to the full instructions online, which would have helped but I didn’t have internet access at the time. Once I figured it out, the connectors clicked in easily and showed a green indicator when correctly positioned. The load leg works the same way and is simple to adjust, showing a green light when it’s fitted correctly, which is great for peace of mind.

Our baby looks comfortable in the newborn insert, without the need for adjustments. His head wasn’t hunched forward as much, compared with some other car seats we’ve seen. The head support is easy to adjust with a lever, and the recline feature is very smooth. Plus, the spin function is a total game changer if you haven’t used one before. It makes it so much easier to get your baby in and out of the seat, especially in a tight parking space.

The seat’s straps are nicely padded and seem comfortable for our newborn. The buckle does feel a bit awkward at first – you have to clip both parts in at the same time – but I’m sure that will become easier with practice.

- Reviewed by Chloe Hubbard