Chicco vs Peg Perego redux

Yes, we have both car seats but no we didn't spend much more than had we bought two Gracos. Why? See my post here about buying last year's baby products at a significant discount. In fact, the Peg Perego after taxes, shipping, everything cost less than the Graco SafeSeat and only $5 more than the Graco Snugride at Babies R Us. But why two?

We bought the Chicco Keyfit system late in the summer of 2006 before our daughter was born in October. At the time, I didn't know about the discounted other products and liked the Chicco size, weight, and features on comparison. Fast forward to baby number two born last week and we needed an additional car seat for our BOB Revolution Duallie Jogging Stroller which only accepts car seats from Graco, Peg Perego, or Britax. There was no way to get the Chicco to fit, and walking daily is an important part of my wife's social life and exercise...worth the money for an extra car seat. We also thought we would use the car seat in our second car which gets over 10 miles per gallon better than our other car.

As I said in my last blog post, the Peg Perego doesn't look like it fits our little girl as well. How little? She was 7 lbs 12 oz on Monday, these pictures are taken Thursday. Her head at birth a week ago was 34 cm. So, not too little. Here are pictures of her in the Peg Perego, in the Chicco, then back in the Peg Perego with a Kiddopotamus Snuzzler attached.









In the end, the Chicco definitely fits her head best for now. The head support from the Chicco is removable, so it removes as they grow. The Peg Perego head support does not seem removable and its part of their side impact protection. As you can see, there is a gap between her head and one side. Adding the Kiddopotamus Snuzzler, no matter how much I try, doesn't seem safe at all. As you can see, it seems to push her head forward an unsafe amount. Plus, since the Peg Perego puts the child more vertical than the Chicco, it doesn't need to further have her push forward.

In the end, the Chicco seems to provide the best head support now...but the looks of the Peg Perego head support with Side Impact protection looks impressive for the future when the children have some more muscles to hold up their head.

Aftermarket additions to infant car seats

We recently purchased a second infant car seat for two purposes. Primarily, this infant car seat was for use with the jogging stroller so my wife could get out and get exercise. Secondarily, we thought we could use this car seat in our Toyota Matrix which gets considerably better gas mileage than our Honda Pilot. After our first trip walk in the car seat yesterday, we noticed the that our little girl was very vertical and sleeping with her head slouched forward. So, thats no good. I decided to research the safety issues around after market additions...

The Kiddopotamus Snuzzler is the model we own and have already used in thr strollers. It claims the following:

Crash Tested for Safety
If you’ve done your parenting homework, you know that adding fluffy, squishy things to your baby’s car seat can compromise her safety, as the harness straps may not fit as snugly as necessary with all the cushioning around baby. Have no fear, Kiddopotamus knows all about baby safety. Snuzzler has no padding behind baby for the safest harness fit. It has undergone rigorous crash tests by accredited United States agencies to ensure that it conforms to federal standards.

While that might be so, the local experts at the hospital and fire stations still say not to use them. Not able to find any US government information about these aftermarket additions for head and body support, I found a Canadian website which talks about these very issues. The Snuzzler provides head and body support. So, I looked at those sections and saw the following:

Head Support Cushions: If the manufacturer incorporates a head support cushion with the restraint system, then the manufacturer has tested it for that model and make of restraint. Should a head support cushion that is purchased separately be used, then it is possible that the slots in the head support cushion may not line up with the slots in the restraint for the harness system. By re-routing the harness system to accommodate the aftermarket head support cushion, slack may be induced into the harness system, which may increase the likelihood of ejection from the car seat in the event of a crash.

Additional Padding Behind the Child: Any additional padding behind the child can induce both slack in the harness and additional compressibility. The Standard, which regulates children’s restraint systems, only allows for a certain amount of compressibility in the foam and material used. By increasing this amount, during a collision the additional foam/material can compress to the point that the harness system becomes very loose and therefore no longer is capable of restraining the child.

The Snuzzler does not have slots for harness in the head support and does not have additional padding behind the child. So, based on this Canadian website it seems that they are correct in their statement that the known problems are handled by the Snuzzler.

But, you can still find all sorts of statements like this:

An aftermarket product is anything that is not sold with your car seat. Shoulder belt positioning devices, seat belt tightening devices, head cushions and car seat covers are considered unsafe aftermarket products. It is never recommended that you use anything extra with your car seat without the express consent of the car seat manufacturer.

So, at this point we are not sure what to do. We will probably try the car seat again and make sure that our daughter is tight in her straps. Also, we may try to check out how she is in the car seat base rather than the stroller which seems to tilt her even more vertical than the seat already is.

Here are some pictures comparing our new car seat, a 2007 Peg Perego Viaggo SIP with our old car seat, a 2006 Chicco Keyfit which I think shows first that the head support for the Peg Perego is much higher and that the Chicco tilts back further. Both are at the lowest settings available.




Maybe this is a reason the Chicco did better on consumer reports? The only category the Chicco scored higher on was "ease of use." Not sure if this is ease of use or not.