If you have more than 2 children, you may well have discovered that 3 standard child car seats do not fit into the back seat of your average car. This is a huge pain in the bum, and after Max was born we actually had to go out and buy a new car just to fit 3 kids comfortably into the back.
If only I had known about Bubblebum before now. A portable, foldable car seat option, Bubblebum is an inflatable booster cushion for children aged 4-12 years.
The car seats come in packets which are tiny – quite frankly, I didn’t believe there was a car seat inside! You just pull them out and inflate to use – you don’t need a pump or any special equipment, just a bit of puff. It doesn’t take much – within minutes you are up and running.
You can see immediately that these boosters are much narrower than your average car seat. This is reinforced when you pop them into the car – instead of all the car seats being very close to each other, there is space around the seats which makes it easier for the children to plug in their seatbelts. Despite them being narrow, there is still plenty of seating space and both Gemma (8) and Jacob (6) look comfortable on them.
The seatbelt positioning clips make sure that the lap belt sits correctly across the child, and we have used a shoulder pad to stop the seatbelt from rubbing on Gemma’s neck.
The BubbleBum has been approved under the United Nations ECE Regulation R44/04 for safety for both Groups 2 and 3, so although it looks very different to your average car seat it is safety approved. The concept of the seat is very clever – if you travel a lot in public transport, have grandparents who sometimes pick up your children or need a quick and portable seat for holidays then the Bubblebum is worth considering. I am not sure I would choose these as an everyday seat, purely because I prefer a high backed booster that provides side impact protection – however that is my personal preference and not a reflection on the Bubblebum itself.
These car seats have been handed to my parents – they find them incredibly easy to fit and use, they are handy to have when they pick the children up from school or clubs and it saves us having to transport heavy car seats about when the children are staying there. They also deflate and fold down into a tiny package for storage, so we are not clogging up their house with bulky seats!
If you want to try Bubblembum for yourself, simply enter the code myfamilyfever at the checkout to get 10% off, and UK shipping is free too!