New to the Mountain Buggy Family, the peppy™ is a brilliant car capsule for little bubbas. This capsule is designed for birth – 13kg so will last your baby a good length of time. (Although, I can’t imagine that you’ll still be using it when your bubba is 13kg unless you’ve got a particularly big baby. My 1.5 year old is 11kg and there’s no way that she’d fit in it. I’ve generally found that my babies need moving into the next sized seat at around 6-9 months).
I’m liking
I’ve used a couple of different capsules in the past and I really like the design of the inside of these capsules. They are well padded and the baby seems very supported in the capsule. I ‘borrowed’ a new baby to test this capsule and the mother commented on the fact that he seemed to sit well in it and didn’t slump forward as my babies have done in other capsules. The newborn insert means that teeny tiny babies are well-supported and you can remove this as your baby grows.
The straps are super-easy to adjust and this has been a real issue for me with other seats! There’s nothing more frustrating than wrestling with a screaming baby and straps that are too tight / too loose!
In the past, I’ve used capsules with a 5 point harness and I was a bit surprised to see that this capsule has a 3 point harness. However, I spoke to the Mountain Buggy people who assured me that Mountain Buggy is totally committed to safety and this seat meets the European Standard ECE 44, which is approved for use in New Zealand. I’d have to say that the 3 point harness is definitely easier to do up than a 5 point harness!
I love the way that the various members of the Mountain Buggy work together and the peppy™ is no exception. As well as having a couple of different options for fitting them into your car, the peppy™ also works with the Mountain Buggy travel system and you can snap it into your buggy for easy transfer between car and walking. (More on this in our Mountain Buggy Mini review).
Things that made me go hmmmm
In the past, I’ve used a capsule with a base and I really like being able to snap the capsule in and out of the car without undoing the seat belt. Unfortunately, our car doesn’t have an Isofix bar, so I didn’t have this option with the capsule and had to use the seat belt arrangement. I’d really like to see Mountain Buggy design a base that goes in cars without Isofix bars.
The conclusion
Overall, the peppy™ is exactly what you’d expect from the great people at Mountain Buggy – a really well-thought out, high quality product. I love the design of the capsule itself and it’s slim enough to fit in smallish cars. I just wish that they’d make a base to fit in my car!!
