2019 Best Infant Head Support for Car Seat
- Baby & Kid
- Baby
The Best Infant Car Seat
By
Rebecca Gale
Updated March 9, 2020
Infant car seats are designed to click in and out of a base you leave installed in your car—making it easy to get a baby into a house or stroller with minimal disruption. After 50 hours of research, including testing 10 popular infant car seats at home and crash-testing four finalists in a top lab to measure their front- and side-impact performance, we think the Chicco KeyFit 30 is the best one for most families.
Our pick
Chicco KeyFit 30
The best infant car seat
The Chicco KeyFit 30 has better overall safety scores and is easier to install, adjust, carry, and click in and out than seats that cost much more.
Buying Options
Seat weight: 9.2 pounds
Kid height, weight limits: 30 inches, 30 pounds
Stroller compatibility: no adapter needed for Chicco models; adapters available for Baby Jogger, BOB, Bugaboo, Contours, Joovy, Mountain Buggy, Phil&Teds, Quinny, Stokke, Thule, and Uppababy
The Chicco KeyFit 30 performs as well as or better than pricier seats and is measurably safer and easier to use than less expensive ones. Installation is generally a bigger problem for people than seat safety, and the KeyFit 30 is easier to install than competitors, with or without a LATCH system. It consistently ranks among the safest infant car seats in government front-impact crash testing. It also achieved the best head-impact scores in new laboratory testing that we arranged, and it easily passed the side-impact crash test we commissioned—the first test of this type that a publication has performed. The KeyFit 30 is also relatively lightweight, easy to wipe clean of crumbs and crud, and comfortable to carry and to click in and out of its base. It will keep most babies safe and comfortable through their first year and often well beyond. The KeyFit 30 is compatible with our main stroller pick, the Baby Jogger City Mini 2, as well as our upgrade pick, the Uppababy Cruz.
Runner-up
Britax B-Safe 35
For taller babies
This infant car seat is easy to install properly and has a more generous height and weight limit than other seats we considered, but it may be too narrow for some kids.
Seat weight: 10.4 pounds
Kid height, weight limits: 32 inches, 35 pounds
Stroller compatibility: no adapter needed for Britax; adapters available for Baby Jogger, BOB, Bugaboo, Contours, Ergobaby, Joovy, Thule (universal strap-in), and Cybex/Maxi-Cosi/Nuna
The Britax B-Safe 35 has crash ratings similar to the Chicco KeyFit 30's and is also easy and straightforward to secure in a car. Like the KeyFit, the B-Safe has a seat belt lock-off to ensure that installation stays tight, as well as a level indicator to tell you if the seat is at the proper angle. While the B-Safe lacks the clear, well-placed installation instructions like those on the KeyFit, we found it easier to click in and out of its base than that seat. The B-Safe has a higher height and weight limit, but the seat's interior is much narrower and deeper. It's the only infant seat compatible with our runner-up stroller pick, the Britax B-Lively, and it also works with our main pick, the Baby Jogger City Mini 2.
If you already own an infant car seat and are looking for information on how to use it safely, read our section on car seat laws and safety concerns below.
Everything we recommend
Our pick
Chicco KeyFit 30
The best infant car seat
The Chicco KeyFit 30 has better overall safety scores and is easier to install, adjust, carry, and click in and out than seats that cost much more.
Buying Options
Runner-up
Britax B-Safe 35
For taller babies
This infant car seat is easy to install properly and has a more generous height and weight limit than other seats we considered, but it may be too narrow for some kids.
Why you should trust us
While researching this guide we interviewed 20 industry experts, safety authorities, and physicians, who detailed the most important safety and usability considerations for infant car seats. We contacted current and former employees of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency responsible for vehicle and car seat safety. We consulted with certified Child Passenger Safety technicians such as Lani Harrison, a seasoned CPST in Los Angeles who installs more than 300 car seats each year. We hired MGA Research, a Wisconsin laboratory that runs much of the car seat crash testing in the country, to conduct front-impact and side-impact crash tests specifically for this story.
We conducted interviews with representatives from seven leading car seat manufacturers, including product managers, engineers, and safety technicians. We also spoke with car seat safety advocates, organizations that have argued both for and against a proposed side-impact standard, and leaders at the state level, such as Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, who spearheaded Oregon's "rear-facing until 2" rule, which became law in May 2017 (Hoffman is also an unpaid consultant for Chicco).
We also talked to scores of parents about their car seat experiences, scanned hundreds of Amazon reviews, and read dozens of articles from reputable publications and sites such as Consumer Reports, BabyGearLab, and Car Seats for the Littles.
Personally, I am familiar with government rules and regulations after spending almost a decade working on Capitol Hill and at the Department of Commerce. I'm a former reporter for CQ Roll Call, and my stories about policy and parenting have appeared in The Washington Post, Health Affairs, and Marie Claire. For this review, I traveled to Burlington, Wisconsin, to witness a team of engineers at MGA Research crash-test several top-rated infant car seats. My two boys were ages 1½ and 4 years when I was first reporting this guide, and both were still riding rear-facing in their car seats.
Who should get this
Amid all the lengthy lists of "baby must-haves," the one item not up for debate is a car seat. If you're going to be in a car with your baby, you need one, whether it's an infant seat or a convertible seat with the appropriate weight rating. Most hospitals, complying with the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines, do not discharge newborns until a staff member visually confirms the presence of a car seat to transport the baby safely home.
