Question Why hadn't I heard of this before? Baby Trend Inertia

AK Dad

New member
Just Killin' some time in BRU and just saw this - looks awesome! Rigid LATCH, Anti rebound bar, "inertia" system to decrease seat tip angle in a crash. Looks pretty sweet - wondering why I hadn't heard any of the normal "buzz" I would expect with something like this.
 

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creideamh

Well-known member
I think they just redid the base, not the actual seat, of which a lot of people aren't very fond. But I could be wrong. The blog posted about it awhile ago after one of the expos.
 

soph's mom

New member
I hadn't heard of it either but the base does look awkward to me since it would have to sit out from the seat...
 

nannykates

New member
Take that long base and babytrend's need to have the handle down and I don't see that installing anywhere. Maybe if the parents are super short or they have a 3rd row vehicle with a second row they didn't want to use. Ill have to try this next time I'm playing with seats...I mean "conducting research" in bru ;).
 

soph's mom

New member
Take that long base and babytrend's need to have the handle down and I don't see that installing anywhere. Maybe if the parents are super short or they have a 3rd row vehicle with a second row they didn't want to use. Ill have to try this next time I'm playing with seats...I mean "conducting research" in bru ;).

Lol!
 

safeinthecar

Moderator - CPS Technician
It doesn't stick out as far as you think. The car seat doesn't go to the back of the base, and the foot edge still touches the vehicle seat because it sits inside the rebound bar. If it is the same as the FlexLoc seat, the handle can go all the way down in the car in the position you would use to make it not rock on the floor. In this position, the handle doesn't stick out any further than the top of the seat.
 

joolsplus3

Admin - CPS Technician
It's really cool. If only they'd put a much nicer seat in it (I can't find many people who LIKE plastic puzzle buckles or the extra step of putting the handle down). The super lie-flat recline is pretty nice, the install is probably excellent in most cars, even the belt install looks fine. Baby Trend was the first brand to have a rigid LATCH infant seat in the us (The LATCH-Loc), Consumer Reports complained it wasn't compatible with all cars (Well, DUH, what seat is?) and that kind of killed interest in it, I guess.
 

safeinthecar

Moderator - CPS Technician
(I can't find many people who LIKE plastic puzzle buckles or the extra step of putting the handle down).

Yeah, I'm in lonely land here. I like plastic buckles because they don't get hot. I don't care about puzzle buckles one way or the other since I've owned several seats with them, and I hate leaving the handle up in the car because I'm clumsy and will forget it's there and bonk my head on it leaning in to get baby out without taking out the seat. I'm weird. I know.
 

PikkuMyy

New member
I had a parent contact me because she couldn't get the base recline adjustment to work properly. She ended up exchanging it and the new one worked fine. She did call Baby Trend, who told her to exchange in store.

A few weeks later, I went to check it out in store and found out exactly what she had described to me! The stupid base jammed and would.not.budge. I had my best friend take a video as I attempted to make it move but I never did anything with the video. The plan was to contact BT but I honestly forgot about it.
 

AK Dad

New member
It's really cool. If only they'd put a much nicer seat in it (I can't find many people who LIKE plastic puzzle buckles or the extra step of putting the handle down).

Yeah, the seat did "feel" pretty cheap, for what that's worth. As for the "puzzle" buckle, I know that takes some getting used to, but that type of design is actually required under the european ECE R44.04 regulation, so I'm guessing they're taking the design from that side of the pond. It's actually kind of a cool way to engineer out the possibility of only buckling one side and/or somehow swapping sides.

Wish I could find some crash test video of the "inertia" system working. Makes me a little suspicious that they have a cutsie little "window" to look at a colorful spring, but they don't show their "revolutionary" device doing what it's supposed to ...
 

joolsplus3

Admin - CPS Technician
I just see more of these seats without the buckles buckled at all than other seats where it's a simple one at a time buckle. And I've never seen any other seat with only one buckle buckled. Yeah, I know it's an ECE thing, Britax used to have it, Dorel took a stab at it, a few others... I just show it to new moms and they run screaming to the Gracos and Chiccos ;) (Just my humble observations as a retail slave in a purple shirt, YMMV)

Did you push the seat in the base, pretty hard? The whole thing rotates upward and the spring pushes in as the head portion goes up.
Minute 3 has a video... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj1zoZpDAGw"]Baby Trend - Inertia Controlled Motion Base & Infant Car Seat - YouTube[/ame]
 

tiggercat

New member
That video is pretty cool! I hate the puzzle buckle, and I'd love to see a 32lb baby that actually fit that seat. The base and how it moves in a crash even are pretty awesome.

