We also registered for the Chicco Keyfit 30. After a lot of research we decided this one was our safest bet! Working in childcare a lot of my parents have also been recommending the chicco keyfit!
We loved the Chicco keyfit for DS and then we have the Britax Marathon and Chicco NextFit convertible car seats in our cars now. Britax Marathon is incredibly easy to install/move from car to car. We'll probably stick with the same brands for our LO on the way.
We used the Chicco Keyfit for my daughter, and we'll use the same seat for this one, since it doesn't expire for a few years yet. We LOVED it. We found an extra base at a Mom-to-Mom sale, and it was so worth it.
The bases were super easy to install, so if I ever did need to move it, it took like two minutes. But I also loved that the seat could be installed fairly easily with just the seat belt, too.
We chose the Keyfit because it was rated one of the easiest to use - very important with my 2-door car!
-Oh, and we bought it at Buy Buy Baby with a 20% off coupon and one of those discounted merchandise cards. (My dad is obsessed with those card pool things.)
I’ll be the odd one out... We have a Maxi Cosi Max 30 and chose it for a lot of personal reasons—weight was one of them @DDRRT1982. We also have the Maxi Cosi Pria 70 convertible seat and have no complaints. I think so much of car seat choice comes down to preference.
@vflux33 thanks for sharing. I didn’t even think about that at all. Wow. Also, have you seen the video on fire comparison between an older house with older non-synthetic materials v a new house with all of the things we probably all have in our houses now? It’s absolutely terrifying how huge on a difference you have in time to get out between the first and the second. And eye opening.
@ashleyf911 I also second the Britax B Safe Infant seat & Britax marathon convertible. So easy to use/install, safe and can find attachments to many different travel systems.
We used the B.O.B. jogger with the infant seat, which I loved, but it can be big if you won't be using it for jogging or different terrains.
We got the Graco Click Connect 35 to use until about 6 months or so. But I'm having trouble deciding between the Graco 4ever and the Safety 1st Grow and Go 3 in 1. The Graco 4ever is about $100 more expensive so I put the Safety 1st on my registry. Reading the reviews, it doesn't seem like there is too much of a difference between the two.
@becausescience@mdfarmchick I am going to sound dumb, but which one is supposed to have the flame retardants? I assumed it was the modern room, but it went up in flames faster. Maybe that's the point? I don't know? I can't hear it.
Another one for team Britax B-Safe and B-Agile. DS is now in the Marathon and the B-Safe is c still good for #2.
@DDRRT1982 If something breaks on a Britax, just call them. They're usually really good about sending replacement parts, even if there's no reval. Once they replaced our entire stroller when the button that enabled folding broke.
@DDRRT1982 the original one we saw was a whole article and an introduction. If I recall correctly, they were saying all of the synthetic fabrics we have in our homes now catch fire and spread faster regardless of whether they are treated with any flame retardants.
@DDRRT1982 Yes my understanding is the same as @mdfarmchick's (though I'm not sure if the chemical flame retardants were used in the modern home and didn't see the explanation article). Furniture and homes are made cheaper with more synthetic materials than they used to be, which is probably why many companies started using chemical flame retardants in the first place. But if you made products with more of the expensive traditional materials there's probably physically more to burn through and I think also that a lot of the more traditional materials themselves burn slower.
It's kind of similar to the whole processed food thing IMO. Companies make more money selling boxed foods, and they are more convenient and cheaper for us consumers, which is great and makes food more affordable. BUT they have tons of preservatives and chemicals in them to make them more convenient and fewer "real" ingredients (because those are more expensive and would go bad on the shelf for so long). We're all paying for modern conveniences, one way or another. If you want something fast and cheap, whether it's a newly constructed apartment complex or ricearoni, you pay for that saved cost in other ways. And the "real" versions become more and more expensive and harder to find, which sucks because you shouldn't have to be rich and research every little thing to keep your food and home as safe as you can, but there we are.
Aaaand I'm going to stop there before I go on a rant and stray into political territory
Anyone know of a double jogger stroller that the Graco snug ride care seat clicks into? DD will be 20 months when DS is born so on my runs/walks she will still be sitting in the stroller. Leaning towards a B.O.B they seem more sturdy and durable, I have a Graco modes jogger thats been used for about a year and it does not steer well anymore.
