After the impact of a crash, a car seat can surge forward in the car and then rebound back, potentially sending a baby face-first into the vehicle seat back; the anti-rebound bar can limit that rebound effect. (For more information, see Understanding optional safety features.) Regardless of whether you consider this feature to be important, it’s pretty uncommon on a seat that costs around $200. After careful consideration and consultation with experts, we decided that field testing alone, without crash testing, should dictate our picks in this guide. If anything, our research has confirmed that caregivers can take comfort in knowing that most car seats do their job very well. “Five-point harness child restraint seats are highly effective in reducing the chances of injury and death,” Maltese said. So the most effective strategy for keeping your kids safe on the road is to choose a car seat that works well for your family, and for you to use it correctly.
Car seat manufacturers frequently release new models and update their existing ones. Though we didn’t rule out any seats on the basis of their being brand new, whenever possible we chose to test models that had been available for at least a year, in order to give us a more solid track record of user reviews. For crumby messes, we use a handheld vacuum with a crevice tool; baby wipes work well for cleaning spills and debris that accumulates in the cup holders. Detach both sides of the harness from the splitter plate behind the seat. Now, turn your attention to the front of the seat, where you’ll unsnap the cover on the front. Ultimately, we didn’t think it was fair to eliminate the Liing or ignore its merits purely because of its price.
This is a problem because this recline requirement makes it impossible to safely install the seat sometimes, usually because the bottom of the car seat hangs too far off the vehicle seat. And, in vehicles with non-removable headrests, this awkward recline can make it difficult to raise the headrest high enough for a proper harness fit, too. Graco, the manufacturer of our top-pick convertible, the Graco Extend2Fit Convertible, makes a lot of convertible car seats, including the Graco Contender 65 and the Graco graco turbobooster Admiral 65. We opted not to test these seats because they’re less widely available than the Extend2Fit Convertible and have lower rear-facing weight limits. We additionally dismissed seats that were not as well suited for extended rear-facing as the Extend2Fit Convertible, which has the extension panel for added rear-facing legroom. One of our favorite things about the Extend2Fit Convertible is how exceptionally well it facilitates extended rear-facing riding, with a 50-pound rear-facing weight limit.
(The button to adjust the harness straps is tucked beneath the seat’s material. And to operate the handle, you need to apply pressure from the thumbs, not just the hands.) This seat received an ease-of-use rating of four out of five stars from the NHTSA. If you are traveling internationally, you may be able to get away with installing with the lower anchors if the child is under 45 pounds and if the vehicles you end up in have lower anchors. But we would recommend contacting Graco for a free locking clip in case you need to do a seat belt installation since most vehicles outside of the US and Canada will not have locking seat belts.
But for the few who do, here’s a quick guide to this pretty simple process. The harness mechanism pulls quite smoothly and does not require significant strength to tighten. Directions for assembling the cupholders are in the manual — they slide into a channel and click into place. Once assembled, the cupholders are required to remain attached to the seat.
If you have a tall driver or passenger or are just really tight on that legroom in the second or third row of your vehicle this seat is one of your best bets. The headrest has a little more to it than some for better head and neck support. The foam feels like higher-quality padding than some of the competition. The LATCH storage is straightforward clips on the sides of the seat back.
Your baby will be ready for this larger, five-point safety harness seat once they’ve outgrown their infant seat’s height and weight limits (usually around 30 inches or 30 pounds); this will likely happen at any point between 6 months and 2 years of age. Once you transition to the convertible seat, you’ll start out with a baby or toddler sitting in it rear-facing and eventually end up with a much bigger kid riding in it forward-facing. Getting the hang of convertible seats can be daunting—what with their various installation modes and positions, multiple seat belt paths, and safety tethers—which is why we set out to find the models that are the simplest and safest to install and use.
The sun canopy on the KeyFit 35 extends out a bit farther than the KeyFit 30’s, but it’s not as large as that of our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing. If you want a more generous sun canopy, the KeyFit 35 Zip ClearTex (which is the exact test model we tried for this guide, and the one pictured) has a canopy that can unzip to shade the seat completely; it costs about $30 more. If you’re comfortable paying more, it’s certainly a nice plus, but we think most people would be content with the standard KeyFit 35 model, as well. Many infant car seats require you to use two hands to adjust the handle position. But the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX has a button conveniently located at the top of the handle—you just press it and then move the handle using one hand. Releasing the bucket from the base is also a one-handed maneuver, as you simply lift up a handle at the back of the seat.
The Poplar S also includes a rebound stability bar for use when rear-facing, which helps limit movement in a crash. The Poplar costs $300 and the Poplar S costs $350, the same price as our current runner-up pick, the Britax Boulevard ClickTight. Britax is phasing out the Boulevard ClickTight and Marathon ClickTight, though they are available to buy while supplies last. Clek is a Canadian car seat manufacturer best known for its high-end convertible car seats, which have a reputation for weighing a ton and being built like tanks. The company came out with its first infant car seat, the Clek Liing, in 2019, and it has yet to appear on some people’s radar. But during our recent round of testing, we were—at the risk of gushing—blown away by the Liing’s functionality, engineering, safety features, and overall design.