It’s pretty common knowledge that I’m fanatical about car seat safety (see “Car Seat Fanatic”) and I’m a little bit obsessed with buggies (see “Gettin’ Around”) but what you may not know is I’m a little bit crazy about car seats too! We currently own 8 car seats for our 3 children. I know this sounds insane, but let me explain!
We started with a Chicco Keyfit 30 when Honeybun was a newborn. We also used this seat for Sugarplum. It unfortunately expired before we welcomed Doodle but I was able to trade it in at Babies ‘R’ Us during their annual trade in event and got 25% off a new Keyfit 30 for Doodle.
When Honeybun was about a year old I decided we needed a new seat which would be easier for traveling since at that time I didn’t feel comfortable with installing the bucket seat without the base (I now know I was doing it wrong and there was a reason it didn’t feel safe, it wasn’t!) so we got her a Sunshine Kids Radian XT. I chose this seat because the bottom folds up and it becomes flat and you can carry it as a backpack. It’s insanely heavy but there is no way I would have been able to travel home with the girls by myself had I had two normal car seats when we were in Ireland.
As we prepared for our second cruise and I knew we’d be doing some taxis and would need to take our car seats with us, I found the Combi Coccoro which they used to also make a stroller base for which is why I loved this seat. Unfortunately, it doesn’t accommodate terribly large children but it has become our favorite for traveling as it’s pretty lightweight and super quick and easy to properly install forward facing (rearfacing, however, is a whole other monster!) It’s also extremely narrow so fits easily next to other seats.
When we returned to the states last summer and jumped from regularly using zero cars to using two we needed new seats for the second car. I decided to get another Radian (now branded Diono) for Honeybun but didn’t want to spend too much for the second seat for Sugarplum so we went with the Safety 1st OnSide Air and overall I really like it. It fits well in many cars and puzzles well next to other seats. It’s also extremely lightweight and pretty easy to install.
I also bought a “back up” seat when I was sick early in my pregnancy with Doodle and my parents were helping with picking up Honeybun from school. We got the Costco High Back booster which is easy to install, lightweight and CHEAP but unfortunately Honeybun is now too tall to use the harness. Sugarplum can use it if I let her forward face or Honeybun could use it as a booster though I’ve not yet tried it to see if it positions the seat belt correctly on her.
Before our trip to Colorado I bought was an Evenflo SureRide which I bought to keep at my parent’s house for when we visit so we don’t have to carry three car seats on the plane. I found this seat super easy to install forward facing for Honeybun and she has TONS of room to grow and then of course both Sugarplum and Doodle can use it in the future also (technically Doodle could have used it per the manufacturer size guidelines but I didn’t check if he did indeed fit properly).
The last car seat we bought was the Harmony Defender. It’s a highly recommended seat for keeping bigger kids harnessed longer and it’s fairly cheap. I like that it has a no-rethread harness (which none of our other seats do) and it can also be used as a high-back and no-back booster in the future. The only negative I have with this seat is that it is not allowed to hang off the front of the seat at all (most seats allow a 20% overhang) and it was impossible to install properly in hubby’s car and took a lot of effort to get it pushed back all the way in my car.
We’ll still need one more harnessed seat for when Doodle outgrows his bucket (we have a base for the one seat in each car right now) and will need boosters for many more years with as small as our babies are but convenience and money will never trump safety for my kiddos!
