Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Of Car Seats and Strollers

Heather and I have been more intensely researching and purchasing baby items now. With Anna, we were much more aggressive in purchasing but with our next little girl, we had many of the things we needed. We have thus far bought a BOB Revolution Duallie and a Maclaren Twin Techno stroller.

After having purchased the car seat adapter for the BOB, we now are considering what to do about getting a car seat that fits. See, we have the Chicco KeyFit Car Seat and only the Graco SnugRide, Graco SafeSeat, Peg Perego, and Britax Companion car seats fit in the BOB car seat adapter. At first, we both thought, let's just buy a second car seat for our second car and be able to use that also in the BOB stroller. But, one glance at the Consumer Reports Infant Car seat ratings last night and we both agreed that wasn't best. Why? Because our less than 2 yr old Chicco KeyFit car seat scored a whopping 88 out of 100 on their ratings while the next closest was the Britax Companion at 77 and Peg Perego at 76. The Gracos were further down the list with the SnugRide at 74 and SafeSeat at 72. The Chicco was the only car seat to score above a 77 and it did so with an 88!


So, our plan changed. We probably will borrow/buy a new KeyFit base for the second car and borrow/buy a used Graco SnugRide just for the couple months its needed with the BOB.

As for the Maclaren, it claims to support newborns and using Viewpoints, I was able to verify that this actually works.

2 comments:

Jolie said...

Jolie, here from Viewpoints. First off,so glad that you were able to get some valuable information from our site. :)

Second, we are in the process of writing a car seat buying guide, and I wanted to share that you should really do the research on buying a used car seat. Did you know they actually expire? Also, there is really no way in telling if the car seat were in an accident. So, please either buy from a friend or really look into the person you are buying from!

All the best.

Erik Burckart said...

Thanks Jolie...I did know that they expire and that you shouldn't buy one in an accident. But, the "used" car seat we would consider buying would be only used in the stroller and never in a car...so I didn't think we would need to worry about those things as much. Agreed?