Now that I'm a parent, if I were going to fill a time capsule, I'd fill it with all the child-rearing paraphernalia I use for my children. And if I had one big enough, I'd put my kids' car seats in it, because that's one item that has changed so much over the years, and as much as I can't imagine them changing anymore, (because, really, can they get any bigger?) I know they will. I was shocked when my grandmother told me that car seats didn't exist when she was raising babies in the late 1940s. And I'm sure if I pulled my car seat, circa 1979, out of a time capsule, I'd be struck by how primitive it looks in comparison to the big, bulky, heavy contraptions we use today.
At the point my kids are having kids, what will they think of the seats we spent too much time reading reviews and consumer reports before purchasing for hundreds of dollars? Will they think they were big and bulky? Or so small? Will they pity our ergonomically-incorrect seats that bore down on the inside of our elbows as we lugged them from car to destination like I look at old external frame packs and wonder how anyone hiked any considerable distance with one? As the saying goes, only time will tell.
So, what are Oliver and Soren riding around town in? As infants, both Soren and Oliver used a Graco Snugride and then switched to a Combi Cocorro convertible. To try something different, we bought a Britax Roundabout 55 for Oliver to use in the nanny's car.
Many parents use infant car seats even though babies will grow out of them before they're a year old, because they're just so darn convenient. I tried to be as thrifty as possible when deciding on what gear to buy when I was pregnant with Oliver, but the infant car seat I was really thankful for, because I could unhook the seat from the base and cart a sleeping Oliver into the house without having to remove him from his car seat and risk waking him. And with our cold winters, I appreciated being able to strap him into his car seat in the house where it was warm, and then bring him out to the car.
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| Graco Snugride Rear-facing infants from 5-22 lbs. and up to 29 inches Average retail price: $80-$120 + $40 for additional bases |
A fairly recent trend with infant car seats is to design them to accommodate babies weighing 30 or even 35 pounds. I'm convinced these car seats are a marketing ploy. At two and a half years old and only 27 pounds, Oliver still wouldn't reach the weight limit on these seats. Although his Graco Snugride only went up to 22 pounds, by the time he was seven or eight months old, his weight combined with the car seat made it too cumbersome to move in and out of the car, let alone carry any distance. So we left the car seat snapped into the base and strapped him in and unstrapped him from the car seat as if it were a convertible. We eventually bought a convertible before he reached the 22-pound weight limit on the infant seat.
We quickly settled on a Combi Cocorro, because it's one of the smallest convertible car seats on the market. A video on the company's website demonstrates how three of these car seats can fit in the back of a Toyota Corolla, which is what I happen to drive. One of the many things you'd have no reason to think about before you have kids is if and how well a particular car seat will fit in the back of the car you drive. And I learned that unless you drive an SUV or a minivan, three car seats will most likely not fit in the back of your car.
Even with just one kid, the car seats take up more room in the rear-facing position, which with the new recommendation in the last year that children ride rear-facing until age two, they'll be taking up a lot of room in the back seat for that much longer. Chris can't fit in the driver's seat of my car if the Snugride is positioned behind him in the backseat. Even if it's behind the passenger seat, the seat is pushed up almost as close to the dashboard as it can get. The Cocorro fits a little better, but not by much.
While the Cocorro looks puny next to what are considered standard-size car seats, where we really appreciate it's size is when we fly. I won't try to convince you that maneuvering a stroller with a car seat slung over the back through security and onto a plane is not cumbersome, but if I did it alone, while pregnant, it's certainly doable.
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| Combi Coccoro Rear-facing weight capacity: 5-33 lb Forward-facing weight capacity: 20-40 lb Height allowance: 40 in Average retail price: $200 |
When we had to buy another convertible car seat for the nanny's car, we opted for the Britax Roundabout 55. So many people rave about Britax for making the safest car seats on the market, so I wanted to see what they're like. The Roundabout is the smallest convertible they make, and conveniently, came with a much smaller price tag to the otherwise very spendy Britaxes. It still looks huge next to the Coccoro!
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| Britax Roundabout 55 Rear-facing: 5-40 pounds, up to 46 inches Forward-facing: 20-55 pounds, up to 46 inches Average retail price: $160 |
And what comes after the car seats? When the kids reach four years old and either weigh 40 pounds or are too tall for car seat, they move to booster seats designed specifically for cars. (So, no, you can't strap the booster seat used at the dinner table into the back seat of the car...yes, that's been suggested to me.) In Minnesota, children are required to be in booster seats until age 8. (And preferably until they reach 4'9" regardless of age.)
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