Car Seat Picks/Safety

inamra

All these posts about strollers and car seats made me think of this (we have a travel system and a convertible car seat, and we use our travel system's stroller as our only stroller so I don't really think about strollers separately from car seats). All seats are supposed to pass govt testing and regulations and the NHTSA doesn't rank them (except for by ease of use). The only difference between them that I could find on safety was the data from their test results: https://www.nhtsa.gov/Cars/testing/comply/fmvss213/Janu2010ed.pdf (I just found this today, so I didn't use it when choosing my car seat/travel system).

How did you choose what brand/model of car seats (how well it fits your car, word of mouth, reviews)? What makes the difference in the prices of these car seats, other than maybe the brand (trust/popularity)? Did you use any other references when choosing your car seat?

redshoegirl

I'm not sure how relevant my answer is since I'm not in the USA, but I'm a big ole post whore so I'll reply anyway.

I read a lot of posts on parenting forums, a few consumer reports, that sort of thing. Although there was one brand that most Aussie parents said was "the best", I strongly suspect that it's "the best" simply because everyone thinks it's the best (I guess it's consumer trust, even though it's silly since it's based on hearsay and not actual data). Does that make sense? Anyway, all the car seats here have to meet the same safety requirements, so I wasn't too worried about even a cheap one being bad or dangerous.

However, one thing I did discover was that (with the brands available here), most of the cheapest ones were also rather short backed - so even if your child still fit them weight-wise, if you had an even slighty tall kid, they'd need new seats faster since they'd outgrow them more quickly...so even if you spent less money initially, it might end up being more later on because you'd need to buy another car seat before you moved to booster seats. So I ended up going with one of the more expensive brands simply because it was taller in the back.

We also needed to be able to fit two seats, and because so many car seats are massive and have huge padded areas these days, that narrowed our choices too. Our car isn't small (it's a large-ish sedan) but even so, some of the big seats would have been a bit of  squeeze because of how close they'd come to the doors.

And then I just picked the cheapest out of the remaining 4 seats or so. 

MrsZiz

I read the baby bargains book and talked to several of my friends who have had kids in the last 5 yrs. I knew that I wanted a car seat that would be compatible with several different brands/types of strollers later on since I knew eventually we'd need a double stroller and I didn't know what brand/type of stroller we'd get once the time came.

That said, some of my friends LOVED the chicco but for almost all strollers, except the chico brand, you have to have an adapter to make it work with the stroller and that costs more $$. The carrier itself is also pretty heavy without a baby in it. So I vetoed that one. Other friends loved the Britax infant seats but they are GIANT, I drive a civic so I nixed that. Other friends raved about the Graco Snugrides. They are compatible with most (about 80-90%) of strollers that aren't the graco brand. They aren't too big, they fit well into my car, they have side impact protection, you can adjust the straps on the front of most of them (That was a BIG deal for me!). 

inamra

redshoegirl:

I read a lot of posts on parenting forums, a few consumer reports, that sort of thing. Although there was one brand that most Aussie parents said was "the best", I strongly suspect that it's "the best" simply because everyone thinks it's the best (I guess it's consumer trust, even though it's silly since it's based on hearsay and not actual data). Does that make sense? Anyway, all the car seats here have to meet the same safety requirements, so I wasn't too worried about even a cheap one being bad or dangerous.

Yeah, this is what I suspected too.

I guess after reading/seeing so much raves and popular votes for certain brands/types, I started to second-guess my original choices (I personally picked ours for price...our convertible seat was $79 and our travel system was $59--both from really good deals that I ran into and couldn't pass up). But then I couldn't find anything that "proved" via data that certain brands or models or "better" than others. I think that having a seat that fits your car well is very important though. For us, the only non 2-door car we have is our SUV so pretty much anything fits in there. We also got our car seat installed for the first time with the highway patrol so we could make sure that we got it right the first time and not get used to installing it incorrectly from the start.

MrsNicole&Brian808

I don't know if anyone remembers the drama I had with our infant car seat and my ILs, but I thought I'd chime in.

We ended up with an Eddie Bauer travel system (NOT my choice based on research I had done).  I hated it, mostly because it isn't very popular (I couldn't find anyone to vouch for it) and it got horrible reviews (D+ rating) in the latest edition of Baby Bargains and on other online forums.  BB said it lacked many "standard" safety features.  So I took our infant seat apart and found that EB must have done some redesigning since the latest edition of BB was published because I saw the very features BB said it lacked.

We also had our infant seat and 2 bases inspected and installed by certified technicians, which really helped with my peace of mind.  So in the end, I can live with it.  I still have a love/hate relationship with the travel system stroller, though.  It is HUGE and barely fits in my VW Rabbit trunk  We actually ended up sneaking it back into my ILs place for storage while they were away in Las Vegas.    We have a much smaller stroller frame to use with the infant seat for now.

mrspresley

well baby bargains said that the main difference between different car seats/brands is the "bells and whistles"....so while all will be safe for your child, some have a little extra cushioning, or side impact protection (not required to meet safety standards), are "easier" to install, etc.  and then the rest of the pricing goes to marketing/brand trust, as with any other product on the market

we chose our infant seat based on the reviews i had read in the baby bargains book, what would fit in our car, and deals i could find at the time. right now we are starting to look into convertible seats to decide which one we want to get when she out grows her infant seat