Britax has released two new convertible car seats, the Poplar and the Poplar S, both of which rely on the company’s ClickTight system. We love that the Graco 4Ever 4-in-1 car seat complies with all Federal Aviation Administration guidelines and can be used on an airplane in the rear or forward-facing positions with the five-point harness. When the 4Ever is in backless booster mode, it cannot be used with LATCH (since the connectors aren’t attached to the seat in this mode!), so remember to buckle it in when not in use. For younger and smaller children, we’d advocate that families use high back mode for as long as possible. The provided belt guide helps to correctly place the shoulder belt in backless booster mode. For older children, the shoulder belt will likely fall in place on its own.
When you press down on the key and turn it clockwise, the bottom of the seat lifts up, opening to reveal the guts of the operation. You then weave both the lap and shoulder portion of the vehicle seat belt through the appropriate slots—they’re labeled for either the rear- or forward-facing position, depending on which you’re using. Finally, you push the seat bottom closed; you’ll know the lid is secure when you hear a satisfying click. Before selecting a model best suited for your needs, make sure to acknowledge the safety features and measurements to find the right fit for your family. For the car seat to properly install, measure the back seat of the car you will be using to determine how much room is available.
The portable car seat is equipped with a silent shade canopy that you can adjust with a single hand. It features the InRight latch system that allows you to install the seat quickly, making it a trusted choice among parents. You can also easily customize this dad- and mom-approved car seat for toddlers to fit your vehicle with its four-position adjustable base. The well-designed three-in-one toddler car seat can be used as a rear-facing harness, a forward-facing harness, and a high-back booster seat.
The portion of the cover that’s most likely to be a casualty of a classic up-the-back-of-the-diaper blowout is actually a separate piece that you can unsnap, wash, and put back on without taking off the rest of the cover. We were not nearly as successful in installing this seat without the base—that is, using just the bucket portion of the seat and the car’s seat belt. Like the Chicco KeyFit 30, our runner-up pick, the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX uses an American belt-path configuration, graco car seat which requires the seat belt to be routed through guides across the top front of the bucket, above the baby’s legs. This configuration makes it hard to get a super-secure install because it’s tough to push down on the seat with one hand and remove slack from the belt with the other—and the belt tends to slide through the guides if there’s any slack. Based on the criteria above, we narrowed our list of contenders to 12 infant car seats to test (or in some cases retest) in 2022.
We didn’t have a dozing infant to test it out on, and truth be told, in the past we’ve never noticed a canopy being loud enough to ruin a nap. Graco claims that it’s possible to do the base install, with either LATCH or the seat belt, in less than a minute. In our experience, that wasn’t far off; the first time I tried it myself, the process took about two minutes.
You can also unsnap the lower portion of the cover inside the belt path to expose the entire belt path — whichever method helps YOU install the seat correctly is the best one. Once the vehicle seat belt is threaded through the rear facing belt path and the shoulder portion of the belt is accessible, graco convertible car seat press down on the seat pan with one hand while pulling straight up on the top portion of the vehicle seat belt to remove all slack. Once the slack is removed, engage the seat belt’s locking mechanism to secure the installation and feed the excess slack back into the seat belt’s retractor.
Because the Liing lasts for nine years before it expires—two years more than our top-pick seat from Graco and three years more than the Chicco KeyFit 30 or KeyFit 35—it’s the most hand-me-down-worthy of our picks. It also has a three-year warranty, if you register it within 90 days of purchase, or a one-year warranty, if you don’t. The sun canopy on the Liing is made from a stretchy material that unzips to expand, providing more coverage than the sunshade on any other infant seat we tested. At the rear of the shade is a peek-a-boo flap that opens to a mesh window, so you can check on your baby through the canopy. Note that in 2021, Clek issued a recall on the Liing concerning a canopy stay that could be forcefully broken and introduce a choking hazard.