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I thought I'd share our car seat experience with you... in case you're in the market for a newborn seat.
Remember that study Consumer Reports did last year where it accidentally tested car seats in crashes at 70 MPH rather than the industry standard of 38 MPH? While the study was retracted, the results were still interesting. At 70 MPH, only the Graco and Baby Trend car seats performed well. So we looked up both and really liked the look of this Baby Trend Galaxy seat.
What we didn't notice was the height (length) requirement of the seat. Our Baby Trend seat is only good for kids up to 28 inches tall. Some of the Graco ones only hold babies up to 26 inches long. That means we had to buy a new car seat sooner than we expected. And that second car seat is a pricey one!
If you want to use your infant seat (bucket seat, we call it) for as long as possible, be sure to note the length requirement of the seat. My sister-in-law has a Graco that accommodates babies up to 30 inches long.
On the other hand, it's a real pain in the back to carry a 16-pound baby around in an infant seat! And it's hard to put a baby in one of those seats when it's in the car. I'm happy we switched to a convertible seat when we did (we bought the Britax Marathon, which will hold Elliot until she's 4).
I love our Graco Safeseat too. It is a bit heavy to lug around, even when Xander was a newborn, but it's worth it. Although I am a little jealous that E got a new fancy car seat already! ;)
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Anna Johns is a blogger, podcaster and mother living in rainy Portland, Oregon.
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Good comment ... our carseat goes to 30lbs but only 32 inches tall .. and with our thin, tall baby, we might be buying a new one sooner rather than later.
I'm definitely checking out seats that will cover us for a long time with the next purchase. I'm glad we got the Graco Safeseat though ... if we got one of the other Graco seats, we would have had to buy a new carseat 2 months ago ...