Several qualities distinguish infant car seats from larger convertible car seats, many of which have weight and height ranges that include most newborn infants. Most important, an infant seat is designed to be used only rear-facing, the position that is known to be far safer for small children. Unlike convertible car seats, infant seats also come with a detachable base, allowing parents to easily click the seat in and out of the vehicle and to carry the baby in the seat (or attach it to a stroller). Babies outgrow most infant car seats by the time they reach 30 or 32 inches tall or between 30 and 35 pounds, whichever comes first. The typical kid reaches that height range at 12 to 19 months and will be older than 3 by the time they weigh 35 pounds, so for most people the height limit is more relevant than the weight limit.
Many of the parents we interviewed said they moved their child to a rear-facing convertible car seat far before the child officially outgrew their infant seat, typically when they felt the baby had become too heavy to carry in the bucket seat. Most people won't use an infant car seat for more than a year or a year and a half before switching to a convertible, but the click-in, click-out convenience when a child is an infant—and frequently falling asleep in the car—is certainly nice while the occupied seat is still light enough to be manageable. We've written in greater detail about what kinds of car seats there are and when to switch.
For travel, we recommend that parents use their existing infant car seat, without the base, and for parents who expect to travel quite a bit, or rely heavily on car-sharing services and want to have a single car seat and stroller combination, we recommend the Doona, a pick in our forthcoming guide to travel car seats.
How we picked
We started by researching the most popular infant car seats, about 30 models in all. We looked at online customer reviews and media coverage, including by BabyGearLab, Mommyhood101, BabyCenter, Fatherly, and The Car Seat Lady. We interviewed nearly 20 experts on car seat safety, policy, and installation, and we looked closely at the results of government (NHTSA) testing, as well as at the findings of Consumer Reports ("The Safest Car Seat for Your Child," Consumer Reports, January 2017, pp. 56–58) and BabyGearLab, the two other media outlets that have conducted independent laboratory crash testing of infant car seats. BabyGearLab tested to NHTSA standards for front impact in 2016 and 2017.
All car seats sold in the US are self-certified by the manufacturers to pass strict NHTSA standards (PDF) for safety testing. The NHTSA conducts what it terms "safety compliance testing" of multiple seats each year and presents the database of results (parsing out the test results for each seat requires some additional digging). Proper installation is generally a far bigger problem for people than seat safety, so we searched the NHTSA ease-of-use installation database to determine which seats offer easy installation and come with clear instructions.
Our 20 total hours of background research helped us conclude that the ideal infant car seat should have several features and attributes.
- Among the safest seats available: In our early analysis, we relied heavily on data from NHTSA, particularly the results of the front-impact crash testing that the federal agency performs annually. However, since car seats are not required to be certified before sale, several of the seats we looked at did not have government crash-test data.
- Easy to install: A good car seat must be easy to install correctly, both with and without a LATCH system, so that a diligent adult following directions could manage a correct installation within a few minutes without expert assistance. (LATCH stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children, a system that allows you to install a car seat with metal clips that attach to hooks built into the car, forgoing the lap belt. Almost all cars and car seats manufactured after Sept 1, 2002, include the LATCH option.) Any harried parent who has had to install a car seat in a relative's car or in a rental knows that an intuitive installation system trumps a well-crafted set of directions, though those are good to have too.
- Convenient to use: The car seat should have a handle that is easy and comfortable to use and adjust, as well as straps that are easy to buckle and adjust.
- A reasonably high height and weight limit: You don't want your child to outgrow the seat before you're ready and willing to switch to a convertible car seat. The primary reasons the parents we spoke to cited for keeping a child in an infant seat longer were the convenience of clicking them in and out of the car and easy access to a compatible stroller.
- Stroller compatibility: Many car seats are available as part of a "travel system" that allows the car seat to click directly into a stroller from the same manufacturer. All car seats are somehow stroller compatible, though, and many strollers work with an adapter (usually $40 to $50) that will allow car seats from different manufacturers to click in.
- Widely available, ideally in various colors or patterns: We wanted seats that you could purchase easily from multiple big retailers and that are available in a variety of designs.
Using the above criteria, we narrowed the original list of 30 down to seven top infant car seats:
- Britax B-Safe 35
- Chicco KeyFit 30
- Cybex Aton 2
- Graco SnugRide Click Connect 35
- Peg Perego Primo Viaggio 4-35
- Safety 1st onBoard 35 Air 360
- Uppababy Mesa
Zeroing in on these seats was not easy. Though some seats have higher safety marks than others, figuring out how much of a difference these small variations in the scores makes—if any—is a challenge, even for experts. Ensuring consistent, proper installation and use is more likely to offer a safety edge than buying a seat that scored a sliver higher in a crash test. Also, many brands have multiple, similar infant car seat models, reflecting variations in height and weight limits or the addition of optional features such as push-button latches (instead of the metal hooks found on less expensive seats), self-ratcheting latches that assist in creating tension for a tight install, a lock-off plate on the base to aid in seat belt installation (as opposed to LATCH installation), or a no-rethread harness, which allows you to adjust the strap height from the front of the seat rather than having to turn it over and rethread the straps back through.
