Chicco Infant Car Seats

Chicco Infant Car Seats and Base It’s very rare to find an infant car seat and base which work together so greatly to make the entire installation process easier. The KeyFit Car Seat and Base from Chicco works so well together that it is very different than other car seats. Other car seats don’t install half as easily as the Chicco Infant Car Seats. The KeyFit is a baby car seat ( see KISS car seats Guide ) which is also affordably priced to not bust wallets. Chicco Infant Car Seats can fit a range of child form 4-30 pounds

Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car Seat Foxy Reviews

Chicco Infant Car Seats

Perhaps if I did not have a chicco infant car seats keyfit 30 to compare with, I might have not think so poorly of this First Years Via car seat, but they are similarly priced so it is a reasonable comparison. I got the Via (from Amazon Vine) because I thought it would be a good back-up car seat for our second car and I liked that it could handle babies up to 35 pounds.

The first thing I do with all baby gear is remove the fabric portions and wash them several times to remove/reduce the chemical fabric treatments (water repellants, flame retardants, dyes, and all other carcinogenic/ endocrine disrupting additions they put on baby stuff these days). The Via fabric cover began to come apart ofter the very first washing. After the second washing, it looked old and tattered. I didn’t have these problems with the chicco infant car seats. Putting the fabric back on the car sear was easier than the Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car Seat. Next, we attempted to install the base in our second car. It was not intuitive like the Chicco is. The Via was difficult. Despite the car being on a level surface we could not get the base to level even at the highest setting. We thought it might be the car, so we removed the Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car Seat base from our primary car and installed it in the second car. No problem getting the Chicco Infant Car S eats leveled. The instructions for the Via recommend to put a rolled up towel or a “pool noodle” (yes, really) under the base to make it level. We opted for the rolled up towel, but even then it wasn’t looking good. The second car has leather seats and the towel was sliding around easily stuffed under the end of the plastic Via. I am not sure that a pool noodle would have been much better.

Next, we try to latch Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car Seat base to the straps in the car. Uhg. We got it done, but it isn’t quick and easy like the chicco infant car seats . And at the end of it, Chicco Infant Car Seats was loose compared to the Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car Seat, even with the towel stuffed under it and making adjustments to the Via is a pain.

The carrying handle on the Chicco Infant Car Seats are thickly padded and my husband liked the feel of it in his hand more than the chicco infant car seats, but the Via is also heavier than the Chicco Infant Car Seats which made it more uncomfortable for me to carry. The carrying handle is loose on the Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car. It has play of about an inch which gives it a shoddy feel and makes it noisy. The Chicco handle locks into a position and doesn’t budge.

The Via is more difficult to mount into and remove from its base than the chicco infant car seats which slides in and out of the base easily.

The level indicator on the via is a metal ball (about half the size of a marble) housed in a clear plastic tube. It is also noisy as it rolls around banging end to end in its tube. The level indicator on Chicco Infant Car Seats base is a liquid bubble and is silent and discreet.

The cons are few and far between and probably not worth taking off stars since I don’t know if these are things you can change about most infant carriers. There is a time from when your baby is born until they can sit up themselves that you must carry them in the car seat. The major flaw this thing has is that it does’t have slots to attach to a shopping cart. What will wind up happening is that you cannot go shopping unless you have another person with you. You will have to place the car seat inside the shopping cart which will take up the entire shopping cart and leave no room for groceries (unless you put them on your kid). The second person will have to get another shopping cart to put the groceries in. chicco infant car seats state that shopping cart latches aren’t safe (even though every other seat has them). What you will wind up having to do if you get stuck shopping by yourself is placing the car seat in the cart sideways and balance it with your hand while you shop. Yeah Chicco that’s a lot safer. You cannot even begin to image how annoying it is to have to shop with two carts. Also, sometimes car seat won’t fit inside smaller shopping carts at all. If that’s the case then you can’t go shopping. Who wants to drag round 25 pounds of baby and cart seat in one hand while they push a cart with the other hand?

But here goes, Not so good things::

• Sunshade is pretty useless. Even with the extra flap pulled out; this hardly gives any sun coverage. I often found myself draping a blanket over the seat to adequately protect my baby from the sun.
• I do think the chest latch could use some improvement in the design (i.e. more difficult to release). I don’t know how, but my daughter has managed to unlatch it a couple of times. That’s not very settling.
• I believe the 30 indicates the weight of the seat- this is one of the heaviest seats around- it’s impossible to carry for long and the bad handle does not help.
• The sunshield does not cover the baby- and to make things worse after 3 month it did not stick in the up position any more.
• Do all carriers/bases have stickers on them that can’t be removed? I hate that I always look like some sort of instructionally challenged goon with 50 safety/warning/instruction stickers slapped all over the seat and base, but they were the kind of stickers that would NOT, for the life of me, peel off nicely. It’s hideous.
• It is May now and the seat is already way to hot (at 75F!). The baby gets a very wet and sweaty – becomes uncomfortable and starts to cry. The only remedy is to stop the car and carry her around till she drives off a bit!

I do recommend having an expert inspect your seat, and that you read the instruction manual. For example, be sure to read about how long to keep in the infant insert before it becomes considered a possible risk as opposed to help (page 21 states to not use the infant insert for babies larger than 11 pounds–I never would have expected it to be that low!). Secondly, as cute as the Kiddopotamus is, or as convenient as the JJ Cole Bundle Me may be, the instruction book explicitly states that anything not manufacturer installed is considered dangerous and to not use it.

Pros:

• Quick and easy installation. My husband installed the base the day I went into labor (hooray for procrastination!) He had no issues installing it and every time we uninstalled/reinstalled the base thereafter was easier and easier. We did invest in an extra base for our other car, which was nice to have.
• Seat is fairly lightweight. I confess that my daughter is now 14 months old and we still use this seat in one of our cars since she hasn’t technically outgrown it yet. She is near 20lbs and I still have no problem getting this seat in/out of the car. Our backseat is even higher than most (Honda Element). Of course, this might just be because I’m now ripped (thanks, motherhood).
• Compatibility. I used this with the Maclaren Easy Traveler for several months, and it was just so nice to be able to take the seat out of the car and pop it onto the Easy Traveler as my stroller. I know this seat also works with the Snap N Go and chicco infant car seats now makes their own version of the infant carrier stroller frame. We later got the Cortina stroller which is compatible with this seat (but I hate the stroller).
• Don’t know if most infant carriers are shaped like this, but the bottom of the seat is a nice, contoured shape. This meant when the seat was put on the floor, you could rock it back and forth with ease. It was perfect for soothing my baby to sleep and saved my sanity many times.
• Fabric is easy to clean and seems pretty stain-resistant. My baby was the queen of spit-ups, but you’d never know it by looking at the fabric in the seat (FYI, we have the “Cubes” pattern).
• Straps are easy to adjust.

Overall, this is a great seat. And, for the record, I chose Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car Seat before contacting the expert who helped us install ours, but she told me this is Chicco Infant Car Seats she would recommend for us and that it really is top notch. So I do think it is important to check the babies and make sure that they are comfortable.

Chicco Infant Car Seats – Product Description