What are the pros and cons of an infant car seat vs. a grow with me car seat?

michelle654

My husband and I are having a hard time deciding on whether or not to purchase an infant car seat or a grow with me car seat.  We were originally planning on purchasing a travel system, but were given a super nice stroller (avio inglesina) that can be made into a travel system when you purchase the add-ons or a pram when you purchase the bassinet.  We both love the bassinet so we wouldn't necessarily need an infant car seat, but it has some practical pros like you can have the one car seat and multiple bases, you can carry the baby in and out of places like day care without having to disrupt her sleeping, you can bundle her up in the winter inside.  The only con I really see is we will have to purchase a new car seat sooner.  Does anyone know of any other pros and cons that I maybe am not seeing?

NCkate3

I'm pregnant with my third child and I can tell you there will be ten thousand scenarios where you won't want to wake the sleeping baby to move him/her out of the convertible car seat. You will want an infant carrier to take in and out of the car. I suppose it depends on your lifestyle, but baby's don't sleep through rough transfers from unbuckling them. The infant carrier is like a take-with-you bassinet for when you're away from home (out to eat, in church, shopping, etc, etc.) There will be places you can't take the stroller because of the size (restaurants) and you'll need to be relatively hands free. The baby will fall asleep in the car repeatedly, and you won't want to risk waking him/her to move to a stroller.

mamadeez

(I'm a FTM buuut..) We will be getting an infant car seat to go with the stroller we were given. This way we can take our little guy out of the car without transfers and into restaurants without as much hassle. We plan to get a car seat that grows with the baby afterwards - there are ones that don't include the infant option - at that point we can use the stroller and carrier more often.

AdaliaAngel

We got a convertible seat because it costs less in the long run, and I've read countless articles stating cases where infants under three months have died from asphyxiation from sleeping in their car seats because either their head tilts wrong against the straps or they slouch at an angle where their lungs collapse. Yes, he'll fall asleep in the car, but having a convertible seat will help us to keep that time as short as possible and eliminate those dangers. It can happen in as little as four minutes, and that's just not a worry we want to have.
We have a smaller stroller that can fit anywhere a high chair with an infant seat could, so that takes care of things like restaurants and church, etc for us.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/car-seats-pose-danger-to-sleeping-babies/

jesselayne8

AdaliaAngel said:

We got a convertible seat because it costs less in the long run, and I've read countless articles stating cases where infants under three months have died from asphyxiation from sleeping in their car seats because either their head tilts wrong against the straps or they slouch at an angle where their lungs collapse. Yes, he'll fall asleep in the car, but having a convertible seat will help us to keep that time as short as possible and eliminate those dangers. It can happen in as little as four minutes, and that's just not a worry we want to have.
We have a smaller stroller that can fit anywhere a high chair with an infant seat could, so that takes care of things like restaurants and church, etc for us.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/car-seats-pose-danger-to-sleeping-babies/

We ended up on using our infant seat 4 months with my second child because he fell asleep every car ride with his head slouched forward and it scared the crap out of me.

NurseRieger

I have to go with the convertible car seat because my husband is a cop and once worked a really bad fatal crash where the infant car seat with separate base was ejected from the car. There was no baby in the car at the time thank God. But the experience traumatized him and he believes the convertible car seats are safer. He's also worked bad crashes where babies have survived in each type of car seat. They are all made really safe I'm sure. You lose convenience with a convertible but it saves a little money too.