Just swapped the Chico for UPPAbaby Mesa Henry in my (still secret/basically shopping list) registry. The price is yikes, but we're going minimalist in other respects so I feel OK about it. Thanks again, @vflux33!
Just popping in to say / warn: We've been using the Britax Advocate click tight for about a year and hardly ever take it out of the car. We had to switch cars today to have it serviced and, to my horror, the seat belt type fabric underneath the seat (where it holds the whole harness in place) is worn and ripped almost halfway through. It must have been rubbing on the metal loop that it is connected to because it definitely hasn't seen any wear from us. It's always closed. I'm horrified to think about what would have happened if we had been in an accident. We've sent an email to Britax and haven't heard back. Just thought I'd give you all a heads up since you're shopping for seats! Had the Chicco keyfit 30 before this with no issues.
@jerseygirl9090 I have the BOB revolution single as well as the BOB dualie double and could not be more pleased with both of them. Seriously, I'm going to be sad when my babies don't need it anymore. Maybe my dogs will be old enough to ride around in a stroller by then lol
I finally got around this morning to looking into my mattresses/couches re: flame retardants, having researched the topic a little more thoroughly (eek, dust! etc). I spent a little while on the phone with Crate and Barrel and thankfully determined the (used) couch we bought for $100 (score!) a few years ago is FR-free. We also have an old futon-type couch from the 80s that I'm probably going to have to replace the mattress for (should be able to do this for $300 or so) .
Most of our bedroom stuff is fine (have a tuft and needle mattress). I'm just curious, have y'all tried to eradicate your house of FR in general? Or are you just focusing on baby stuff?
I've already been avoiding processed foods and pesticides and most plastics with consistency. It's just so frustrating that we can't count on our government to block this BS! Anyway!
Crate and Barrel and Ikea are both big companies that have
gotten better about carrying FR free products. There are a few others too.
Since the CA law went into effect it has forced more big companies to deal with
it, but check for labels if you live in CA and don’t be shy about asking questions at stores.
Yes, I’m definitely trying to eradicate it from our entire
environment in addition to buying baby products without them (some of the
negative effects occur in the womb so anyone who is bothering to do that, now
is a great time). A little over 3 years ago we moved from a rented pre-furnished
apartment to a rented old farmhouse in the country so had to buy all new furniture. The FR stuff
was a little on our radar then but not as much, and the market was a little
different because FR didn’t requiring labeling in CA then (we’re in CA). So we did
some mattress research and bought a full on organic mattress from Keetsa, which
we love and I highly recommend them. Not all their mattresses are even that
expensive. They don’t do cribs yet though.
Our little farmhouse is carpeted pretty much everywhere and
initially that concerned us, however, the carpet is very, very old. Old carpet
is ugly as hell, but it’s a rental so we can’t replace it and also after
researching a bit we discovered that very old carpets (and other products) are
less likely to be a problem because 1) they started using more and more FRs in
recent years, and 2) there is a finite amount of FR dust and eventually it gets
vacuumed up, absorbed into us and other people in the environment, etc. So
didn’t take any action there.
We bought our couch 6 months before the FR labeling law went
into effect in CA and are currently in the process of dealing with that. We
bought it from one of those local discount custom couch companies and we called
them up and explained the situation a few weeks ago. Turned out the manager of
the branch we used is also expecting so MH explained the science to him and he
freaked out and offered to replace our cushions with FR free ones for cost. He assured us that in
our couch only the cushions were treated. So we are currently waiting on the
replacements but we are keeping the rest of the couch and just plan to clean it
thoroughly when the cushions arrive. In the meantime I’m making sure even if my
hands feel clean to wash them thoroughly after sitting on the couch before
eating or flossing, etc. Also just vacuuming more helps to suck up the
invisible FR dust (anyone who wants to lessen exposure but can’t afford to buy
new products should do these 2 things).
