The Best Convertible Car Seat

What makes a good CONVERTIBLE car seat?

The first child car seats were designed to prevent a child from roaming around the car freely, while still allowing the parent driving to keep an eye on the little guy. Since that time, we’ve learned a lot more about child safety best practices.

When you’re buying or researching car seats, you’ll hear that the best car seat is one that fits your child and can be safely installed in your vehicle every time. It’s a fact that three out of four car seats are installed incorrectly, so you’ll want to make sure that you fully understand the instructions on the seat that you end up with. If you’re unsure or if you need some help with your seat, you can visit Safekids.org to find a Child Passenger Safety Technician in your area to assist you.

A good convertible car seat should allow maximum seating room for your baby while being compact enough to fit (forward and backward) in your backseat. Many times, passengers in the front seats will have to move their seats up in order to accommodate a rear-facing seat. Don’t think that because you drive a giant SUV or minivan you’re immune to this concern. Another NightLight writer’s personal experience was that her convertible seats were a tight fit—even in a Nissan Pathfinder.

We spoke with Jennifer Newman, a child passenger safety technician and writer at Cars.com who does car seat checks in new vehicles: “You can pay any amount that you want to, from as little as $50 up to $300 or even $400. Even the most expensive seats aren’t always going to fit your car well. If you can find a baby store that will allow you to try to install the seat into your car before you buy it, that would be great.”

You also want a seat that will allow your child to rear-face as long as possible. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents keep their children rear-facing at least until age two. When we interviewed Dr. Ben Hoffman, a certified member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and injury prevention specialist at the OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, he said, “In a crash there’s a tremendous amount of energy that is generated by the change in velocity…[For] a child between the ages of one and two, rear-facing is 500-percent less likely to be injured in a crash than the same child forward-facing.”

Lastly, you’ll want to read through a seat’s height and weight capacity as well as its minimum allowed age and size. If you have your baby with you, it’s a good idea to place them in the seat to see how the harness works. Many new seats will have “no-rethread” harnesses—yup, that’s the official name—as well as crotch buckles or straps that are equipped to stay out of the way when you put your child in them. These features can make securing your child much easier. You’ll want to avoid seats with heavy fabrics that get hot quickly or ones that are too bulky for your vehicle. In addition, before buying a seat, check and double-check that there are no current recalls or safety issues on the model that you’re interested in buying. Our pick, as well as the rest of the seats on this list are all current models with no recalls, known issues, or safety bulletins.

In our research, convertible car seats can cost less than $100, like the Safety 1st Alpha Omega Elite, or can exceed $400 with models such as the Clek Foonf. The cost of entry for a good convertible car seat was about $200, which will get you features like adjustable headrests and premium LATCH connectors. (LATCH stands for Lower Anchors and Tether for Children, which is a system used for installations without the traditional seat belt, designed to make it easier for parents to install their seats correctly each time. More on LATCH below.)

Beyond that, no-rethread harnesses, lock-offs (locking clasps on the seat designed to secure the seat belt in a seat belt installation), and better materials become the norm. This includes better fabrics that won’t get as hot as the thick, velour-style fabrics on budget seats, more cushion to keep your baby comfy, and more rigid structures. Seats we tested that had exposed plastic shells tended to be more difficult to install and flexed a lot when we tried to tighten them, making installation much more time consuming. The more rigid seats, like the Chicco and the Clek, weighed themselves down and took much less time to tighten in every vehicle we tried. Cup holders are a toss-up: They invite a mess into your back seat but could prove useful for older kids on longer commutes. Once you exceed the $300 threshold, you’re buying into extras like premium exterior fabrics that will look and feel nice but not actually affect the seat’s performance in a crash.

Another thing to look for are so-called 3-in-1 style seats. These seats promise seating options for infants, toddlers, and even preschoolers. In our research, we found that those seats tended to skimp in certain areas. They would fit an infant well but not accommodate larger toddlers, or be awkward for infants while functioning well as booster seats for older children. In trying to be everything to everyone, they mostly wound up being mediocre all around.

It’s important to note that every seat that is available to purchase in the United States has to pass the same safety testing, regardless of price. It’s rather difficult as a consumer to qualify one seat as the safest, however newly proposed safety testing would better inform prospective buyers. With that said, manufacturers are adding new technology and improving their seats to be even safer and easier to use. Companies like Clek have even put their testing data online for consumers to review and analyze.