After extended discussions with experts, we concluded that most of those optional features are generally not necessary and not worth paying more for (though we did find that a push-button latch was typically easier to use than a simple hook, particularly when uninstalling the base).
How we tested
To distinguish among the top infant car seats, we commissioned front- and side-impact crash tests, the latter of which are not currently required under federal law. Here, in footage from the independent lab tests we commissioned, the 1-year-old-sized dummy in the Chicco KeyFit 30 does not make impact with the door in a simulated 30 mph crash, which means a passing grade for the Chicco.
We subjected our seven infant car seat finalists to a series of at-home tests that mimicked everyday use. For each seat, we read and analyzed the instructions, practiced installing the seat (with the base, using both the latches and a seat belt, as well as without the base), repeatedly adjusted the straps and handles, and evaluated the experience of clicking the seat in and out of its base. We also created a mess with crushed graham crackers and an applesauce pouch and then evaluated how difficult it was to wipe that mess up and out of the seat's crevices.
We discovered through our research that, counterintuitively, more babies are injured in infant car seats when outside of the car than in car crashes themselves (see our Care, use, and maintenance section below for more on proper car seat use). The danger comes down to how balanced or tip-prone a seat is, so we attempted to determine if some seats were more susceptible than others to falls off tables, beds, or other raised surfaces by checking how much the seat moved when jostled.
After running seven seats through these at-home ease-of-use and cleaning tests, we were able to narrow the field to four seats that we found were the easiest and most intuitive to use:
- Britax B-Safe 35
- Chicco KeyFit 30
- Graco SnugRide Click Connect 35
- Uppababy Mesa
We decided that commissioning our own crash testing, in addition to examining all the seats' existing crash-test data, would help us make a confident recommendation. Besides, the NHTSA had no crash data available for the Uppababy Mesa, and we saw no public side-impact data for any of the seats. We know that federal authorities have been considering adding a side-impact test to their existing standards and upgrading the test bench they use for front-impact testing to a more modern model. Both efforts are currently stalled. However, the proposed US standards exist, similar regulations have been in place in Europe and Australia for years, and many US manufacturers are already testing their seats to meet such standards. We decided to conduct tests that would reflect those proposed future standards. We commissioned MGA Research—an independent lab in Burlington, Wisconsin, that both government agencies and car seat manufacturers contract with—to carry out front-impact and side-impact testing on our four infant car seat finalists.
Existing front-impact crash tests use a bench that stands in for a vehicle's back seat and is based on a design that is decades old (think of the springy bench seat of a 30-year-old pickup truck) and doesn't closely resemble the design of most modern vehicle seating. MGA offered a "research testing bench" designed with the expectation that the NHTSA will update the bench requirements. MGA's research testing bench is based on a drawing package pending with the NHTSA, and it uses a thinner piece of a stiffer foam for the seat compared with the current test bench.
For our side-impact tests, we followed the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) awaiting action with the NHTSA that includes details of how such a test should be run; as of 2020 this had still not been enacted. A 2003 study showed that side-impact crashes accounted for 40 percent of car-crash fatalities for children ages 5 and younger (this figure included crashes that were considered unsurvivable as well as cases in which there was gross misuse of the car seat).
Several key notes: The tests we commissioned MGA to conduct are not part of the current federal compliance standard. The NHTSA sets the legal benchmarks for what constitutes a safe car seat. MGA conducted all our tests at its Burlington, Wisconsin, facility. While we paid all the fees associated with the tests and went to observe the trials, only professionals from MGA conducted the seat preparation, testing, and analysis. In all cases, we used brand-new seats delivered directly to the Wisconsin facility and handled exclusively by MGA staff.
An MGA technician installed each seat to the research testing bench, which then accelerated to between 28 and 30 mph before simulated impact. Each crash test took only seconds and relied on a CRABI 12-month-old dummy with three head-acceleration sensors and three chest-acceleration sensors attached to its urethane skin.
On the first of two days of testing, the technicians subjected our four infant car seats to the front-crash testing, which resulted in three metrics: HIC (head impact), G-clip (chest impact), and maximum seat-back angle (which measured how far the seat rotated forward during a crash). The second day, MGA put the four seats through the side-impact test, using the same CRABI 12-month-old dummy without sensors and the bench model as outlined in the side-impact NPRM (this bench model is different from the current and research frontal benches). The side-impact test is designed as a pass/fail assessment: For a seat to pass, the dummy's head cannot make any contact with the simulated side door.
As is consistent with all crash-testing protocol, technicians manually dismantled and disposed of the seats after the tests.
Our pick: Chicco KeyFit 30
Our pick
Chicco KeyFit 30
The best infant car seat
The Chicco KeyFit 30 has better overall safety scores and is easier to install, adjust, carry, and click in and out than seats that cost much more.
Buying Options
The Chicco (pronounced "KEY-co") KeyFit 30 performs as well as or better than other, similar car seats in crash-testing metrics and is the easiest to use and install of all the infant car seats we evaluated. It fits kids up to 30 pounds or 30 inches—beyond the point most people want to use an infant seat. Overall, it works as well as or better than seats that cost $100 more and is both safer and easier to use than seats that cost less. And it's widely available, in several muted though appealing colors.
