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Nurseries and Baby Gear
maddie&stephen
member
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Don't Even Know Where to Start-FF Car Seat
maddie&stephen
member
I really don't even know where to start on this-I know we have some time as DD is just 4 months old but can anyone help point me in a direction? We have really like Chicco products but it doesn't seem like there is a FF car seat made by them. It just seems like there are so many options and they range from $89-$300, it's just overwhelming. Is there a website where I could compare, or is it best to go to a retailer website and compare there? Any help/recommendations are appreciated!!
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Re: Don't Even Know Where to Start-FF Car Seat
The next carseat you move to should be rear facing as well. Once you are out of the infant seat, most states require by law that they stay rear facing until 1, and the AAP recommends until 2. A convertible with a good 40+lb rear facing limit is your best bet.
Brands that I see recommended the most are Britax and Graco (we have two Graco Myrides and like them)
Why are you looing at a forward facing car seat right now? The American Academy of Pediatrics reccomends infants stay rear facing until 2 years or until your child meets the height/weight requirements for rear facing in their car seat.
That being said, Chicco does not make any convertable (rear and forward facing) car seats.
I suggest looking at Britax or Graco MyRide or Radians.
Emily 8.8.08
Madeline 1.2.11
William 8.5.12
You are several years away from needing to worry about forward facing seats! A child should be a minimum of 2, but preferably older, before turning FF. What you need is a convertible seat, which will RF then once it's outgrown RF you can use it FF (unless your child is old enough and mature enough to use a booster, some kids can make it to 5 in a RF seat).
The current popular models from carseat experts include:
Diono radian
Graco Size4me70
Graco Myride65
Clek Foonf
Safety First Complete Air
Evenflo Triumph 65
The First Years True Fit
Unless your child is fairly short I would not consider a britax. The current generation britax models have shorter shells than their competitors (and even than their older models), which means they will be outgrown both RF and FF earlier than the others (the vast majority of kids outgrow seats for height long before hitting weight limits) and they also have less leg room than most of the others I mentioned above, so kids get uncomfortable RF sooner. They have a lot of bells and whistles that are nice, but you're paying a lot of money for a seat that won't last as long as others.
And just an FYI, all seats must pass the exact same pass/fail test to be released to the market, so carseat techs treat all seats as equally safe. Whether or not one brand performs better than others is not released and not considered relevant. Carseat techs also greatly dislike consumer reports' testing criteria (not sure exactly why, but their ratings are considered garbage within the tech community).
Thank you all-I guess I got my terminology mixed up as I meant a convertible seat that would eventually face forward.
I appreciate the information and will try to research from the recommended brands you suggested-thanks again.
This was quite a research task for us as well!
With that said, DS was in his Chicco until he was just over a year old, when he reached 29.5 inches long, so then we bought the Britax Boulevard for my car and the Britax Marathon for DH's car. He's going to be 2 in November and is still rear facing in the back seat. The Boulevard appealed to us because you can use it for an infant, if needed in case DS is already in his booster seat by the time other babies come and are outgrowing the infant seat.
We used the Chicco KeyFit with DD, she outgrew it (height-wise only, heck, she could still use it weight wise and she turned 3 in June) by 9 months and we switched to Graco MyRide65. She used that RF and FF until about four or five months ago when I put her into the Graco Argos70. She would have been completely fine in the MyRide65 for a while but the base of the seat was so tall she couldn't climb in it herself (we have captain chairs in the middle row) and I kept bumping her head putting her in the seat. I have been really happy with the Graco line, in fact I also just bought the Turbo High Back booster as an inexpensive seat to have in my husbands truck. We use my car all the time but he occasionally picks up from daycare and once we have this LO, the infant seat will have to sit in the middle and the MyRide was too bulky to have behind a seat in his truck. Good luck- I'm not sure if you have a BuyBuyBaby near you, but I went in there and they gave me a lot of good recommendations on which seat to get. I had already decided what I wanted based on safety reviews and they suggested the same one- I told them what price range I wanted to stay in and they didn't try and sell me something unnecessary.