Amazed I can't believe how well this works! Although I would suggest reading the directions first unlike me (duh!) I put in the whole bottle and it wouldn't work, turns out you put in a little bit and fill it with water and shake ... works MUCH better that way. my kids absolutely love it and it was worth the price!!
It works despite what others say. My wife and I have one and had no problem with the instalation or with spillage. In fact she told me to buy another one so both of us can bring a drink along during our walks. We installed ours on a 2007 Baby Jogger stroller. I am sure that there are some strollers that this product will not fit on but if you have a Baby Jogger stroller it should work.
We use it during our walks. We have never tried jogging wit it but that shouldn't matter unless you jog over unpaved trails. If that's the case then nothing is going to prevent splashing if your drink container is open.
I suspect that some of the complaints about the product are secondary to unrealistic expectations and faulty instalation. Someone complained that the product won't prevent spillage from an open container...duh. Nothing can prevent spillage from an open container, not even if you held the cup in your hand.
Try before you buy I hate to say it - but this is the seat that has officially turned me into a Britax snob. The only car seats I had experience with prior to trying this one were the Graco baby bucket and the Britax Roundabout and Marathon. I had heard now and then the frightening statistic that so-and-so percentage of car seats are installed incorrectly and I couldn't understand how that could be - how hard is it to install a car seat properly? Turns out, it depends on the car seat.
We were recently visiting family back east and my nephew has this particular car seat - one in my father's car, one in my brother's car. One on occasion I was going to go somewhere with my dad and rather than go in our car or move our car seat to his car, we opted to use my nephew's seat for my son. However, it turned out the straps were on the lowest setting which was too low for either of the boys so I took the car seat out to adjust the straps and... quickly came to regret not simply moving our own car seat to my dad's car.
This seat is a royal pain in the behind to install properly. In theory, it goes in just like a Britax - clip the two LATCH hooks on either side, clip the third hook at the top, put your weight in and pull all the straps tight. However, the way the lower strap went through this seat, I just could not get it tight to my satisfaction - the front would wiggle easily no matter what I did. And the top hook is just pure evil by design - it is very, very complicated to tighten.
I looked in the manual, I looked on line, I called a friend who I remembered had one of these seats as an "extra." The best I could figure out, this model is sold with two different types of top anchor strap. One has a normal seeming strap that you just pull to tighten... and you lift up on the tightening portion of the strap to loosen. The other has this insanely convoluted piece of metal with several slits in it for the strap to pass through and wrap back and forth and under and around itself. With the latter, you pretty much need to guess how long or short to make the strap BEFORE you install the seat, because adjusting it on the fly is difficult if not impossible.
I checked at Target the other day and the seat they are selling there had the "easier" style of top anchor tightener but I don't know if they are all like that now. The manual we had for the seat listed both types. Be sure when you buy that the top strap has the easier type of adjuster.
Beyond the top fastener issue, though, like I said, I found it hard to get the bottom strap just right. We had to have a complicated system of towels under the seat in my dad's car to help it sit in there solid - aside from the positioning aspect of things this seat has two raw plastic protrusions on the bottom which have begun to slice in the seat in my dad's car (Hyundai Sonata)
One one occasion we moved my nephew's car seat to our rental car (Saturn Aura) to take both boys somewhere and we had no better luck with ease of installation. It still took a lot of sweating, straining, and swearing to get it in there.
With our Britax seats, I have never had a problem in any vehicle with making the car seats fit, and I can have them removed and re-installed in less than 5 minutes. The Cosco seat drove me crazy. I will give this seat 3 stars because it is affordable and is supposed to meet safety requirements but I would not buy it without making very sure it fits in YOUR car and that is has the easier to use top strap attachment. I would also not suggest it if there is much chance of your having to move the seat frequently. And protect you seats with something if you don't want them getting torn up!
Dubious At Best Subtitle: Taking Money From Excited Parents-To-Be
My wife and I bought this product early in the pregnancy. We took it home and tried it and didn't hear anything. But we chalked that up to it being too early.
We broke it out again at around 25 weeks. Nothing. But it was still pretty early.
26, 27, 28, 29 weeks. Nothing.
Then at 30 weeks.... More nothing.
We tried this all the way up to delivery (37.5 weeks for us) and we could never be sure that what we were hearing was the result of our baby moving as opposed to the mic just picking up every micro-movement.
The problem is that this is just a cheap condenser microphone that is held up to the woman's belly. Holding it by hand definitely won't work - you can't hold your hand still enough to prevent the microphone from picking up small vibrations.
But we also tried this with the included elastic strap while my wife was lying down in a quiet room with both the ceiling fan and even the AC turned off.
Sure, we heard.... something.
And, at the time, we really, really, REALLY wanted to believe that what we heard was our baby. But in the end I'm afraid that most, if not all, of what we heard was just very small movements of my wife's belly.
If you've ever used an acoustic stethoscope, this product sounds similar to what you hear when handling the tubes leading from the diaphragm/bell to the earpieces. Kind of a "pfff pfff *thump* pfff".
The following is from the (current as of this posting) Wikipedia article on electronic stethoscopes: "The simplest and least effective method of sound detection is achieved by placing a microphone in the chestpiece. This method suffers from ambient noise interference and has fallen out of favor." That is the technology used in this product.
Regarding the reviewer who said she liked to put the speakers (which are basically really cheap headphones without anything to hold them to your head) to read to her baby.... A baby can hear her/his mother's voice _very_ well without a microphone and speakers. They're inside your body, where the vibrations of your voice are made, you know. The amniotic fluid actually amplifies sounds so they can even hear dad pretty well, too.
In summary, if we had it to do over again, we would rent/buy a dopler microphone or just go without.
Organization is key Keep things organized and handy in one place with this booklet. You may have to customize a little bit, but at least it'll be all in one place and small enough to bring to the MD everytime you go.