Have you ever wondered what the safest way to drive your baby to kindergarten is? Do you have a small car?
If YES, we are here to help you choose the best infant car seat for small cars based on our criteria.
Rest assured that we have referred to various trustworthy sources to provide you with this useful buying guide.
Now, let’s dive into our review right off the bat.
How to Choose the Best Infant Car Seat for Small Cars? – Top 5 Criteria
As parents, we always want the best product for our children. Thus, we have listed out 5 detailed criteria below to help you acknowledge which factors should be taken into consideration.
1. Infant Car Seat Type
According to the designs and functions, there are 4 types of car seats in total:
a. Rear-facing seat
Considered the safest seat type for infants only. You can keep your child rear-facing in the back seat of your car for the best protection. This is the best choice for those who are 2 years old and below.
On the other hand, this type of seat is more expensive than the others because of the cradle-shaped design and top-quality material.
b. Convertible seat
This is a two-seat-in-one type with a neat design. It should be placed in the back seat of your car while facing backward.
Once your child has been 2 years old and has reached at least 9 kg, you can turn the base to face forward in the vehicle.
c. Combination seat
A full front-facing seat that can turn into a booster seat, so it is suitable for children with at least 1 year of age and from 9 to 18 kg of weight.
When your child is 4 years old and weighs more than 18kg, you can convert this seat into a belt-positioning booster seat for convenience.
d. Booster seat
a full front-facing seat designed for children who are from 4 to 8 years old, that’s why this type of product is slightly bigger than the others.
Furthermore, your children are ready to use a regular seat belt after reaching 144.78cm tall.
2. Size And Weight
For small cars, we recommend you to choose the seat from small to medium size, which means approximately 60 to 80 cm in length and 40 to 65cm in height.
On the other hand, you do not want to carry and set up a heavy seat that may bend your spine gradually.
Hence, you should choose a lightweight one, whose base frame is made from aluminum alloy; thus, it should weigh around 3 to 6 kg.
3. Flexibility
An adjustable car seat with the ease of installation will help you lessen the time of preparation for your children before every drive.
In fact, some cars that are manufactured after 2002 should come with built-in anchors and tethers to support car seats.
Therefore, an adjustable product can be easily installed with a regular seatbelt or an entire LATCH system.
4. Fabric
To guarantee the car seat durability, in the long run, you should check for its fabric. Does it suit your taste? And more importantly, is it easy to clean up?
In case your child vomits or pours milk on the seat, it should take you less than 30 minutes to clean up and half a day to fully dry.
Hence, faux vinyl fabric is the best material since it looks like leather but possesses better contamination-proof capability.
5. Other Utilities
In general, a great car seat should have safety extras, like soft paddings, shock absorption, high resistance to the moment of inertia.
Moreover, some products have removable mosquito-proof nets, additional straps or harnesses, and bottle holders for more convenience.
Top 5 Best Infant Car Seats For Small Cars To Buy
The criteria mentioned above must have given you some clues about the products. Now, let’s take a look at our top 5 best infant car seats for small cars:
- Chicco Fit2 Infant & Toddler Car Seat
- Britax Allegiance 3 Stage Convertible Car Seat
- Graco SlimFit 3 In 1 Convertible Car Seat
- Maxi-Cosi CC261ETL Magellan Xp Max All-in-One Convertible Car Seat
- Evenflo 30412336 Gold SensorSafe SecureMax Smart Infant Car Seat
Conclusion
Parenting is not simple because it comes with all sorts of work that require high safety and driving your children to kindergarten is one of them.
We guess that you have determined the best infant car seat for small cars to buy after reading our article.
It’s time to get a car seat for your baby! Good luck!
