But, because so many different seats are on the market, many parents find this overwhelming. If you are expectant parents, consider working with a certified passenger safety technician , before your baby is born, to ensure a safe ride home from the hospital. The Graco Contender 65 Convertible Car Seat can easily grow with your child. The Simply Safe Adjust harness system makes it easy to fine-tune it to fit your growing infant. You can automatically adjust both the straps and headrest height together to get the exact space you need for optimal safety. While many babies outgrow their rear-facing infant seat quickly, studies show that children under age two are 75% less likely to die in a crash if they are seated in a rear-facing car seat.
If you’re looking for one car seat that will last through all your child’s ages and stages, the Graco 4Ever 4-in-1 Convertible Car Seat is prepped to grow with them for ten years. It fits my grandson well and I feel he is extremely safe in this seat. The built-in cup holder, which can be flipped up for sippy cup storage or folded down for more space on the side of the car seat. What’s more, the Boulevard has a collision-resistant steel frame, anti-rebound bar , V-shaped tether to minimize seat rotation and a double layer of protection on the sides. It also has 14 headrest positions, so you won’t have to struggle with the dreaded rethreading when your child gets to the next level. Thishandy chartfrom the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rates the ease of use for various car seats.
The Grow and Go works as a rear-facing, forward-facing and eventually a belt-positioning booster seat. It has three recline positions, two cup holders and a seat pad that snaps on and off for when you need to throw it in the wash. You can easily adjust the harness and headrest in one step, and built-in harness holders keep annoying straps from getting in the way when you’re trying to pull your little one out of the car seat. Lots of parents choose this as an affordable secondary car seat for a caregiver or grandparent’s car too. The straps on forward-facing car seats should generally hit at or above your 5-year-old’s shoulders.
Find the parenting user manual you need for your baby product and more at ManualsOnline. Editors Jennifer Geiger and Jennifer Newman, as well as previous editor Matt Schmitz, are certified child-safety seat installation technicians. Does not have a label with the date of manufacture and model number. Without these, you cannot check to see if the seat has been recalled.
Most importantly, convertible car seats allow kids to be rear-facing for longer and can accommodate children of various sizes. A. s have cornered the market on mid-priced convertible car seats that include extra safety and convenience features that are typically hallmarks of pricier options. Some models will last until your child graduates from a booster seat, between the ages of 10 and 12, eliminating the need to buy multiple car and booster seats. Basic models priced between $100 and $150 are safe and functional but lack some desirable engineering features. Higher-end models priced between $150 and $300 include valuable features like advanced crash testing, additional configurations that extend the life of the car seat, and extra leg room.
Many of Graco’s car seats are FAA approved with the use of the 5-point harness. The FAA approval sticker is located on the back of the car seat. You should always check your car seat and owners manual for an indication of manufacturer approval. One concern among parents was the width of the seat when measured at the cup holders. The dual cup holders flare out a bit, making the seat rather wide.
It’s suitable for use for babies starting at 4 pounds (with a 50-pound rear-facing limit) up to 120 pounds in the booster mode. It also has a six-position recline, a feature that LaBracio especially likes. LATCH storage isn’t as crucial for convertible seats as it is for infant carriers, where they can inhibit carrier connection to the base. However, it is useful if the straps aren’t readily accessible to the passenger and can’t result in potential injuries floating loose around the car seat. Some options have designated pockets for LATCH clips, while the most common storage method includes attaching the clips to points on the shell or each other.
Your child can ride safely in the car seat until he either outgrows the maximum height or weighs more than the maximum weight capacity of the seat. Vita Smart features our Safety Shield technology, offering premium head & torso protection through the patented use of Air Protect Head Protection and G-CELL torso protection. All this whilst being a compact rearward facing graco jogging stroller car seat at 540mm depth. Safety 1st Grow N Go EX Air — Straightforward Buckling and Height Adjustments. It seems like a trend in convertible car seats right now is a feature where you can adjust the harness height and headrest in one motion. If using the lower anchors, make sure that the weight of your child plus the weight of the seat does not exceed 65 pounds.
We conduct rigorous testing that includes installing each seat in at least three different vehicles using both installation methods with multiple testers. We test each seats’ padding, covers, harness adjustments, and more. The Britax Allegiance is an affordable convertible choice that provides quality for a reasonable price. The Allegiance has the second-highest score for crash test results with one of the group’s best head sensor results.
Some seats have additional features that manufacturers claim will improve the seat’s safety; we did not consider these features or claims in our crash test score analysis. Because manufacturers do not publish comparison test data to analyze, it is impossible to determine their efficacy. We understand parents are curious about side impact protection or an anti-rebound bar . Still, we encourage you to proceed with caution when making a decision-based solely on these features. In the end, there is no way to tell what each manufacturer means when they use terminology that lacks an agreed-upon meaning . This lack of information makes it impossible to compare seats with similar-sounding claims, especially without a universally agreed-upon language to describe what the claims genuinely mean.