I’m so glad I waited to until after Christmas to buy Haley a new car seat! (Santa was going to bring her one but couldn’t find a good deal.) January is the best time to buy things for children. Consider yourself lucky if you have a kid with a birthday at the beginning of the year. Besides wrapping paper and chocolate, baby and children items are some of the best things to buy after the new year!
As you probably know, they now recommend keeping your child in rear-facing car seats until age 2. Natalie was switched from a rear-facing seat after she hit the, then recommended, 20lb limit. Mainly because her infant car seat was only good up until 22lbs. Although I wish I would have kept her rear-facing longer.
I was unsure which car seat to purchase but after I stumbled on the Deal of the Day at Kids.Woot.com for just $99.99 I knew it was meant to be!! In fact, 192 people bought one that day and 12% bought two! See all the stats here.
If you buy this online, you’ll probably pay $160-$180 for The First Years – True Fit Convertible Car Seat. I chose the Pink Butterfly.
The seat itself is larger than my other rear-facing seat. It’s VERY padded and looks and feels extremely comfy. It’s like a mini lazyboy in your back seat!
The center padding can be completely removed without ever re-threading or adjusting straps. PLUS it’s reversible so it can be flipped over if needed (you know, just in case your little one decides to vomit all over your car or has a poop explosion!). The car seat cover itself is also very easy to remove and clean. The cover just unsnaps.
Another cool feature is the shoulder adjustment. You never need to re-thread the straps, just pull on the yellow handles and adjust the straps up or down depending on how tall your child is! This car seat (along with most new car seats these days) has the Lactch Sytem so you no longer need to use your cars seat-belt to secure the seat. To attach the straps you’ll need to remove the seat cover. Depending on rear-facing or forward facing, your straps are snapped into place and you’re set! (The video does a better job at explaining this.)
The red button makes it much easier to attach the seat opposed to manually squeezing the metal clamp. So just in case you need to switch the car seat from your car to your hubby’s car, it will be a quick and painless process!
Other important things to know: the car seat doesn’t have a level on it, just a line that is supposed to be level with the ground. (Kinda surprised they didn’t add one to the seat.) And lastly, the straps for Latch System are underneath the padding. (It seems kinda obvious because you’ll need to remove the padding to properly instal the straps anyways, but apparently I wasn’t the only person that had a hard time finding them.)
Disclaimer: This is NOT a sponsored post. I researched and purchased this car seat with my own money. After receiving the product, I was so blown away that I decided to post a review and share my honest thoughts! I would absolutely recommend this car seat. My only regrets is not buying two! This would have made a great present for my cousin Sara, who is expecting a baby girl next month!