European Belt Path

The carrier features a European belt path that works great. If you find a seat belt doesn’t seem long enough… do the tipping trick shown below.

Harness & Fit

The harness straps tighten and loosen smoothly, but they would be even smoother if the chest clip moved up/down a little more easily.

The fit for preemies is good – using the low birthweight insert + newborn insert.

Below is a newborn in the seat (showing that it is safe to swaddle baby AFTER they are buckled snug over top of the straps) as shown at the end of this video.

Removable Inserts & Pads

Shoulder strap covers: We recommend removing them from day one as most kids don’t like the pressure they add to the sides of their neck, and they also make the straps more likely to twist and harder to tighten. They are not a safety feature.

Infant insert (including low birthweight insert): There are 2 parts to the infant insert – the main part which is a large insert that goes behind the baby’s head, back and bottom – and the hidden low birthweight insert that is a black foam wedge that is tucked into a secret velcro pocket in the underside of the infant insert. We recommend removing the low birth weight insert around 7 pounds – you’ll notice it pushes the baby up too high and the straps start to slide off the baby’s shoulders. We find that the infant insert fits babies well until about 10-14 pounds, and then we suggest removing this once they seem squished in it (either the crotch buckle tongues are digging into the baby’s thighs, or the shoulder straps are starting to slide off the baby’s shoulders).

Crotch Buckle Pad: This tends to slide off every time you try to buckle your baby, which may drive you crazy. Don’t go crazy, just take it off (it is not required). We only recommend using this for small newborns as it will help fill in some of the gap between their tush and the crotch buckled, which will help prevent them from slouching (slouching will make it more likely that the chin falls down on the chest).

Sun Canopy

The dream drape sun shade on the Pipa is the best sunshade of any infant car seat. Hands down. For reasons we can’t comprehend, the Stokke Pipa does NOT have the dream drape. Below is a picture of an infant in the Pipa with the dream drape in use – you can see the sun coverage extends down to the baby’s legs, but still lets you keep an eye on baby.

A post shared by The Car Seat Lady (@thecarseatlady) on May 26, 2015 at 11:54am PDT

The following handle positions are allowed for this car seat when it is in a car.

When installing the carrier without the base using the European belt path we recommend using the carry position – as the travel and stand positions interfere with the proper routing of the shoulder belt.

The taller the adults sitting in front, and/or the smaller the back seat is, the more attention you’ll want to pay to this image below. Many parents are shocked by how much room a rear-facing car seat can take up into the front seat’s territory.

Load Leg

The Pipa base features a load leg – and you should use it whenever possible as it is a significant safety feature that decreases forces on your baby’s head and neck in a crash. Read more about load legs here.

Here are a few cases where you won’t be able to use a load leg

Center seat with a floor that is raised up such that the base is jacked up off the vehicle seat when the load leg is used

Hollow floor – like a Chrysler/Dodge minivan with Stow N Go seats

Very deep vehicle seat where the use of the load leg prevents the base from making contact with the back of the vehicle seat.

Rigid LATCH

Not sure what rigid LATCH (or even LATCH) is? Not a problem! Take a detour and read this first.

Rigid LATCH is a safer means of connecting the car seat to the vehicle than any flexible system (seat belt or flexible LATCH) as you more tightly couple the car seat to the vehicle, not to mention the fact that you basically can’t mess up the rigid LATCH installation compared to a seat belt installation which leaves tons of room for error. Yes, this means you’ll put this car seat on the side typically, since most cars don’t have lower anchors for the center seat. If any car seat has to go on the side, this is definitely the one to do it with – you’ve got rigid LATCH & a load leg to maximize the protection for the child. Rigid LATCH is awesome… so use it!

LATCH Installation

If you get the Nuna Pipa, we strongly recommend installing it with rigid LATCH, and skip even trying the seat belt installation.

Full disclaimer: Nuna has a video showing a 4 second installation for the Pipa base. In some vehicles, it is this easy. However, some vehicle manufacturers were quite cruel with how tightly they wrapped the vehicle’s seat fabric & cushion around the lower anchors and how deep they put the lower anchors in the seat crack… and in these cars, you are going to have to push – and push hard – to connect the Pipa base to the vehicle. Here’s a trick: firmly hold onto the Pipa’s lower anchor connectors to keep them at the angle you need so they’ll meet the lower anchors in the vehicle. Another trick is that if your vehicle seat back reclines & sits more upright, try varying the recline angle as you install the Pipa base as in some vehicles the lower anchors become easier and harder to access depending on the seat back angle. Once the base is installed, return the seat back to an upright position. We find the plastic lower anchor funnel guides that come with the Pipa to be useless in nearly all situations and more hassle than they’re worth – as shoving the funnel guides into the seat crack is typically harder than shoving the Pipa base’s connectors into the seat crack.

Sometimes removing the Pipa base when installed with LATCH befuddles people… see the video above for tricks.

Seat Belt Installation

We would strongly recommend doing a LATCH installation with the Pipa base – and not doing a seat belt installation. But… if you really want to try a center seat belt installation with a Pipa base, be aware that it often doesn’t go well (as seen in the picture below). In quite a few cars when you pull the seat belt as tight as it needs to be, the seat belt scrunches in the blue lock-off, preventing you from closing the lock-off (and the lock-off MUST be closed). If the seat belt installation doesn’t work… try a rigid LATCH installation on the side.

This base often surprises us in working in 3-across, or side-by-side, situations where we didn’t expect it to – specifically in spaces that seemed too narrow to fit an infant seat. Installing car seats side-by-side can be tricky as you need to make sure that each car seat is tight independent of it’s neighbor. The Pipa’s rigid LATCH is really nice in these side-by-side situations, as if you install the other car seat first and make sure it is nice and tight, and then get the Pipa base LATCHed in, you know for sure that the Pipa base is tight as the beauty of rigid LATCH is that there is no way for it to be loosely LATCHed in  – which is in contrast to seats that use flexible LATCH where they can be LATCHed in but installed too loosely.

There are 2 Nuna Pipa’s sold in the US: a Nuna Pipa, and a Stokke Nuna Pipa. They are nearly identical EXCEPT for a very important difference when it comes to stroller compatibility. The Stokke Nuna Pipa has Stokke stroller adapters built-in to the carrier that are not removable. The Stokke adapters are not the same as the Maxi Cosi adapters – and therefore the Stokke Nuna Pipa will NOT fit on all the other strollers that use the Maxi Cosi style adapters. Unless you are buying a Stokke stroller, make sure you do NOT get the Stokke Nuna Pipa, and instead get the regular Nuna Pipa.

The Nuna Pipa Jett is the same as the Nuna Pipa – Jett is just a different fabric that they think you’ll be willing to pay more for because it is a pretty gray.

Nuna tries to support small local stores and does not sell to any big box stores – so you can find the regular Nuna Pipa at a specialty store near you – or online from quite a few online retailers including Albee’s, Babesta, and Magic Beans. The Stokke Nuna Pipa is carried at BuyBuyBaby as well as online retailers.