Sent from my iPod touch using Car-Seat.Org
 

AK Dad

New member
Yeah, I'd seen that video, and I played around with the base at the store which is why it caught my interest - I'd just rather see the actual sled test of it to make sure it's not some sort of marketing gimmick. I've had similar design ideas to this in my head before, so it's cool to see a company putting it on the market - I guess I just wonder why they wouldn't put a sled test video out there ...
 

AK Dad

New member
Also noted that the video references nothing but "moms" because of course it's absolutely absurd to think that a dad would be involved in choosing a carseat, much less be the primary user! :rolleyes:
 

agave

New member
Also noted that the video references nothing but "moms" because of course it's absolutely absurd to think that a dad would be involved in choosing a carseat, much less be the primary user! :rolleyes:

The only time my DH has shown any interest in having any input on what seat to buy was when he figured out he could have a Recaro without going bankrupt.
 

3 ladybugs

New member
After seeing that video, I don't understand how the rebound bar works. Wouldn't that need to be locked to be effective?
 

katymyers

Active member
After seeing that video, I don't understand how the rebound bar works. Wouldn't that need to be locked to be effective?

I don't get how any of it works. Essentially (at least according to Baby Trend) the seat utilizes the natural rebound of the seat in order for the child to be in the correct place during the crash, which is why they advertise the unique lay flat design as a more comfortable position for newborns. I don't understand how much the angle is really gonna change with the ARB. Also, a personal issue I have with the seat is if we test NICU babies in their car seat before going home to make sure they can actually maintain an airway, obviously with the flatter recline more babies would pass the test in this seat, but what happens during a crash when the angle changes?
 

jacqui276

New member
Both times I have come across a baby trend seat when discharging a baby home (they usually have keyfits or snugrides) the buckle was not buckled in at all and I had to show the parents how to use a puzzle buckle. They couldn't figure it out so just did up the chest clip and tucked the buckles in beside the baby.
 

AK Dad

New member
I don't get how any of it works.

Well, it's hard to describe unless you get hands-on with it. The ARB and the "inertia" system are two separate and not really related pieces of technology on this seat. The ARB in this case operates exactly like any other ARB that's built-in to the base. It is adjustable, which is nice since that will allow it to work more effectively in more vehicles since you can adjust it to different vehicle seat contours.

The "inertia" system simply uses the inertia of the carrier and baby to sort of "ramp up" the angle of the seat during a crash event. The base sort of has "rails" in it that allow the seat to move forward and the angle to increase during a crash event, thus making the resultant forces on the child be more perpendicular to their spine. If you think about it, ideally we'd like the force on the occupant to be exactly 90 degrees to their spine - that would spread the forces most evenly and be the safest. That's of course not practicable with an infant because 99.999% of the time you're more interested in their lack of neck control, which is why the recline angle is so important for newborns.
For comparison, the high weight RF seats from Scandinavia are very upright, plus they have "prop rods" to limit the rotation of the seat during a crash. Those two things are what allows them to have higher weight limits (generally than ours) and also why their RF shoulder harnesses aren't "at or below" the shoulders and the height limits for RF look more like most of ours for FF (tops of ears or eyes at top of the headrest, not top of head 1" below)

They couldn't figure it out so just did up the chest clip and tucked the buckles in beside the baby.

:eek:
 

katymyers

Active member
Both times I have come across a baby trend seat when discharging a baby home (they usually have keyfits or snugrides) the buckle was not buckled in at all and I had to show the parents how to use a puzzle buckle. They couldn't figure it out so just did up the chest clip and tucked the buckles in beside the baby.

I've seen that a lot actually, and Baby Trends have gotten pretty popular around here :(.
 

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