Selecting a Child Safety Seat

We decided that our baby will be riding in a child safety seat while travelling starting from the time that she will be brought home from the hospital. There is no law in the Philippines requiring babies/toddlers to be secured in a car seat but research has proven that it is truly the safer way.

There are traditionally 4 common types of car seats.
1. Infant Car seats. Rear facing and fits new born babies, 6 months to 1 year old depending on the weight and height of the baby. Weight limit: 4 to 22-35 lbs.

2. Convertible Car Seats. Both rear facing and forward facing options. Once the toddler is big enough, the seat can be installed forward facing. Weight limit: rear facing 5 to 30-45 lbs and forward facing 20-80 lbs.

3. Combination Car Seats. Forward facing only and can be used also as high back booster seats. Weight limit: 20-90 lbs in harness mode and 30-120 lbs when used as high back booster.

4. Booster Car Seats. Forward facing only and doesn’t have a harness of it’s own. It is normally used to help position the vehicle seat belt correctly on the lap and shoulder of the toddler.

Rear facing seats are still the safest and safety advocates are suggesting that children be rear facing for as long as possible. This is because during a crash the force is distributed towards the whole seatback of the car seat instead of just the harness. It also protects the delicate neck and spine of a child that is still developing. Here's an informative video here.

Since there are convertible car seats that can accommodate a newborn as well, we decided to skip the infant car seat and get a convertible car seat. Almost all of the car seats in the local market has a weight limit of 40 lbs and most have short shells. Our baby might outgrow the seat by height instead of weight, not to mention that the good brands are priced in the five digit range.

We again went to the online shopping route and we got an Evenflo Triumph 65 LX convertible car seat for USD118.99 from Albeebaby. It can accommodate 5-40 lbs rear facing and 20-65 lbs forward facing. It has a non-rethread harness height adjustment and a knob adjuster for harness tightness. It is one of the more compact installing convertible car seat that would install well in our compact car based on research from the car-seat.org website.

Mission accomlished for Denden.
Now, we just have to wait for the shipping.