The Chicco KeyFit 30 stands out from its peers in safety. It consistently has the best head-impact score (HIC) in front-impact crash testing carried out according to current NHTSA standards, and it also had the best HIC score of the infant car seats in our tests with the research testing bench at MGA Research's labs. As for chest-impact (aka G-clip) scores, this Chicco model's results were second only to those of the Britax B-Safe 35. This seat's third front-impact scores—for seat angle—were typical of the competitive set. Like the Britax and Uppababy seats in our test group—but in contrast to the Graco seat—this Chicco seat clearly did not allow the dummy's head to make contact with the car door during MGA's side-impact test.
This video of our commissioned front-impact test starts at the moment of a simulated head-on crash while going 30 mph.
The KeyFit 30 comes with clear instructions, but you probably won't need to pull them out often since the seat is so intuitive to use (just in case, the KeyFit 30 has a convenient little drawer to tuck the instruction book inside). To install the base, click the push-button latches into a car's LATCH hardware and then pull up on a single strap in the center of the base (the words "Pull Strap Storage" aid the sleep-deprived) to tighten it. To uninstall, lift the button on the base that reads "Lift to Release." In our at-home tests, we found the simpler metal hook latches generally used on cheaper car seats to be just as easy to install but slightly harder to uninstall, because the hooks require direct pressure from fingers searching blindly behind seat cushions. By contrast, the button on the KeyFit 30's push-button latch lands outside the seat crack, making uninstallation with the push buttons more straightforward.
The side of the Chicco base has a lock-off for a shoulder-belt installation, which you should use for the shoulder strap with seat belt installs in cars older than 1996 that do not have locking seat belts. A bubble indicator on either side of the Chicco base provides a straightforward, intuitive gauge for measuring the accurate seat angle. The NHTSA awarded the Chicco KeyFit 30 four stars out of five for ease of installation; during our at-home testing experience, it was the easiest seat to install, and securing a tight fit took relatively little time or hand strength. In contrast to other car seats we tested, many of which use pictures, labels, or diagrams to explain installation, the Chicco KeyFit 30 was the easiest to figure out how to use, with little room for misunderstanding.
We also found the Chicco KeyFit 30 to be one of the easiest seats to click in and out of its base. The handle is easy to adjust, and the straps are simple to tighten and loosen. With the handle locked down in a triangle position, the seat is as stable as any other seat on an uneven surface, such as a bed or lawn. The chest clip is simple to open, and Chicco has made it dummy-proof by etching the word "PUSH" into the plastic.
The Chicco KeyFit 30 is light at 9.2 pounds—only one other of our seven tested seats is lighter—and has a canopy that detaches from the hood of the seat so it can shift forward to block the sun more effectively. The synthetic material is a snap to clean—we easily wiped up any graham crackers or applesauce we spilled on the seat cover. The KeyFit 30 is compatible with our main stroller pick, the Baby Jogger City Mini 2; our upgrade pick, the Uppababy Cruz; our jogging stroller picks, the Thule Urban Glide 2 and BOB Revolution Pro; our budget travel stroller pick, the Mountain Buggy Nano; and many others with the purchase of an adapter (if not included with the stroller).
The Chicco KeyFit 30 had the second-highest scores in Consumer Reports's most recent infant seat ratings, second only to those of the Chicco KeyFit, which has a weight limit of 22 pounds instead of 30. BabyGearLab named this model Best Value, and it's a Mommyhood101 top pick.
The KeyFit 30 comes in eight colors: parker (beige), orion (gray), moonstone (light gray), iron (black and gray), juneberry (purple), nottingham (heather gray), lilla (polka dots), and oxford (navy). The warranty is for one year, and the seat expiration is after six years.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The Chicco KeyFit 30 can hold a child up to 30 inches tall or 30 pounds. Those limits are 2 inches shorter and 5 pounds lighter than the limits of several of the other seats we tested, notably the Britax B-Safe 35 and the Uppababy Mesa, which are each rated to 32 inches and 35 pounds. Car seat technicians we spoke with agreed that a child is likely to reach the height limit of an infant seat before the weight limit. However, "the primary factor in a child outgrowing a car seat's height limit has to do with the 'tush to top of head' length," which is the distance between the bottom of the seat shell interior and the top of the baby's head, said Lani Harrison, a Child Passenger Safety technician based in Los Angeles. The Chicco KeyFit 30 has a 21-inch tush-to-top-of-head length, versus 19½ inches for the Britax pick and 18 inches for the Uppababy Mesa (Harrison provided the measurements). On a practical level, though the Chicco KeyFit 30 has a lower overall inch rating than competing seats, it may actually fit your child longer than a seat with a height limit a couple of inches higher.
Unlike other seats we tested, the Chicco KeyFit 30 does not have any of the options we identified as being enticing to parents but unnecessary, such as self-ratcheting latches (a distinguishing feature on the Uppababy Mesa), a no-rethread harness, or central lock-off plates on the base. These features can add a level of convenience, but ultimately they are not required for a quality seat.
For installation without a base, the Chicco KeyFit 30 relies on the American belt pass, which places the seat belt across the top front of the bucket, above the baby's legs. The European belt pass, which places the shoulder belt around the back of the seat in addition to across the top, is considered safer and works with seats such as the Cybex Aton 2 and Peg Perego Primo Viaggio 4-35 (you can find a helpful list from The Car Seat Lady). Families who regularly rely on taxis or car services, or who otherwise travel regularly with the infant seat without its base, may prefer a seat with a European belt pass or the Doona combination car seat–stroller, one of our travel car seat picks.
