Car seats

desigrisette

I searched the old posts, but did not find an answer to my question. Has anyone successfully used a car seat for a toddler in India? We will likely be visiting Chennai, and perhaps Hyderabad when our daughter is 2. We will rent a car with driver for any in-town traveling. I am an emergency physician so not using a car seat is NOT a reasonable option for us. I'd like to hear from someone who has used a car seat. What kind of car seat was it, and how well did it fit in Indian cars? Our current car seat doesn't even fit well in my husband's medium sized Swedish car, so I'm not sure how it will fit in an Indian car that's even smaller. Is it better to buy/rent a car seat there, and is this even feasible? We will be staying with family but I'm sure they never use car seats so won't be much help.

If you're going to post and tell me that most Indian cars don't have seatbelts and using a car seat isn't going to be easy, please don't. I only want to hear about it if you were succesful. I read the discouraging posts on other threads

Khans

We had used it long back, when my brother was small. It was a mother care product, and got fit easily at the back seat our maruti 800.
Even on delhi roads many people are seen with the add-on.
I guess there wont be any problem, and you will have a good trip.

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Nick-H

All Indian cars have seatbelts, unless they are very, very old. You may have to spend some time persuading the driver to dig out the anchor points from under the back seat.

It is very unlikely that you will find the special anchorage system used in Europe --- but I don't know much about that system anyway, let alone whether or not it is compatible with USA cars.

Whilst the ubiquitous travels car is the Tata Indica, and there are still plenty of Ambassadors, one larger vehicle that is easily available is the Toyata Innova. It will add to your vehicle costs, that's all.

Car seat buying: We have a branch of Mothercare here, that sells much the same stuff as they do in UK, at much the same prices. I think they may even have a website. I don't suppose they sell many. You could enquire from them what is available. Mothercare -->link.

Car sear rental: Doubt it very much, as the market would be almost non-existant.

Good for you. I wish you would talk to my step-grandchild's parents
You'll get people telling you it isn't even necessary. They will try to tell you that city traffic is to slow to even need seat belts for adults. How would they explain that India leads the world in per-head traffic deaths?

<cross-posted with a useful post from Khans> Good to hear, Khans... how was your seat fixed?

desigrisette, as you probably know anyway, a Maruti 800 is about the most basic car on the roads here: anything possible in an 800 must be possible in larger vehicles.

nayan

Adding to nick and khans -

you will get car seats in most baby care shops (and baby section of departmental stores)like mothercare, justborn, shoppersstop, lifestyle.

No idea about rental.

A friend of mine had got a carseat for her infant son in her Hyundai santro(a very small car).
(A different story that she didnot find it convenient and so now she travels in the backseat with the baby on her lap while hubby drives like a chauffer).

Khans

Not very sure how we did it, there was an attached belt which we tied somewhere near the seat joints. It might had needed some local fixing, but it was convenient to attach and remove.

Saulteaux_woman

We bought our carseat at mothercare for about 3500r so you can expect top pay 75-100 CAD.