Parenting

New Carseat for Jameson

Jameson Got a new Car Seat

This is another one of those so you have found yourself standing and just staring at all of the choices of car seats that are available? If you have, you are not alone. The amount of choices you have is completely overwhelming. While there are only four kinds of car seats, they all seem to be different, but somehow all the same. This was us when we walked into Buybuy Baby looking for Jameson’s new one. The Uppa Baby Vista we have has been a great car seat. But it has a 32″ height limit, and Jameson is already pushing 29″, so we wanted to start shopping now before it was too late.

The types of car seats that are available are rear-facing or infant-only, convertible, combination, and booster. We knew we didn’t want an infant-only since that is what he was about to outgrow, and a booster seat is for children that meet the weight and height requirements. And the last choice is the combination seat, these are designed to be front-facing only and used for those that are one and up and can be used with a seat belt once the child is 40 pounds and over. So that made the choice pretty easy, we were left with one choice, the convertible seat. The convertible seats are a two-in-one seat and can face the rear and then be turned around to be front-facing once they reach the height and weight requirements. But now that we had it narrowed down to one type what brand do we go with? 

The convertible seats ranged in price from around $99 up to around $600. But which of the major brands do you go with? Since Jameson is still wearing a helmet we had to consider that, as well as one that is FAA approved and comfortable for long traveling. Just those three things alone took out Safety 1st, Chicco, and Even Flo. So that left us with just a few brands major brands left. Graco makes an awesome new slimmer car seat, but it didn’t look like it would be comfortable for long travel and the headspace was just fitting around his helmet. The Peg-Pérego looked nice, but not all the parts were machine washable. So the brand we choose after a few more trips to Buybuy Baby and a few hours of online research was the Britax One4Life car seat. The Britax One4Life is suitable for a newborn to 10 years old. It checked all of the boxes we wanted, and it has a very high safety rating. While it was on the more expensive side, who can put a price on your Child’s safety. 

If you are finding yourself overthinking the right car seat choose for your baby or even a booster seat for your older child. I highly recommend checking out the Safe in the Seat website (linked here). Michelle is incredibly knowledgeable about pretty much all things car seat-related, and just an overall amazing person. I have talked with her several times about the first car seat we got Jameson and used her Instagram page (found here) to help us chose the right seat for him now. She also offers two courses to help you navigate the ever-expanding car seat choices that are out there, as well as an airplane travel course.

And remember it’s ok to overthink this parenting thing.