Convertible Car Seat Question

blairdavis99

Hi all! I'm looking to upgrade DS (and maybe DD) from the newborn car seat to a convertible car seat soon as he is almost maxing out the length allowed. My concern is this: I'm told the convertible seat is designed to stay in the car, not to be detached & re-attached to the base & brought into the house, store, etc. with you. So what do I do with the baby in the store or restaurant? DS is big but nowhere near sitting up by himself yet. Therefore not sitting in the grocery cart or a high chair. (He goes in his Bumbo daily but needs a lot of supervision/adjustment). So that means someone would have to hold him the whole time we are out? I have two babies so this is probably not going to be do-able. FTM here and potentially overthinking this...advice greatly appreciated!

Edit: I should add that I realize going from the car to the stroller (w/o car seat) is an option but the double stroller is not doable in most restaurants and only gives me enough room for about 5 items in the grocery store.

DZandLZ

You're correct that a convertible car seat always stays in the car. If that isn't doable, you might need to look into a different brand of carrier car seat that allows a longer length.

blairdavis99

@DZandLZ - thanks for the confirmation. I probably don't want to lug around 20+ pounds of son & car seat anyway - convertible seats are huge! We may just be in the awkward spot of dropping a lot of $ on a longer carrier car seat to use for just a few months or having to hold him more often when we are out for a few months until he is better with his neck control & sitting up.

orangecurls

Our babies start to slow in their growth around now, so hopefully he won't grow out of his seat until he is 6 months, around the time he will be able to sit. Also call customer service of your car seat, some seats allow babies to exceed maximum length if the top of his head is more than 1 inch from the top of the shell and his weight is still below capacity.

I baby wear a lot, cause my little guy hates his car seat and stroller. So that might be an option.

morgansWed105148

We have a convertible and I wear my son if I need a cart. Him facing out and he loves it! If I'm not getting too much I use stroller and put items in my basket under stroller.. When we are at reastruants we use our mega seat on a booth bench and he sits right next to me with his tray on so we can put toys out for him to play or he loves to sit on my lap when I eat.

morgansWed105148

Didn't realize you have two of them

blairdavis99

@morgansWed105148 - no worries! I can usually modify or at least work off of the advice of singletons. Just looking for ideas. I don't know what a mega seat is but I will be looking that up - sounds intriguing! Thanks!

@orangecurls - thanks! Very helpful as well!