car seat

We outgrew the infant "bucket" seat around 12 months and transitioned to a convertible car seat that would keep us in rear-facing mode (recommended until age 2) and then ultimately transition to forward-facing mode. Consumer Reports recommends moving out of the infant "bucket" by a child's 1st birthday, even if they can still fit in the infant seat, as the convertible car seats have much better head protection in the event of a collision (more here). We ended up needing 4 convertible car seats (one for each parent, one for the grandparents, one for the nanny) and we did a combination of Britax and Evenflo car seats, all based on Consumer Reports recommendations. While the Evenflo is great because it's lightweight, I ultimately prefer the Britax because (1) the "clicktight" technology makes it much easier to securely attach the seat to the car, (2) the level on the side of the seat guides you to the correct seat positioning, and (3) it feels more sturdy and stable. Also, even though the Britax is heavier, the installation for the convertible car seat is relatively permanent, so I don't find that I'm having to move it around or reinstall it very often.

One thing I didn't consider is the ability to fit multiple car seats next to each other. While we love our Britax, its footprint is so large that it's near impossible to have another car seat next to it. If you think you'll have more than one child in a car seat at a time (kids are in car seats until around age 5-7), you might want to get a narrower car seat. Of the narrow car seats, the Diono RXT and Clek Foonf are both popular. If you have two kids in car seats and a traditional 3-seat backseat in your car, your options are to do narrow car seats or to do the car seats on the sides, making it basically impossible for any adult to ever sit in the back seat.