Runner-up: Britax B-Safe 35
Runner-up
Britax B-Safe 35
For taller babies
This infant car seat is easy to install properly and has a more generous height and weight limit than other seats we considered, but it may be too narrow for some kids.
The Britax B-Safe 35 is an easy-to-use seat with crash ratings similar to the Chicco KeyFit 30's. Though we found installation of the KeyFit 30 to be slightly simpler—with its clearly marked visual cues (such as "pull here")—we secured the Britax B-Safe 35 in a snap and appreciated its push-button latches, which our Chicco pick also has. The NHTSA awarded this seat five out of five stars for ease of installation (in contrast to four stars for the KeyFit 30). The handle on the B-Safe 35 works similarly to Chicco's KeyFit 30 and is just as intuitive: You push buttons on both sides where it attaches to the seat to move the handle into one of several positions.
Like the Chicco KeyFit 30, the Britax B-Safe 35 has a seat belt lock-off on either side of the base and a level indicator on the side of the seat to check for the proper angle. It's even easier to click in and out of its base than the KeyFit 30, though one Wirecutter editor noted that the B-Safe 35 doesn't feel quite as smooth as the KeyFit 30 when doing so. It weighs 10.4 pounds, nearly a pound more than the Chicco seat.
The seat is rated to 32 inches and 35 pounds (2 inches and 5 pounds more than the Chicco model). But its interior is much narrower and deeper—7 inches across and 8½ inches deep compared with 9¾ inches across and 7½ inches deep for the Chicco—which means chubbier kids may actually outgrow this seat sooner than the Chicco. As with the KeyFit 30, the B-Safe's shoulder harness must be rethreaded when adjusting for height.
In 2017, the Britax B-Safe was subject to a minor recall related to the seat's chest clip, which did not compromise the safety of the seat, and has been corrected.
Some Amazon reviewers have complained that the Britax B-Safe is too narrow, and that narrowness means it is harder to fish the straps out from under a child, especially a larger child. BabyGearLab found the B-Safe more challenging to install with the belt and without the base than other seats it tested.
Like the Chicco KeyFit, the B-Safe passed the side-impact crash testing commissioned by Wirecutter. In front-impact testing, the KeyFit scored better on head impact, and the B-Safe had a better G-clip (chest-impact) score.
The Britax B-Safe 35 passed a side-impact test. Video: MGA
The competition
Chicco KeyFit
Sometimes referred to as the KeyFit 22, the Chicco KeyFit has a weight limit that's 8 pounds less than that of the more popular KeyFit 30. We judged this weight to be low enough to limit the usability of this seat. A spokesperson for Chicco confirmed that the seat was temporarily out of stock but would continue to be manufactured.
Chicco KeyFit 30 Zip and KeyFit 30 Zip Air
The KeyFit 30 Zip costs about $30 more than the KeyFit 30 and has a zip-off canopy, visor, and boot, all of which are removable for easy cleaning and may be convenient for parents in colder or rainier climates. Although we think the boots can be a nice feature in certain climates—especially as thick, puffy coats are discouraged in a car seat—a regular blanket tucked over the buckled-in child should work just as well. The KeyFit 30 Zip Air costs about $50 more than the KeyFit 30 at this writing and offers the same upgrades as the Zip but also uses a meshlike fabric that Chicco says allows for more breathability.
Chicco Fit2
The Chicco Fit2 is rated to 35 pounds or 35 inches—the tallest height limit of all the car seats we considered. It's intended to hold kids up to 2 years old and could be particularly appealing to parents or caregivers who appreciate the convenience of an infant car seat and want to delay switching to a convertible seat. The Fit2's base has an additional "toddler" position, so the seat will properly fit an older child at a more upright angle, and it has an extendable headrest and a removable canopy. BabyGearLab listed this seat as an Editors' Choice, and though the NHTSA has not yet rated the Fit2 for ease of installation, it has a base similar to that of the KeyFit 30, which we found a breeze to install.
Britax B-Safe Ultra and Endeavours
Britax has two models similar to the B-Safe 35: the Britax B-Safe Ultra and the Britax Endeavours, both of which weigh a pound more than the B-Safe 35 and come in upgraded fabrics and with European belt routing, making for a slightly handier installation for the bucket seat when using a seat belt only. The Endeavours also comes with an anti-rebound bar, though Britax offers an infant car seat base with the anti-rebound bar that fits the Ultra and regular B-Safe model as well.
Graco SnugRide Click Connect 35
The Graco SnugRide Click Connect 35 was our favorite lower-cost seat of the seven infant seats we tested. It's lighter than the Chicco KeyFit 30 at 8.6 pounds, but it relies on hook latches for base installation instead of the easier push-button latches found on the Chicco and Britax models and most pricier seats. To secure a tight fit, you need to manually pull the straps for those hook latches, and that requires significantly more arm strength than the Chicco's one-pull tightening system.
This clip of side-impact testing on the Graco seat shows two angles of the same impact (as shot simultaneously by two cameras). The lab was unable to say definitively whether the seat passed or failed what was supposed to be a pass/fail test.
