An infant car seat has a 'bucket' that can easily be removed from a base in your vehicle. You simply strap the baby in, head out to the vehicle, and then snap the bucket into the base. That simple. I cannot imagine having to strap a newborn or small infant into a stationary seat. If you need to go shopping, the baby(ies) can stay in the bucket, and you can put the bucket into the shopping cart. Graco provides extra 'bases' you can purchase so that if you have more than one vehicle, or if more than one person commonly takes baby someplace (a babysitter or grandparent, for instance), you don't have to move the whole seat assembly.
The Graco Infant Seats came with a 5-point harness that was easily adjusted from the front of the carrier, although adjusting the straps to the next slot for the guys' growth was a bother. But then, I haven't heard of an easy-to-adjust strap system yet!
Maybe more importantly, the car seat covers were detachable and machine washable. We never had a major mess catastrophe with the boys in the seats, but we did have lots of crumbs, and a few wet diapers, during the early car seat days.
The deciding factor for me in purchasing the seats was that the Graco seats would BOTH fit into a Graco double stroller. Warning to twin parents: Not all double strollers are able to accommodate two infant car seats. Many are designed to accommodate a car seat and an older child. We were fortunate to be able to find a good-quality used double stroller at a reasonable price, which made our car seat & stroller investment a little easier to make.
The infant car seats have a maximum weight limit of 20 lbs. The boys looked tiny in their 'buckets' the first time we put them in at the hospital. When we moved them to a convertible car seat at 4 months (they had reached the infant car seat maximum weight limit of 20 lbs) they looked TINY in the convertible seats. I remember thinking that I was so glad that we made the choice of buying the infant seats first.
Submitted By: Torey McCullough
