Infant or Convertible

The first thing to choose is something we’ve tackled before in Car Seat 101: do you want a convertible car seat or an infant only to bring your bundle home from the hospital?

Karen is going with the latter.

“Definitely going with an infant carrier based on what practically every car seat rep has said about convertibles – they’re often too large at shoulder height to accommodate a newborn even if your baby meets the weight requirement,” she said.

The decision is tough for some since infant seats are used only for the first few months when your infant is unable to support their head.

Buy New vs Buy Used vs Rent

“Still haven’t decided whether we’re buying or renting. If we buy, we’re buying new and buying an infant carrier with a higher upper weight limit, like the Peg Perego,” she says. “We have plans for a second child in a few years so for us it’s worth it to have something we can re-use. Peg Perego is on our shortlist because of its fit with the B.O.B. sports stroller that we have.”

When it comes to buying a used car seat, Karen echoes the warning I’ve heard from many professionals:

“The safety rating may have held back when it was purchased but what assurances would you have that nothing major happened to the car seat since it left the store?”

We were lucky that we were able to borrow an infant seat from a friend when Zacharie was born. Unfortunately the seat has since expired. (The plastic does have a shelf life. The expiry date of your car seat will be clearly printed on the seat bottom.)

The rental option is not something I was not familiar with, and Karen explained that some hospitals used to rent them back in the day, so it might be worth checking at the hospital you’re delivering with.

Karen added a PS:

“Also found an article about the Mico infant car seat, which is undergoing a safety review by Transport Canada. It’s sold under several brands so you may want to share this article with DadCAMP readers.”

What research resources have been helpful for you in picking a car seat and deciding between infant and convertible?

Flickr photo from Joe Shlabotnik

Car seat installation manuals are beasts when it comes to navigating the correct way to install a car seat. Goofy drawings that make Ikea manuals easy. Toss in acronyms and long drawn out directions and it’s tougher for a man to get through than one of his wife’s Shopaholic books.

Car seat installation videos, on the other hand, make life easier. I can see it from different angles, they can talk me through it, I can follow along with the manual. I can stop, rewind, watch it again. If they have videos showing us how to put on airplane seatbelts, there needs to be manufacturer videos for car seat installation.

I’m currently reviewing the Safety 1st Air Protect from Dorel. The manual is like any other manual – tough. They have videos on their website touting the seat’s safety, but not for installation.

I believe the manufacturer needs to be more obvious about these videos and include a dvd in the box, or a clear link to a website with a YouTube video showing me someone doing it properly.

4 out of 5 parents don’t know how to correctly install a car seat. 80%. The car seat can be as solid as a brick wall and as light and cushiony as angel wings, but if I don’t install it properly it’s not going to work.

Car seat installation is the most important part of car seat safety.

Here are some useful car seat installation resources:

BCAA’s Traffic Safety Foundation, with ICBC, has developed a comprehensive Child Passenger Safety Program. It includes a Toll-free Child Car Seat information line: 1-877-247-5551 and car seat clinics.

Carseatsite.com has a comprehensive list of car seat installation videos, some of them even for specific manufacturers.

Dorel, the Safety 1st Air Protect manufacturer, partnered with CanadianFamily.ca to create a video about installation basics.

This post is part of a series encompassing Car Seat 101.

[Disclosure: Safety 1st gave us a car seat to keep and review. They are not involved in the editorial related to our review and are not a direct sponsor of DadCAMP.]

Choices: 1. convertible seat (one that serves from infants all the way to toddlerdom)
2. infant car seat (the type that looks like a baby basket and only lasts a few months)

For Zacharie we had an infant seat from a friend. I tossed out to Twitter to ask for some advice on the two options. It would be great not to have to buy 2 car seats for Chuck.

Is there anyone that used a convertible seat for an infant and liked it?

@stv convertible. And I totally regretted it.

@Lilikoilane we got an infant only carseat. I loved being able to take it out & attach it to our stroller. Now at 13 mnths we have a convertable

@SlvvrLambStudios infant. easier to have baby in one when you need your hands for other little ones. A tleast in my experience.

@LeftCoastMama I recommend a bucket and base until your baby is older since it is harder to get the convertibles to work for infants.

We’ve received the Safety 1st Air Protect, a convertible car seat to review (and keep), but Jen’s put her foot down on using it for Chuck. (Its now allowed us to have a seat in each of our cars, full review as a toddler option coming soon). Judging by the Twitter response on convertibles, I would agree. It’s a pain in the bank to do 2, but a bigger pain to wake a sleeping infant.

We’re hitting up our new baby friends for another infant car seat, and checking Craigslist a little bit, but that makes me nervous. Car seats are pretty delicate devices, would you buy a car seat on Craigslist not 100% sure of it’s accident history?

Did you use a convertible car seat and not have a problem with it?

[Disclosure: Safety 1st gave us a car seat to keep and review. They are not involved in the editorial related to our review and are not a direct sponsor of DadCAMP.]