Also, we are probably buying a new car this year (another
annoying expense—I have a 14 year old car that doesn’t like to drive in the
rain and it floods here in the winter). We’re currently trying to figure out
what the FR situation is in the upholstery in cars. MH brought up the related
concern of other chemicals (VOCs) present in new cars (which off-gas over time)
so we are going to avoid driving in our new car for a few weeks and blow air
through it in our garage to get the off-gassing process started.
Related but separate issue: people here buying products ie.
teethers, bottles etc. that say “BPA free” -- make sure those are also BPS
free. BPS is an endocrine disruptor very similar to BPA that is often used in
place of it in these products. A friend who is a mom of 2 warned me about
this—they sneak BPS into A LOT of BPA-free advertised products.
Thanks for this! We're planning to upgrade to a king-sized mattress/bed at some point, and I'll look into Keetsa. Tuft and Needle isn't organic, but it is "non-toxic" and doesn't have the big offenders (as far as I know). If it ever off-gassed, it's done with that by now.
So glad that couch guy is working with you!
Are you thinking about naturepedic crib mattresses? Or have you found another brand you like more? We'll probably get the Ikea Sniglar crib cos it's affordable, fits our taste, and is solid, untreated/unvarnished/unpainted wood.
I'll look into these! I follow a blog called Reading My Tea Leaves which is written by a woman who gets into sustainable/safe child-raising and living-at-large on the regular. They bought the Ikea crib and I like how she styled it, so that was my original inspiration. And you can't go wrong at $79!
We'll be getting some kind of bassinet situation for the early months in our bedroom. I found a stand for cheap on craigslist, and am just waiting to bite the bullet on the other parts. Totally seduced by cute pics of babies in moses baskets at the moment.
We're still deciding on our twin sleeping sitch but for now I think we're settling on putting them together for ~ the first 4 months in the travel crib in our room before separating into different cribs so for us the bassinet thing probably isn't happening and the travel crib is gonna have to do the job instead. I couldn't find a great low chemical bassinet option BTW. (Also it's onetwo less things to buy and in a sea of buying everything twice and stressing over money we're taking what we can get!) They are super cute though! I think if we were having a singleton we'd probably go for one too.
Probably going to splurge on something like this on the stand I found on craigslist, just cos I think they're too adorable. Then you can reuse the basket for toy storage or what-have-you in the post-babies years.
That mattress does look ideal! I wish every company was so transparent.
my best friend who I trust completely and has not had any accidents with it, offered to give me her Graco Click Connect 35 lx and an extra base. I was all about it, but now I am freaking out about flame retardants too! hahaha. I was already aware of the issue for mattresses and am getting a naturpedic crib mattress that was totally worth the extra money to me, but it never occurred to me as a car seat issue. she used the Click Connect for 8 months and then switched to a convertible. I feel like I will definitely make my convertible decision with this as a priority in mind now, but I am not sure what to do infant seat wise. The Henry one looks nice but I don't do wool for ethical (animal welfare ) reasons. I also stupidly already bought the adapter for the click connect to attach to the stroller I am getting...
@leilaquinn apparently until the Mesa Henry, there weren't ANY car sears available without flame retardants! I read that one strategy to reduce exposure is limiting baby to car-use-only (ie, don't let her nap in the seat in the house, etc).
Re: The Great Car Seats Thread
The bases were super easy to install, so if I ever did need to move it, it took like two minutes. But I also loved that the seat could be installed fairly easily with just the seat belt, too.
We chose the Keyfit because it was rated one of the easiest to use - very important with my 2-door car!
-Oh, and we bought it at Buy Buy Baby with a 20% off coupon and one of those discounted merchandise cards. (My dad is obsessed with those card pool things.)
@vflux33 thanks for sharing. I didn’t even think about that at all. Wow. Also, have you seen the video on fire comparison between an older house with older non-synthetic materials v a new house with all of the things we probably all have in our houses now? It’s absolutely terrifying how huge on a difference you have in time to get out between the first and the second. And eye opening.
We used the B.O.B. jogger with the infant seat, which I loved, but it can be big if you won't be using it for jogging or different terrains.
I found one like you described with just a single room being set on fire.