Still, we likely would have recommended the SnugRide as a budget pick had it not been for this seat's performance in our commissioned side-impact crash testing. The other three seats we tested with the MGA laboratory in Burlington, Wisconsin—the Chicco KeyFit 30, Britax B-Safe 35, and Uppababy Mesa—clearly passed what the lab technicians told us was a pass/fail test: In a simulated 30 mph side-impact crash, a 12-month-old dummy in those seats did not make contact with the car door. But when MGA first tested this Graco seat, the dummy made contact with the door. Surprised by the result and concerned about a possible installation error, the lab offered to rerun the test. Once a new seat was in hand, the technicians repeated the protocol. This time, "it was very close to contact; difficult to tell from certain angles whether there was true contact or not," test engineer Jay Bullington wrote to us in an email. "If there was [contact], it was very slight." Bullington, the technician we worked with most closely at MGA, was unwilling to call the Graco test a "fail" but couldn't call it a "pass" either. To reiterate, the US government currently has no mandated side-impact standard for infant car seats. But we think side-impact safety is important enough that we hesitate to recommend a seat that didn't clearly pass a crash test conducted by one of the country's top testing facilities.
Uppababy Mesa
The stylish but pricey Uppababy Mesa bears a five-star ease-of-installation rating from the NHTSA, has self-ratcheting latches (which we found harder to use than the simpler latches on the Chicco KeyFit 30), offers a convenient no-rethread harness, and has a side-impact headrest, which the company claims offers additional side-impact protection. The Mesa is compatible with Uppababy strollers, including the Cruz, our upgrade stroller pick; the Vista, our upgrade pick for double strollers; and the Minu, our travel stroller pick; as well as the Thule Urban Glide 2, our jogging stroller pick. It passed our commissioned side-impact test without incident and scored the best of the four seats we tested for seat angle in our commissioned front-impact test. It had the weakest score of the four for head impact—though all four of the scores in this regard were more than acceptable. Of our four finalist seats, the Uppababy Mesa was the only one for which there was no available NHTSA crash data at the time of our research. All that considered, we debated making the Uppababy an upgrade pick in this guide, but ultimately we decided that all the details together didn't justify the $100-ish increase in price over our top pick.
The Uppababy Mesa passed a side-impact test. Video: MGA
The Mesa comes in five colors, and consistent with other Uppababy product lines, the colors are named after the children of company employees: three of the colors are Jake, Taylor, and Denny (that would be black, indigo, and red, for those of us who don't speak Uppa). Slightly pricier seats in colors called Henry (blue marl) and Jordan (charcoal marl) are made of merino wool, a natural flame retardant. All car seats are mandated to include flame retardants; the Uppababy Mesa and Nuna Pipa Lite LX are the only seats available that do so using wool instead of fire-retardant chemicals. The amount of flame retardants used in car seats is so small, though, that car seat experts point out that a seat like the Henry Mesa could be considered more marketing tactic than safety measure. Uppababy's warranty for the Mesa is two years, a full year more than what Chicco, Britax, and Graco provide for their seats. The seat's expiration is seven years after the date of manufacture.
Cybex Aton 2
The Cybex Aton 2 was the most difficult of the seats we tested to click in and out of its base (it required placing different fingers on two release panels and then pushing in at the same time). We also found the Cybex seat's handle adjustment—which requires gripping the widest part of the handle—frustrating. After a day of making adjustments to the Cybex handles, I could feel the strain in my forearms and wrists. But the NHTSA awarded this Cybex model four out of five stars for ease of installation, and at 9.2 pounds it's lighter than most comparable seats.
The Cybex Aton 2's standout feature is its steel load leg, an easy-to-install post that braces the rear of the seat to the floor of the car. Load legs can provide an additional margin of safety, since the leg absorbs some of the impact of a crash without transferring it to the child. However, since current NHTSA tests do not allow for the use of a load leg, that safety edge is not reflected in government data. Miriam Manary of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute told us that though "the US does not regulate or encourage the use of load legs, [they do] have a safety benefit for sure."
Nuna Pipa and Nuna Pipa Lite
The Nuna Pipa is an easy-to-use, lightweight, and stylish car seat. It features rigid lower anchor connectors that you rotate forward and click into the vehicle's lower LATCH hooks, a design that CPST Lani Harrison told us adds to the safety of the seat because there's no need to tighten (NHTSA gave the Nuna Pipa four out of five stars for ease of installation). The Nuna Pipa also has a load leg for the base, an additional safety feature designed to prevent the seat from rotating during a crash. The carrier weighs 8 pounds, a pound lighter than the KeyFit.
Similar to our picks, the Nuna Pipa will fit kids up to 32 inches and 32 pounds, but it is longer front to back than the KeyFit, which may make it a snug fit in cars with a narrower space between the front and back seats. Harrison has found that the Nuna doesn't fit newborns as easily and may require a rolled washcloth between the baby and the buckle to get a proper fit. BabyGearLab, in its own crash tests, found that the Nuna Pipa performed poorly relative to the other seats tested, including the Chicco KeyFit 30.
The Nuna Pipa Lite has most of the same features as the Pipa but is even lighter, with the carrier weighing just 5.3 pounds without the canopy or newborn insert. However, unlike the majority of infant car seats available, the Pipa Lite can be used only with the base, which makes it significantly more difficult to use in multiple cars or in taxis.
