Starting February 2, 2021, the Child Safety in Motor Vehicles Act will be implemented meaning children aged 12 and below must be properly secured in appropriate Car Seats while traveling. As a parent you might be scrambling to find which car seat is best to buy so in this video we'll look at different car seat Categories and why we chose the JOIE every stage car seat for our baby.

There are still a lot of questions regarding this new law and one such question has become viral because of the response of the LTO official to a valid question regarding height. But upon checking RA 11229, mandatory use of child restraints is based on height and not on age. The confusion may have been brought about by the definitions of child in this republic act which refers to any person age 12 and below. In such cases that the child is above 150 centimeters, regular seatbelt may be used.

With that out of the way, let's look at the different Car seat categories. The new law follows the UN regulations which has 5 categories depending on the child's weight:

This would mean that if you buy a car seat only for a specific category, you should expect to buy again everytime your child outgrows it. A vast variety of car seats ara available in department stores and online with some priced at less than Php2,000, but these are mostly catering only to one or two categories. This is why we chose a car seat that would cover all categories and we found the Joie every stage, which caters to newborns as well as kids up to 12 years old.

Original price of this car seat is at Php16,000 but we got it on sale for only Php8,500! This car seat is installed using your car's seatbelt instead of the more convenient isofix. But with the discount that we got, we're not complaining. Installing by seatbelt is easy with instructions on the user manual as well as on youtube videos.

Shifting the car seat to different categories is also easy. From rearward-facing group 0, to forward facing groups 1, 2, and 3.

Although implementation of the new car seat law has already started, apprehension of violators will only begin 3 to 6 months which should give you ample time to have a look at different car seats at different price points and decide which is best for your child.