(Called "New vs Old Room Fire Final UL" if you don't want to click my super sketchy YouTube link
ETA: Oh sh*t it put the whole video in! Didn't know that was a thing...
Dx: PCOS
Married: June 2013
TTC#1: January 2015
BFP #1 8/24/15 | MC 9/3/15 at 6w2d
BFP #2: 12/12/15 | DD born 8/29/16
TTC#2: June 2017
BFP #3: 7/15/17 | DS born 3/20/18
@DDRRT1982 If something breaks on a Britax, just call them. They're usually really good about sending replacement parts, even if there's no reval. Once they replaced our entire stroller when the button that enabled folding broke.
It's kind of similar to the whole processed food thing IMO. Companies make more money selling boxed foods, and they are more convenient and cheaper for us consumers, which is great and makes food more affordable. BUT they have tons of preservatives and chemicals in them to make them more convenient and fewer "real" ingredients (because those are more expensive and would go bad on the shelf for so long). We're all paying for modern conveniences, one way or another. If you want something fast and cheap, whether it's a newly constructed apartment complex or ricearoni, you pay for that saved cost in other ways. And the "real" versions become more and more expensive and harder to find, which sucks because you shouldn't have to be rich and research every little thing to keep your food and home as safe as you can, but there we are.
Aaaand I'm going to stop there before I go on a rant and stray into political territory
@vflux33
We've been using the Britax Advocate click tight for about a year and hardly ever take it out of the car. We had to switch cars today to have it serviced and, to my horror, the seat belt type fabric underneath the seat (where it holds the whole harness in place) is worn and ripped almost halfway through. It must have been rubbing on the metal loop that it is connected to because it definitely hasn't seen any wear from us. It's always closed.
I'm horrified to think about what would have happened if we had been in an accident. We've sent an email to Britax and haven't heard back. Just thought I'd give you all a heads up since you're shopping for seats!
Had the Chicco keyfit 30 before this with no issues.
I finally got around this morning to looking into my mattresses/couches re: flame retardants, having researched the topic a little more thoroughly (eek, dust! etc). I spent a little while on the phone with Crate and Barrel and thankfully determined the (used) couch we bought for $100 (score!) a few years ago is FR-free. We also have an old futon-type couch from the 80s that I'm probably going to have to replace the mattress for (should be able to do this for $300 or so) .
Most of our bedroom stuff is fine (have a tuft and needle mattress). I'm just curious, have y'all tried to eradicate your house of FR in general? Or are you just focusing on baby stuff?
I've already been avoiding processed foods and pesticides and most plastics with consistency. It's just so frustrating that we can't count on our government to block this BS! Anyway!
Crate and Barrel and Ikea are both big companies that have gotten better about carrying FR free products. There are a few others too. Since the CA law went into effect it has forced more big companies to deal with it, but check for labels if you live in CA and don’t be shy about asking questions at stores.
Yes, I’m definitely trying to eradicate it from our entire environment in addition to buying baby products without them (some of the negative effects occur in the womb so anyone who is bothering to do that, now is a great time). A little over 3 years ago we moved from a rented pre-furnished apartment to a rented old farmhouse in the country so had to buy all new furniture. The FR stuff was a little on our radar then but not as much, and the market was a little different because FR didn’t requiring labeling in CA then (we’re in CA). So we did some mattress research and bought a full on organic mattress from Keetsa, which we love and I highly recommend them. Not all their mattresses are even that expensive. They don’t do cribs yet though.
Our little farmhouse is carpeted pretty much everywhere and initially that concerned us, however, the carpet is very, very old. Old carpet is ugly as hell, but it’s a rental so we can’t replace it and also after researching a bit we discovered that very old carpets (and other products) are less likely to be a problem because 1) they started using more and more FRs in recent years, and 2) there is a finite amount of FR dust and eventually it gets vacuumed up, absorbed into us and other people in the environment, etc. So didn’t take any action there.
