Next step from infant carseats...suggestions

My twins are soon to be out of their infant car seats and ready for the next step of car seats. Does anyone have suggestions on forward facing car seats that they love and that are safe. Just beginning the research process.
Thanks

 

My suggestion is get a convertible carseat and keep them rear facing as long as you can. Evenflo Triumph Deluxe is our favorite. We also have a Britax Marathon. Both rear face to 35lbs and front face to 50

 

We have the Graco MyRide 65. It is rear-facing up to 40 lbs, and forward facing up to 65lbs. I actually talked to carseat tech, and according to her, it is one of the safest seats out there other than the Britax seats (which we really couldn't afford). I got lucky and found an online deal at WalMart.com where I got the MyRide for $110 and got a $10 e-gift card on each one - so $100 each. That was last summer, so I doubt it is still like that, but if you have a bit of time to shop, you can probably get a good deal.

 

I have a MyRide and absolutely love it!!! It's so cute. It's a really nice seat. I love that when the little ones fall asleep their head doesn't bobble around. Once the girls are in convertable seats I will be installing it rear facing and one of the girls will be riding in it. I can't wait to use the seat again.

 

Agree with pps. Keep your kids rear face as long as possible specially in this crazy winter time.

We are looking for convertible as well. My boy is almost 20ls. But I try to keep them in their infant carseats for right now.

 

I agree with everyone and say keep your kids rear facing as long as possible! We have two Britax Marathons and I love them. However, if I could go back, I would get Sunshine Radians. Not only does their rear facing limit go up to 45 lbs as opposed to 35lbs in the Marathons, but you can fit three across a bench seat.

 

When my guys were done with their infant seats, I got 2 Safety First Alpha Omega seats, that way they could still rear face.

 

We're about to buy new seats, and after months of research, I decided on Evenflo Symphony 65. They can stay rear facing up to 35 pounds plus the seat goes to a booster.

I wrote two blogs on my obsessive search for seats. Here's the latest one: http://doublemommy.blogspot.com/2010/11/seriously-where-shall-we-sit.html

 

For those thinking of getting Sunshine Radians retailmenot.com is reporting a diapers.com coupon code of SAVESK1 will get you 20% off of Sunshine car seats through 1/23. And they have free shipping.

I don't have Sunshine Radians, but hear they are great (especially if space is a concern).

We have 2 Britax Marathons and 2 Graco MyRides and 2 Cosco Sceneras (the latter for the babysitters car). According to Consumer Reports basically all convertible car seats get a "very good" safety rating, with a couple getting an "excellent" safety rating (such as the Scenera). So I would just buy based on the features that mean the most to you whatever that may be (ease of installation, comfort for baby, space, price, whatever). You don't necessarily have to buy a top dollar convertible to get a "good" one.

Oh, and our boys are 19 months old and around 25 lbs and we still rear face them with NO problems :good:

 

We also have the Evenflo Triumph LX and are really happy with them. We got ours at Babies r Us and had a coupon, and they let us use the twin discount also. Our guys are still rear facing, and can be until 35 lbs. then the seat goes forward to 50. I love the straps, because you don't have to re-thread them when they grow taller, they can just be ratcheted up.

Good luck!
Laura

 

I have $300+ Britax Boulevards and $50 Cosco Scenera 40s. I love them both. The Britaxes are way easier to use, but the Sceneras are not too difficult, so there are good seats at all price points. I also have the Comfort Airs ($180) and I don't care for them because it is hard to adjust the harnesses, but I know a lot of people do love their Comfort Airs, so it might be something to look at. All of these seats have high rear facing limits and the Comfort Air has a really tall shell.

 

I have three Sunshine Radians and they are excellent seats. I bought them to fit three across. I have three forward facing in the third row of my van. I have had two rear facing (one on each end) and one forward facing too. They are solid as a rock rear facing. It was awesome. They are very very easy to install. If you have a smaller car I think they're a good choice too. They're not cheap though. I paid $220 for the plain grey one. The cute ones for $260 I believe. The only negative thing I can say about them is that they sit straight up when forward facing. So if your kid sleeps a lot in the car they could spend time doing the head bobble. If it's installed rear facing this isn't an issue at all. I have my 2, almost 4, and five year old in these seats.

 

just a big ditto on the rear facing. we rear faced in our carriers - SafeSeats that went to 30 pounds, untiil 20 months. Only then did they start to outgrow the height restriction. We're hoping to rear face in our convertible carseats until 4 yrs, per the carseat tech that checked the safety of the install.

I just got a Radian XTSL, and it is solid and has the rear tether, which helps to keep the seat solid in a crash so that they don't bang their head up against the back of the back seat... interesting, i hadn't thought of that before. I need to get the other Radian now.

I also have a set of Recaros and can't say enough about those, they are installed rear facing and rock solid - though the new ones say in the safety manual that they are to rear face for 36 mo. & under... I haven't call the company on this one, but interesting that they stated that.

good luck figuring it all out.

 

We have 2 Britax Decathalons (like Marathons, but with removable infant inserts that we never used), 2 middle of the road ($100ish) that I can't remember what they are - Evenflo maybe?), and two cheap ones ($50) probably Cosco?. This is one area where I believe you do get what you pay for. Our Britax seats are AWESOME. The straps NEVER twist, they stay even and are so easy to get the kids in and out of. They don't show dirt, and clean super well with just a wipe, too. Both our middle of the road and cheap seats drive me absolutely NUTS because the straps get twisted so easily and don't stay even (3/4 of the slack one side, and too tight to buckle on the other) and were a nightmare when I was attempting to strap in two wrestling and cranky toddlers.

We looked at all the seats, read all the reviews, test drove friends seats etc. before deciding what to buy. We settled on the Britax as our #1 choice for our every day seats and picked the middle of the road for my husband's car as they wouldn't be in there too often, but still had a good mix of features. The cheap ones we ended up getting for airline travel and to use at our destination as we were flying 4-5 times a year.

We thought: we would keep them rear facing until they hit the weight limit, or turned 10. I was pretty adamant about this...
What really happened: we flipped them well before the limit - 25lbs and 17/18 months probably? Because they were too tall and were too scrunched up rear facing. They were immediately much happier passengers (not that they were bad before, but ease of getting them into the seats, and their overall mood was so much better).

We thought: They would be able to use the seats forever. Until they were like 10 and no longer needed seats.
What I see happening: They will long outgrow the height/straps/comfort of the seats well before they hit the weight limit just like they did with their infant seats. They are not tall kids by any means - soundly in the 50-75% in height. So take the limits with a grain of salt.

So what I would do if I had to do it all over again... I would still buy the Britax seats (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them...) but with the expectation that we will probably still need to look at roomier seats/boosters in a couple of years. They will not be the end all solution. I am fine with that, but DH might have balked at the $$ if he knew this, like the infant seats, would only last them a couple of years.

Other things to keep in mind when looking at seats - do they fit in your car? Don't guess. Ask the store to let you run out and give it a try. You won't be the first, and I doubt they will even bat an eye. We have a car with latch anchors, and seats capable of latch. Unfortuantely the straps are too short to use them. We bought the car after the seats, so shame on us for not trying it out first the way we did with our original seats/cars.

And those narrow seats? AWESOME that they fit 3 across, but really crappy when you planned to keep them forever and discover at 3 that it is getting increasinly harder to wedge their not so little butts into the seats anymore. We recently had friends that had to move their not yet 4 year olds into new seats because they had litterally outgrown the width of their seats (again, not huge kids). And not a big deal for them, but a surprise given they thought they were buying forever seats only to discover that they never made it close to the limits on the seat.