The time has come to decide whether or not to move our daughter from a rear facing car seat to a convertible front facing car seat. After speaking with our pediatrician and some research on my own I’ve found that remaining in a rear facing car seat until the weight limit rather than age of 1 is reached is the safest option for us (not for everyone though). I say that because our daughter is on the petite side, so she still has another 7 lbs to go before her weight will take her out of her rear facing seat. Other times, like with our son he reached that maximum at about 9 months but we chose to find a higher weight limit rear facing car seat because he had not reached the age of one yet, which is a very important milestone for switching. Infants under one, even when on the heavy and tall side, still don’t have the head and neck development to withstand a front facing crash.
But back to our search, within the next two months we’ll be making the purchase and switching her out. Unfortunately, just picking out a pretty car seat from the shelf isn’t always the best choice. We as parents expect that because it’s available for purchase it was made to be the safest for our precious cargo, but that’s not always the case as you can see from numerous recalls every few weeks. So I’ve been doing some digging on car seat recommendations and these two models keep coming out on top, the Britax Roundabout and Britax Boulevard. Now the decision here comes down to price and weight limits. The Roundabout has a lower weight limit of 40lbs with a lower price tag of around $200 but is rated #1 safest all around. It’s opposition, the Boulevard has a higher weight limit of 65lbs with a higher price tag of around $300 but is only rated #4 all around. Decisions, decisions!
About Cat Davis
I love your blog!
my 2cents… Our ped is fine with cade in a forward facing seat at 9 months because he’s almost 31 inches tall and pushing 27 lbs. (and the 97th % for age/height/weight). Anyways… we honestly picked the alpha omega one because it had the ability to turn into a booster seat too… and it’s black so no matter what other gender child we have… I don’t have to buy another one if it’s in the next couple of years!
Hugs and Loves hun…
Liz
I’ve never heard of that brand, but the added booster seat sounds nice. But then again those are only about $20 at BRU.
Tough decision- I’m pregnant with #2, and my son will be 11 months when he/she’s born. I’ll have to get him out a month early- I’m not buying another rear-facing seat for one month of use! =)