Infant Car Seat vs Convertible Car Seat - The Colony,TX

Mine are 3, 2 and newborn. I could not live without the infant seat. I don't know how I would take the newborn around without it, waking him up, dealing with the cold weather. Infant seats can be attached to those cloth things that go over baby to keep him/her warm. At least in Chicago that's a plus! Also, the seat clips into my stroller, since the seats are TOO heavy to carry very far.
You'll need a convertible seat anyway, right? And it lasts until 40 pounds or more. Buy one when the time comes, as they change all the time and get better. The best I found is Evenflo Triumph Deluxe Advanced, something like that. It has the adjuster on the side, which is a breeze to use. I found my babies can make it to 8-10 months before I use the convertible seat.

i was going to use a convertible because my older son is in a wheelchair & i would have to take the baby out of the seat & carry in a sling anyway. however the convertible is not good when they are so little, her head flops around because it does not tilt back far enough (even though it is a convertible that reclines) and it was difficult to get her strapped into the convertible. i ended up having to get a carrier after she was born. i will still use the convertible when she is a little bigger maybe even before she is one, i got mine on a great sale so i am still saving money.

We had a convertible when my child was born and quickly bought an infant travel system after a few car rides. The infant car seat was a blessing. For the first few months, she wouldn't sleep in anything else!

Definitely check out www.car-seat.org before you decide. It's an awesome resource for carseat info.

I considered not going with the "baby bucket" with my third, but ultimately decided that it'd be much easier to get all three children in & out of the car if I wasn't having to use both hands to hang onto the newborn. With the infant seat, she's strapped in & ready to go & I can still hang onto the two year old.

i know the convertible carseats are generally "rated" safe for 5lbs and up, they're really just NOT! i mean, really, have you tried to put a newborn in a conv car seat? and you are NOT supposed to add ANY PADDING to a car seat, like blankets around the head, etc. i would use an infant carseat, at least for the first few months. then move on to a convertible if you'd like. good luck and congrats on your new baby.

Definitely use the infant car seat. What do you do with the baby when you go out to eat? Also, you certainly don't want to wake a sleeping baby! Congratulations on your second boy! I have 2 little boys, also.

I would use the infant seat for as long as possible. Get it where you can snap it into a stroller. Babies fall asleep in the car a lot, and when my daughters outgrew the infant seats, I really missed being able to take them out of the car still asleep in their chair. Also, in the warmer months, carseats get really hot in the car, and I enjoyed being able to bring the seat inside. With two little ones, you will find it is really handy to be able to snap the newborn into a cart or set him down to help your two year old do something.

The best thing, by far, in the world (in my opinion) is the travel systems. I used to work at Babies R Us and just really liked that so much better than the other options. That, and 2 car seat bases (one comes WITH the travel system, the 2nd one is $39) for the second car is all you need for quite awhile. The travel systems come with a good stroller, the car seat base, and the infant carrier that snaps into the car seat base. That way when they're really little you can just carry them in the carrier and snap them into the base with one click. Pull it out and snap it into the stroller just as easily. Then when your child is a little bigger you just change the position of the car seat and you can use the stroller as a "big kid" without the carrier later. I know my son was kinda small, but he didn't use the convertable car seats until his first birthday. We definately got our money's worth out of that travel system---lots of international travel too, and it's still in great shape and we'll be using it again in December with our next child. (Just the regular Graco system from Babies R Us is what we got).