Hi. I am starting my baby registry and I am confused about Car Seats. I see there are infant and convertable car seats. Do I need one of each or should I just buy one car seat for when the baby arrives? How long will it last me? Thank you. I am clueless new mama to be here.
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It depends on the weight limit (and height limit) of the seat and how fast your baby grows. A typical infant seat these days goes until about 30 pounds, so technically your baby can use it until they weigh that much. BUT most babies outgrow the seats by height or at least start looking uncomfortable way before they get near the weight limit. For example, I transferred my son from his infant seat to a convertible at 6 months because he was so darn tall, and getting heavy to carry in the infant seat.
Yes, you can buy a convertible straight away for a newborn. The major pro to an infant seat, though, is that you can get a base for it and take the seat into the house/store/wherever when your baby is napping. You can even turn it into a stroller with a stroller frame. All of those things made it very worth the extra money in my book. A convertible is big and bulky and always stays in the car.
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I learned the basics about car seats from this site:
http://www.lucieslist.com/1-car-seats-and-rtollers/
...and I also made most of my other registry choices based on their recommendations as well. We went with an infant bucket seat to start off with. We don't own a convertible seat yet, but we'll have to buy one (or two, since we have two cars that the baby will ride in) sometime soon... -
I am all about saving money and skipping whatever baby gear is really unnecessary. But I loved out infant bucket seat. It really is a lifesaver to keep a sleeping baby asleep when you are running errands. Or when LO is sick and won't sleep so you find yourself driving around at 2am and he finally falls asleep and you can carry him right inside. (That's happened a few times to us.)
If you drive to get most places, I think an infant seat is invaluable. Anyway there are a lot of options out there but all carseats meet the same safety standards. My son is in the 85+ percentile for height and weight and just outgrew our infant seat at 11 months by height.
I really like the Gravity Snugride. They make models with several different weight limits (22lbs to 35lbs) and the seats work with a stroller frame, any tracks stroller, and many other brands of strollers with an adapter (like if you want a jogging stroller).
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I say register for the bucket (infant) seat because RJ LIVED in his for the first 4 months or so. Literally. If you don't have a seat you can pull out of the car and snap on to your stroller (or vice versa) you get stuck sitting in the car or not being able to go home because you don't wanna wake the baby. That being said, if you live in the city and don't use a car very often, you might be able to just get one lightweight convertible and use that from the beginning since you will only be out and about in strollers anyway.
We got our infant seat off our registry then kept our eyes out for the convertible we wanted... ended up purchasing a last year's model off of amazon for about half price! We ended up receiving it way before we needed it, but we didn't even LOOK at convertible seats until well after RJ was born.
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I got both the infant and convertible car seats. You can take the infant car seat out with the baby in it and not have to worry about waking the baby up...whereas the convertible, you have to take the baby out. Were having twins, so no way I want to deal with that... Also, the stroller we were looking at and got only holds an infant car seat.
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Ditto what everyone else said. Get an infant seat so the baby can continue to sleep plus a convertible for when they outgrow the infant seat.
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I always heard infant is safer with a newborn so we got that. Lo is 8 months old and we're switching to a convertable n. If you're having a big shower I would register for both. That's $300 you'd save in a few months if you get both.
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Don't buy your convertible until you plan to install it in your car. Seats expire, and you don't want to be in the position of having to buy a second convertible before your kid outgrows it for weight/height.
We don't drive around a lot, so for us, the infant seat wasn't worth the money we spent on it. My son also never really slept in the car and if he did, he woke up as soon as we pulled into the garage. If I were doing it over again, I'd have skipped the infant seat completely, partly because I also have a stroller with a bassinet that we used for the majority of our time outside.
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