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North Carolina Babies
Carseat Size Question (er...questions)
I just had a little carseat safety training session - very educational. The guy mentioned some seats might not fit in all cars. We have a Jeep Cherokee and Ford Fusion (pretty standard size sedan). I'd like to be able to sit comfortably up front w/ the carseat in the back... do I assume *most* carseats will fit or is there something I should lookout for? Or is it just trial & error?
I haven't really begun my search at all yet, so if you sedan or small car driving ladies have recs for carseats that fit well, please do share 
Alslo, it seems like a good option would be to buy multiple bases and just have the one carseat - is that doable?
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Re: Carseat Size Question (er...questions)
I'm pretty short... but would prefer not to be sitting the whole way up in the seat IF that's avoidable
DH requires legroom.
So, if this is a true priority, is a convertable carseat out of the question or are there some that might be smaller than others and fit better in a more compact car?
Hmm... or maybe we could get an infant seat for the sedan and a convertable for the suv...and then after 1 year use the convertable in both cars?
For the beginning I'd get an infant seat. You can get 1 seat and a base for each car - so you can use the same seat all the time. The infant seat, although gets heavy is easy to take baby in and out of stores/restaurants/home even when baby is sleeping.
The convertible seat can't be moved between cars but you have time to get that. To be honest unless you have a really big baby or plan to extend rear facing (DD at almost 2 is still rear facing) you probably won't have it rear facing very long. Plus just about any seat is going to be bulky while rear facing.
You can go to BRU and have them show you how to instal the diff seats into your car. You can actually take them out to your car and put them in the seat.
carseatdata.org has a searchable database so you can see what seats fit in what cars.
I have a 2 door Civic - the Snugride fit but I had to pull the passenger seat almost all the way up. The Roundabout takes up less room (even rear facing) but I still wouldn't want to sit on the passenger side.
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If you are concerned I'd go with a Graco Snugride over the Safe Seat for the infant seat. And yes you can just buy multiple bases. We had one for each of our cars and also my mom's car.
For convertibles, you could look at a Britax Roundabout vs. the Marathon or the Diplomat is smaller than the Boulevard. They will be fine forward facing but it's the keeping them rear facing for a much longer period that is now recommended that can cause an issue.
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I did have a smaller car with very little room in the backseat (BMW 330i), and we were able to fit our infant carseat and base (the Chicco Keyfit 30) in the middle with no problem. However, my DH and I are both on the shorter side so our seats were not that far back....and they couldn't have gone back much farther with the seat there. We recently got a Nissan Murano for the extra space and our carseat and base fit well there, too. I think you will be fine in both a Cherokee and Fusion since those aren't compact cars.
I highly recommend the Chicco Keyfit 30 infant carseat. We love it so far! Great quality and very roomy for the baby. We bought the extra base for my DH's car so we could switch back and forth easily since he'll be taking DC to daycare.
if i had it to do over again, i'd get the snugride instead of the safeseat. i LOVED my safeseat, but the reason i got the one with the extended weight limits was to be able to use the snap&go longer.
i won't say that i switched henry out of his infant into the convertible seat because it was too heavy to carry around with him in it (duh, take him out, leave the seat!), but he was definitely starting to get pissed off reclining so far in the infant seat.
i'd not even really think about convertibles yet, you've got a while
I think the multiple carseat vs bases question really depends on your lifestyle. For us it was apparent we needed two carseats vs bases. The daycare we chose did not allow for you to leave your carseat there so if/when DH picked up he would need his own seat otherwise have to travel to my work to get the carrier off my base. Our secondary seat was not as expensive as our first due to time that Alex would be in it - althought it got great reviews on Baby Bargains as well as the crash saftey tests...so I still felt safe with him in it. Both our seats were Graco - one came with the travel system one we got at Wal-mart.
Also - to this day we still have two car seats even in the convertible. Its just easier for us - for example when we went to Mexico we needed to split Alex between our parents for a week - so one carseat we needed to use to drop him off at my parents and they kept and used and then we took one to ILs for when they would get Alex midweek. We installed both so we knew they were correctly installed.
Its nice too because when Alex got sick in the winter and DH needed to pick Alex up he didnt have to come to my work before going to get Alex, and sometimes when you are counting on those few minutes to spare to make it to the Drs office - its nice not to have to make an extra stop. So yes - you can get by with 1 carseat and multiple bases...but I would suggest two carseats two bases just for ease of use. Like I said, totally depends on your lifestyle.
I'm pretty sure this is similar to what everyone else said, but we are still using our Snugride, and have a base in each car (Camry and an old model Honda CRV). We have both installed on the passenger side. In both, the passenger front seat had to be moved up pretty significantly. DH is 5'11", and he cannot ride in the passenger seat of the CRV. He can do the Camry, but not super comfortably. If we had put the bases in the middle, then both seats would have had to have been pulled up that far. I'm fine in the Camry front passenger seat, and a little less comfy in the CRV. You can take a look in my car next weekend for comparison, since it's pretty much the same size as your Fusion, I'd say..
I have a feeling we'll be switching to a convertible very soon... Until then, I don't have much to add there! We will be getting a convertible for each car though.