2006 February | Hizen.Org Baby Gear Discounts

graco car seat nautilus
Please help me me pick a car seat?

I have a 9 month old daughter who is 20 lbs (50th percentile) and 30 in long (90th percentile). She has grown out of her snug ride infant car seat and I desperately need to buy a convertible car seat. I have been researching this for months and after making a decision to get the Graco Nautilus, I realized that it cannot be used rear facing. I’m at my wits end with trying to figure this all out. Safety is very important to us for our daughter so we’d like to go RF as long as possible. My other choice that I had been looking at was the Safety 1st Alpha omega elite. Please help with whatever info or experience you can provide! Thank you!!!

The Graco MyRide65 is very new… but it will rearface to *40 pounds* and then forward face to 65 pounds. It is reasonably priced like the Nautilus and afterwards you can buy a fairly cheap dedicated booster to get her all the way up to an adult seatbelt.

Another option (and what we did since the MyRide wasn’t around when my kiddos needed new seats) is to get a cheap seat like a Cosco Scenera *now* and then get the Graco Nautilus when it is outgrown rearfacing to get up all the way to an adult seatbelt.

Both of these options are about the same cost. Just keep in mind that whatever you do now you do not want to buy the next seat up till the first seat is outgrown… or it will expire before your child is done using it. (Typically kids need a booster till 8-10 yrs of age… some even longer!)

That is one of the problems many users find with ‘all in one’ seats like the Alpha Omega Elite. It *won’t* get you to an adult seatbelt because it expires before most kids are big enough to safely out of a booster.

If you are going to need another seat anyway you might as well get two seats that do the job they are designed for well instead of a seat that does a poor job of being a jack-of-all trades. IE… notice the Alpha Omega only allows you to harness the child to 40 pounds… then it must be used as a booster. Like extended rearfacing, extended harnessing is *much* safer than rushing to a booster sear.

Hope that helps!