In search of car seats: 5 types of car seats

Written by jlz on November 30, 2005 – 9:17 am -

With the 4 phases of car seat information in mind, there appears to be several types of car seats out there:

  • Infant car seats
  • Convertible car seats
  • Combo car seats
  • Booster seats
  • Do-it-all seats

Infant car seats are rear-facing car seats generally used by child when he’s under twenty pounds. After that, the child can then switch to a forward-facing car seat. However, the child usually outgrow an infant car seat with in 6 months, so it’s really not practical to buy this type of car seats.

Convertible car seats are ones that can convert from rear-facing to forward-facing. Given that is safer to have the child sit rear-facing, a convertible car seat should have a high rear-facing limit. For example, many of the Britax products including the Britax Roundabout have a rear-facing limit of 33 lbs.

Combination car seats combines a forward-facing car seat and a booster seat in one.

Booster seats are single-use car seats that can only be used when the child is in the 3rd phase.

The do-it-all seats combines rear-facing, forward-facing and booster seats all in one. However, these usually are very expensive and not as good as the others.

So, there appears to be a lot of choices. The best choice as I see now is a convertible car seat. However, given that I have to do some research on strollers next, I may change my mind later if I find some car seat-stroller combo or something.

I wonder what other people’s experience has been when researching this. I will post all the links I used to research this topic probably tomorrow.

Stay tuned…

Posted in Car Seats, Equipment |

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