We bought our couch 6 months before the FR labeling law went into effect in CA and are currently in the process of dealing with that. We bought it from one of those local discount custom couch companies and we called them up and explained the situation a few weeks ago. Turned out the manager of the branch we used is also expecting so MH explained the science to him and he freaked out and offered to replace our cushions with FR free ones for cost. He assured us that in our couch only the cushions were treated. So we are currently waiting on the replacements but we are keeping the rest of the couch and just plan to clean it thoroughly when the cushions arrive. In the meantime I’m making sure even if my hands feel clean to wash them thoroughly after sitting on the couch before eating or flossing, etc. Also just vacuuming more helps to suck up the invisible FR dust (anyone who wants to lessen exposure but can’t afford to buy new products should do these 2 things).
Also, we are probably buying a new car this year (another annoying expense—I have a 14 year old car that doesn’t like to drive in the rain and it floods here in the winter). We’re currently trying to figure out what the FR situation is in the upholstery in cars. MH brought up the related concern of other chemicals (VOCs) present in new cars (which off-gas over time) so we are going to avoid driving in our new car for a few weeks and blow air through it in our garage to get the off-gassing process started.
Related but separate issue: people here buying products ie. teethers, bottles etc. that say “BPA free” -- make sure those are also BPS free. BPS is an endocrine disruptor very similar to BPA that is often used in place of it in these products. A friend who is a mom of 2 warned me about this—they sneak BPS into A LOT of BPA-free advertised products.
So glad that couch guy is working with you!
Are you thinking about naturepedic crib mattresses? Or have you found another brand you like more? We'll probably get the Ikea Sniglar crib cos it's affordable, fits our taste, and is solid, untreated/unvarnished/unpainted wood.
Hmm I will have to look into your Ikea one since that is way cheaper. We were looking at this for a crib:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IVNDWH6?colid=2VGYTUL443PNO&coliid=INHXM5X8WTX1U&ref=br_ADD_TO_CART_title_link&th=1
For a mattress I am going back and forth between a few options:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007I0K532?colid=2VGYTUL443PNO&coliid=I1BY825HPAGO7P&ref=br_ADD_TO_CART_title_link
https://www.amazon.com/Colgate-Classica-firmness-Eco-Friendlier-mattress/dp/B004O6M4M8/ref=pd_cp_75_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B004O6M4M8&pd_rd_r=D2ENZZGFWGX3DAWXEG0C&pd_rd_w=F5BLo&pd_rd_wg=O8rrt&psc=1&refRID=D2ENZZGFWGX3DAWXEG0C
https://www.amazon.com/Naturepedic-Compromise-Organic-Classic-Mattress/dp/B000UN30Q8/ref=sr_1_9_s_it?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1506614535&sr=1-9&keywords=organic+crib+mattress
And for a travel/keep in bedroom for first few months/put in living room during the day crib we were looking at this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AKKDSNG?colid=2VGYTUL443PNO&coliid=ITJ25RT1A7SXY&ref=br_ADD_TO_CART_title_link
I'll look into these! I follow a blog called Reading My Tea Leaves which is written by a woman who gets into sustainable/safe child-raising and living-at-large on the regular. They bought the Ikea crib and I like how she styled it, so that was my original inspiration. And you can't go wrong at $79!
We'll be getting some kind of bassinet situation for the early months in our bedroom. I found a stand for cheap on craigslist, and am just waiting to bite the bullet on the other parts. Totally seduced by cute pics of babies in moses baskets at the moment.
https://www.naturalmatusa.com/product/quilted-spring-mat
We're still deciding on our twin sleeping sitch but for now I think we're settling on putting them together for ~ the first 4 months in the travel crib in our room before separating into different cribs so for us the bassinet thing probably isn't happening and the travel crib is gonna have to do the job instead. I couldn't find a great low chemical bassinet option BTW. (Also it's one two less things to buy and in a sea of buying everything twice and stressing over money we're taking what we can get!) They are super cute though! I think if we were having a singleton we'd probably go for one too.
Probably going to splurge on something like this on the stand I found on craigslist, just cos I think they're too adorable. Then you can reuse the basket for toy storage or what-have-you in the post-babies years.
That mattress does look ideal! I wish every company was so transparent.
Married: 5.27.16
Baby Boy Due: 3.18.18
BPS = bisphenol S-- here's an article about it:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bpa-free-plastic-containers-may-be-just-as-hazardous/