Hi everyone,
we've recently bought a Brio Zento; we're mostly happy with it, I'll post a mini-review in the review section.
The only issue we have with it is quite a serious one: Our 9 month old baby, who is both pretty tough physically as well as not picky with anything normally, gets pretty bad bruising along the lower part of his spine every time he sits in it longer than fifteen to twenty minutes.
On looking at the seat in that area I thought that I would get bruising from it myself if I would be sitting with my spine against a piece of EPS foam that is hard as a piece of wood. As much as we like almost everything else about this seat, this part has not been thought through whatsoever. In the first months of life, a baby's spine curves outwards in the lower back, as opposed to later, as the curve inwards only develops once they start walking more. This basically means that until your baby is walking, the Brio Zento is not suitable and very likely to cause bruising, as the spine constantly presses against the hard EPS foam.
Now I like that there is EPS foam underneath the spine and everywhere else, it's one of the features why we selected this seat. But it wouldn't take away any of the function of the EPS foam in a crash if they would have put some "comfort" padding on top of it at least in this area. "Comfort" padding is actually a misleading word; as the seat is now, we can't really use it at all.
I'm an engineer myself and have worked in (non-baby related) crash testing, so I have some idea of crash dynamics and passenger restraint systems. I have thought it through and can't see any reason why I should not put in the necessary layer of padding myself. In a crash, a piece of e.g. cheap camp mat would just be compacted until the body impacts on the EPS foam, which then does its job and absorbs the impact energy. So I've cut out a suitable piece of 6mm thick camp mat and put it underneath the cover fabric today, works like a charm, no more bruising, and he's as tightly belted in and sitting in a position that has no difference to before.
Aside from the usual manufacturer's statement not to alter the seat, does anyone know a factual argument against putting in padding as described above?
If there are no dynamics based arguments against this, we're going to do it this way. If there actually should be factual arguments against this, the manfuacturer will have to take the seat back, as we are not willing to pay money for an obvious design flaw.
Also, are there no other people who have similar experiences? It's almost impossible, as all babies have their lower spine curve out in the early months. I suspect that a quite large number of Zento users does use some padding or thick clothing without talking about it, otherwise there would be more complaints about this.
Any input appreciated... thanks!
Cheers,
Matt
we've recently bought a Brio Zento; we're mostly happy with it, I'll post a mini-review in the review section.
The only issue we have with it is quite a serious one: Our 9 month old baby, who is both pretty tough physically as well as not picky with anything normally, gets pretty bad bruising along the lower part of his spine every time he sits in it longer than fifteen to twenty minutes.
On looking at the seat in that area I thought that I would get bruising from it myself if I would be sitting with my spine against a piece of EPS foam that is hard as a piece of wood. As much as we like almost everything else about this seat, this part has not been thought through whatsoever. In the first months of life, a baby's spine curves outwards in the lower back, as opposed to later, as the curve inwards only develops once they start walking more. This basically means that until your baby is walking, the Brio Zento is not suitable and very likely to cause bruising, as the spine constantly presses against the hard EPS foam.
Now I like that there is EPS foam underneath the spine and everywhere else, it's one of the features why we selected this seat. But it wouldn't take away any of the function of the EPS foam in a crash if they would have put some "comfort" padding on top of it at least in this area. "Comfort" padding is actually a misleading word; as the seat is now, we can't really use it at all.
I'm an engineer myself and have worked in (non-baby related) crash testing, so I have some idea of crash dynamics and passenger restraint systems. I have thought it through and can't see any reason why I should not put in the necessary layer of padding myself. In a crash, a piece of e.g. cheap camp mat would just be compacted until the body impacts on the EPS foam, which then does its job and absorbs the impact energy. So I've cut out a suitable piece of 6mm thick camp mat and put it underneath the cover fabric today, works like a charm, no more bruising, and he's as tightly belted in and sitting in a position that has no difference to before.
Aside from the usual manufacturer's statement not to alter the seat, does anyone know a factual argument against putting in padding as described above?
If there are no dynamics based arguments against this, we're going to do it this way. If there actually should be factual arguments against this, the manfuacturer will have to take the seat back, as we are not willing to pay money for an obvious design flaw.
Also, are there no other people who have similar experiences? It's almost impossible, as all babies have their lower spine curve out in the early months. I suspect that a quite large number of Zento users does use some padding or thick clothing without talking about it, otherwise there would be more complaints about this.
Any input appreciated... thanks!
Cheers,
Matt
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