Clek Liing
Clek, known for high-quality convertible car seats, debuted its Liing infant seat in 2019. The Liing has a load leg and installs easily with a rigid latch, or with seatbelt lockoff for when a latch isn't an option. Since the Liing is so new, crash test data from NHTSA doesn't exist yet, but Clek has published its own crash test data. At 9 pounds, the carrier is nearly identical in size to our Chicco KeyFit pick, and it features a quality canopy to keep an infant covered.
The Liing is compatible with strollers using a Maxi-Cosi adapter, but when we tested it using the Thule Sleek, we found that the Liing tilted too far forward, putting the baby at a sharp angle, which could be uncomfortable for infants who don't yet have good head control. It's possible that the Liing would work better in a different stroller (one Wirecutter editor found the Babyzen Yoyo+ to be a better fit), but until Clek comes out with an adapter, it's likely to be a guessing game as to which strollers keep an infant at a comfortable, reclined angle.
Peg Perego Primo Viaggio 4-35
Despite the lovely design and the appealing, vintage-style stitching, we found that the pricey Peg Perego Primo Viaggio 4-35 had handles that were relatively difficult to shift, a flimsy chest clip, and hard-to-adjust straps. The button to adjust the straps is tucked beneath car seat material, and like the Cybex Aton 2, this Peg Perego model requires pressure from the thumbs, not the hands, to adjust the handles. Though the seat scored above the mean in the NHTSA's safety-compliance ratings for head and chest pressure, the agency gave it just three out of five stars for installation (we didn't judge its installation as harshly).
Safety 1st onBoard 35 Air 360
We found that the handle on the Safety 1st onBoard 35 Air 360 was difficult to adjust, requiring thumbs instead of fingers at the access points. Finding the lever to adjust the straps was also harder than on other seats, since it's hidden under a layer of material. The chest clip felt flimsy too. Like the Graco seat we tested, the Safety 1st onBoard 35 Air 360 relies on hook latches and manual strength to secure a tight fit. Because this seat is relatively new, the NHTSA has not yet included it in crash testing or in ease-of-installation ratings.
Doona
The Doona is a car seat–stroller combo that's one of our favorite travel car seats. It's a unique design that can be convenient for city dwellers who don't have their own car or for people who might not have the space for a regular stroller. The price is steep, but the NHTSA gave this seat five out of five stars for installation, and BabyGearLab also ranked the Doona as a Top Pick.
Cybex Cloud Q
The pricey Cybex Cloud Q has a full-recline feature, which may be useful for parents who use their infant seat with a stroller and want their baby to be able to lie flat when sleeping rather than sitting up in the normal car-seat position. The Cybex Cloud Q comes with a load leg, and the NHTSA gave it four of out five stars for ease of installation. However, it weighs nearly 14 pounds and is much larger—and therefore more cumbersome to deal with—than our picks
GB Asana35 DLX
Consumer Reports gave the GB Asana35 DLX a "best" rating for crash protection, while the NHTSA awarded the seat a five-star ease-of-installation rating. The Asana35 DLX also comes with a load leg. But this seat has had some availability issues.
What's the law on infant car seat use?
Safe positioning and evolving state law
All US states require infants younger than a year old to be restrained in a rear-facing car seat, though the laws vary by state when it comes to the age and size at which a child can legally move to a front-facing seat. Twelve states now require all children younger than 2 to be in a rear-facing child seat. California, New Jersey, and Oklahoma passed rear-facing laws in 2015—though California delayed enactment until 2017—and Connecticut, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina signed rear-facing legislation in 2017.
Some parents choose to keep their children rear-facing until the age of 2 or sometimes well beyond. Research has found that children are safer in rear-facing seats, and policy experts believe that the longer a young child remains rear-facing, the safer they are. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that children remain rear-facing for as long as possible (before 2018 the AAP advised that it was fine to turn a child around at 2 years).
The stringent rules surrounding infant car seats are merited. Despite the fact that deaths in car crashes have plummeted since the 1970s, motor vehicle crashes remain a leading cause of injury death for US children. (Crashes are the top injury death for those ages 5 to 19; suffocation is an even bigger risk for infants younger than 1, and more kids ages 1 to 4 die in drowning incidents than in car crashes.) The drop in car-crash fatalities is partly due to the now ubiquitous use of child-restraint seats, and both car seats and cars have continued to become safer over the past 15 years. The NHTSA estimates (PDF) that the lives of 11,274 children younger than 5 were saved by the use of car seats or safety belts between 1975 and 2016. The nation's first child-restraint law was enacted in Tennessee in 1978 (PDF), and within four years the number of traffic-crash deaths among children under the age of 4 declined by more than 50 percent in the state. By 1985, all 50 states had passed (PDF) child-restraint laws. Purchasing the right car seat and learning to install it properly may be one of the most critical choices you make for your child.
Current federal requirements for manufacturers
While individual states are responsible for regulating how car seats are used, any car seat sold in the US must meet federal safety standards set by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The NHTSA requires that all car seats meet certain benchmarks in crash tests that determine the force on the head and chest in a simulated front-facing crash. The NHTSA also tests car seats for ease of installation, as industry experts estimate that most car seats are improperly installed.
