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Northern California Babies
RP--Stupid car seat question....Help.....
I can't seem to wrap my head around what to do here and for whatever reasons, this is getting complicated for me to figure out!
Our friends gave us their used Britax Roundabout and Britax Marathon car seats (they are both a few years old). I know nothing about them other than what I can find online, which appears good. Just by looking at the car seats, both of them look too big for a newborn and I am wondering *if* I need something different for a newborn? Is there something I need to buy to insert? Do I need to purchase something different and use these car seats later when our daughter gets bigger?
Also....we received the Bertini B5 Travel System Stroller as a gift....and I am starting to think I should return that and use the Britax car seats and then purchase a seperate stroller? I am wondering if the Bertini travel system won't "grow" with us very long?
I don't know why this is overwhelming me right now.
Bottom line, I want to make sure I have something to bring our newborn home from the hospital and I want to use what we have and buy what we need but not have a bunch of stuff....if possible.
I appreciate your opinions! You ladies always straighten me out with your expertise 
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Re: RP--Stupid car seat question....Help.....
Both the Britax seats you received are fine for a newborn; however, an actual newborn seat was priceless for us in that you could easily transfer a sleeping baby from car to home or from car to stroller without waking- for that aspect alone I would buy a separate infant seat. IMO.
If you do buy an infant carseat you can easily find a Snap and Go stroller on CL for $50 or less.
My SIL went home using only a convertible carseat (like the Britax), I think the baby just needs to be at least 5 pounds...but, I personally am not comfortable with that and need an infant car seat. Admittedly, DD was only in her infant seat for the first 6 months or so but not because she outgrew it-because she was too heavy for me to lug around in the seat and I also wanted her sitting up straighter because of her head. The nice thing about the infant seat is that it unsnaps from the base so you carry the infant around in it like a carrier - you don't risk waking them like you do when you have to get them out of the convertible seat.
We have a travel stroller from when DD was born, and we were able to use her infant seat with it (just snapped on top) so again we didn't have to wake her up. Once we stopped using the infant seat we just use it as a normal stroller and it has been fine for us. We'd continue to use it as long as we needed a stroller if we didn't need a double for later.
We had an infant seat for DS (a Graco seat). He rarely slept in it. And if he was asleep in it, we could not move the seat to take it and him out of the car or it would wake him up. So in theory an infant seat allows you to not wake a sleeping baby, but we were totally disappointed on that front.
It was nice to not have to strap him in and out of the carseat for a multiple-stop shopping trip but otherwise it was just another heavy thing to carry.
DS also grew out of his -- like his head reached the top of the shell -- when he was 6 months old.
Anyway, you can use the Britax with a newborn provided the newborn is large enough. But many people find infant carseats easier to handle.
Both of those seats should have come with extra padding for use with an infant.
I'd go with an infant seat though. You'll use the Britax's later, but the infant seat and stroller frame are really, really nice in the 1st year.
I'm finding that with the infant seat in the center, it's really hard to put LO in in while it's in the car, so, even though I could get him out of the seat without waking him (he's a SOUND sleeper) I pick up the whole seat and bring it in the house (or take it into the store, etc). That way we can all get ready and packed inside where it's nice and warm and then transfer him to the car without having to do a lot of contortion to get him in the seat with it already in the car.
I'm loving how light the snap n go stroller is.
I'm one of those that never got an infant seat and used the convertible from the start. I bought an infant insert (sold separately) and that fit her *pretty well* but she was a small newborn.
I like it because I have a bad back and was not planning on lugging her around in the car seat carrier, I have held them in the past and they are too heavy for me even without the baby in it! Also it worked out well because my kid doesn't sleep in the carseat anyway. Now she tolerates it for short trips, but she used to just scream her head off no matter what I did.
I just always try to plan things so I will be home for nap time or somewhere she can sleep in the Ergo as I walk around. It works for us, but i only have one child.