Car Seat Must-Haves

Sunday, September 20, 2009

filed under: safety

One mom of three offers you her list of the five must-have car seats that will take you from newborn to 8 years old.

Guru Mommy Linda Meadow: I am on my third child, and wondering how I could not have an appropriate car seat for my 3-year-old. I discovered that the laws have changed since my 9-year-old was born, and now I have to start all over again!

The new law (according to AAP.com) is that booster seats (seats that use the buckle from your car rather than a "harness" attached to a car seat) are for older children (at least 4 years of age), while many children may grow out of their infant or forward-facing car seats well before 4 years of age. Therefore, there is now an "in between" seat necessary for children younger than 4 years of age who are too big for their car seats.

Sound confusing? The best advice I can give is to have some foresight and buy a car seat for your child that has a longer base and a higher weight restriction as they grow out of their infant seats, thus negating the need for an "interim" car seat before a booster (such as the Britax Marathon or Boulevard (holds up to 65 lbs.), as opposed to the Britax Roundabout (which holds up to 40 lbs).

So without further ado: here are my five must-have car seats that will take you from newborn to 8 years old:

Linda Meadow, is an author and 'guru' of City Baby L.A. (2003) and City Baby L.A (2005), and has been featured as a style and parenting contributor in InStyle, US Weekly and People Magazine. Linda has also appeared regularly as a correspondent on E!, Style Network, Access Hollywood and KTLA. After 10 years spent co-authoring two editions of the highly successful and popular guidebooks, Meadow created gurumommy.com, a website destination for all mom's who want to be "in the know." Prior to writing, Linda was an attorney at Sony Pictures. Linda and her husband, Cary, have three daughters.

filed under: safety

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11 comments so far | Post a comment now >>

I have the sunshine kids radian carseat and it’s amazing. My oldest daughter was able to stay in that seat until she was 6yrs old. I have a girlfriend that has the britax frontier and her 7yr old son(who is very tall) is still in that seat. Both of these seats were well worth the money:)

- Kristen

Posted 09/20/09 04:59 AM

I can’t believe you only have ONE convertible listed on here!! That’s the seat a child SHOULD be spending the most time in. Children should rear-face until the maximum limits of their convertible seat. Which, soon for the Radian XTSL will be 45lbs! My daughter is so tiny, only 23lbs at 2.5. She is still rear-facing in a Britax Marathon. She will probably be able to stay rear-facing to 3 or 4. 30lbs is WAY too small for a booster seat.

- A

Posted 09/20/09 05:52 AM

There are MANY car seats that face both forward and backward, they are called CONVERTIBLE SEATS why would you think there is only one?

- m

Posted 09/20/09 08:22 AM

Choosing a car seat is a little like choosing a dentist — it’s painful..I love this post it would help me a lot.

- SEO Expert

Posted 09/21/09 12:54 AM

since when is there only one car seat that can do rear facing and forward facing with the same seat? There’s a million of them on the market, that’s what makes it so difficult to choose one. The author doesn’t even list the reason she chose this particular seat like safety features or ease of use. Not a very helpful article at all.

- anonymos

Posted 09/21/09 10:26 AM

LRYVo9 I want to say - thank you for this!

- jonnjenkind

Posted 09/29/09 12:46 PM

bhxDps I want to say - thank you for this!

- lilikindsli

Posted 09/29/09 03:12 PM

Eoa0pU I want to say - thank you for this!

- lilikindsli

Posted 09/30/09 05:02 AM

all good things