Current front-impact crash testing relies on three measurements to judge safety performance: HIC (head injury criterion), a composite measure that combines time and acceleration to measure the likelihood of a head injury in a car crash, and must be under 1,000; G-clip (also called the 3 ms chest clip), the chest-acceleration measurement, which should be under 60 g; and maximum seat-back angle (to provide adequate neck support in a crash), which should be less than 70 degrees from vertical. Lower numbers are better: With all three tests, the lower the number is, the further it is from exceeding the NHTSA's front-impact injury-criteria limits.
US car seat manufacturers self-certify each model's safety based on their own testing protocols and research. To ensure that the manufacturers are practicing due diligence and that their car seats are safe, every year the NHTSA conducts random compliance tests; the agency selects a subset of car seats and contracts a private crash-testing facility to run tests that simulate a head-on crash at 30 mph. If a car seat fails the test, a recall is instituted. European authorities rely on different—arguably more stringent—standards, including requiring car seat manufacturers to pass certification standards before putting a model on sale and requiring a side-impact standard in addition to front-impact standards.
Proposed improvements to federal standards
Currently, the NHTSA's compliance testing has no side-impact standard. However, a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking—a public notice of the government's intent to change a law or regulation, which solicits comments from people and companies who want to weigh in on the proposed change—is awaiting action with the NHTSA. A former senior official at the NHTSA told us that he believed that the anti-regulatory environment of the Trump administration meant the side-impact standard would be unlikely to move forward during the current presidency. Regardless, car seat manufacturers—including Britax, Chicco, Graco, and Uppababy—have submitted comments in favor of the proposed rule and are keenly aware of its impending existence. Many car seat manufacturers already conduct their own side-impact testing, and a standard is already in place in Europe.
The proposed side-impact test for infant car seats uses the same CRABI 12-month-old dummy used in current front-impact tests to judge the effectiveness of the restraint in protecting a 1-year-old's head in a side-impact crash. The results are measured according to a single criterion: Upon impact, did any part of the dummy's head contact the side door? If there is no contact, the seat is considered satisfactory. The proposed rule would also apply to car seats for older kids up to 40 pounds.
Before the change of administration, the NHTSA had also been working toward upgrading to a more modern crash-testing bench, the design of which was the model for the one we had for our commissioned front-impact crash tests at the MGA labs in Wisconsin. According to people familiar with the NHTSA, this effort is also unlikely to go forward until an administrator is appointed at the agency, and it may still not progress during this administration.
Care, use, and maintenance
No matter what car seat you're using, you can ensure you're using it properly in several ways:
Check the installation: Nearly 49 percent of infant car seats are installed or used incorrectly, which is why the NHTSA's infant car seat evaluations examine ease of installation. The seat's base should be very snug to the car. Many children's hospitals, fire stations, and police stations have certified staff able and eager to double-check car seat installations at no cost. (To find someone who can do a free car seat check, consult this national database.)
Place your seat for maximum safety: You should place the car seat in the vehicle's back seat, ideally in the middle spot whenever possible. Safety experts agree that the middle spot (rather than in the passenger- or driver-side "sideboard" seat) is the safest place for a child to travel. "Any car seat installed in the middle in the rear seat is least likely to suffer from the effects of the side impact," said Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, a pediatrician and CPST instructor who serves as an unpaid consultant to Chicco.
Beware of falls outside the car: More infants strapped into car seats are injured in accidents outside the car than in actual car crashes. Be cautious about placing your infant on any sort of elevated surface while they're inside the seat (falls from shopping carts and from the tops of cars are among the most common). If you are placing the car seat on a stable surface outside the car, rotate the handle down for additional support.
Don't push the size limit: Your car seat has a height limit and a weight limit. It's time for a new seat as soon as your child reaches one or the other. Know that kids are likely to reach an infant car seat's height limit long before they reach the more prominently advertised weight limit. There should be at least an inch of space between the top of your child's head and the top of the seat back.
Sources
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Jay Bullington, test engineer, MGA Research, phone interviews
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Miriam Manary, senior research associate, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, phone interview , April 24, 2017
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Derrell Lyles, public affairs, NHTSA, email interview , May 4, 2017
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Hannah Dwyer, car seat product marketing manager, Dorel Juvenile, USA , phone interview , May 25, 2017
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Sarah Tilton, director of consumer advocacy, Britax , phone interview , May 31, 2017
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Jessica Jermakian, senior research engineer, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, phone interview , June 14, 2017
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Ashley Rogers, brand marketing, Graco , phone interview , June 19, 2017
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Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, pediatrician, uncompensated consultant to Chicco on matters of car seat safety, CSPT-I, phone interview , June 21, 2017
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Joshua Dilts, marketing product manager, Chicco USA , phone interview , June 21, 2017
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William Conway, engineering leader, car seats, Graco , phone interview , June 26, 2017
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Daniella Brown, car seat safety advocate, CPST-I , phone interview , June 28, 2017
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Paul Gaudreau, senior program manager, car seats, Uppababy , phone interview , June 28, 2017
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Lani Harrison, CPST, Car Seats for the Littles, phone interview , June 29, 2017
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Best Infant Car Seats with Crash Test Ratings, The Best Car Seats of 2017, BabyGearLab , April 13, 2017
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Rear-Facing Seats, The Car Seat Lady
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Michelle Naranjo, The Safest Car Seat for Your Child , Consumer Reports (pp. 56-58) , January 1, 2017
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2019 Best Infant Head Support for Car Seat
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-infant-car-seat/
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