family

Baby buying spree: the carseat

I’m completely convinced that shopping for a car is easier than buying baby gear (well… unless you’re shopping for a car for the sole purpose of carrying your baby). Once you’ve done your homework for a car (pretty much the biggest purchase you make other than a home) you’re pretty much settled. With a baby… every little category of item requires homework, comparison shopping, test runs, measurements, etc. It’s enough to send this girl into a mild anxiety attack everytime we walk into some sort of baby superstore or when I’m asked what my final decision is on any major purchase.
.
There has only been one saving grace in all of the madness of purchase decisions: Baby Bargains, 8th Edition. The Internet is too wild and varied with opinions to narrow down any choice, so I’ve decided to simply put my faith in the authors and let them influence my decisions… and once in a while I actually pull the credit card out and make the purchase. So things were no different tonight when I got a call from a work-traveling Mr. M who said, “You know… Frank and Tiffany are way ahead of us in baby purchases. They already have the car seat!” Well, gosh, that must mean I’m behind on something, so I’d better get myself into gear! Nothing like maternal guilt to get me moving… especially since it’s one of those purchases you need to have ready BEFORE you leave the hospital! *sigh*
.
So, I jumped on amazon.com and settled on the couch to peruse ratings and cross-check them with my book. And wouldn’t you know the timing… it looks like it’s carseat closeout season! Could my luck really be this good??? Discounts on carseats??? And it turns it out it really was… the best rated carseats in the book had color patterns on major closeout across every baby shopping store in the universe… so now I just had to decide between two:

The Britax Diplomat (an “A” rating in the book) and the Britax Marathon (an “A-” rating in the book)
.

Alrighty — how to decide between the two! The Diplomat only holds a kid up to 40 lbs, but it’s got the side-impact protection and it’s more likely to fit in a car w/the seat all the way back for us tall people. The Marathon will last longer (up to 65 lbs), but it’s really big and lots of people moan about that. I looked at carseatdata.org to see if the Marathon would fit in my car, and while it did, it was a lower rating than most of the larger cars. Ugh… decisions decisions!
.
After reading reviews back and forth and calling for advice, I decided upon pulling the trigger on the Diplomat. I figured we were already saving money by forgoing the infant car seat stage (since the liklihood of us having a tiny baby seems far from possible) and buying it at a discount, so why not just get the seat that will definitely fit and worry in two years about how to upgrade. As usual, I checked google to see who had the cheapest closeout price (amazon & diapers.com were tied at $169.99), then went to evreward.com to see what discounts were out there for diapers.com, and ended up saving another 4% on my purchase thanks to ebates.com with free shipping and no sales tax!
.
See — decisions aren’t that hard — only after I’ve wasted hours of my life learning crazy things about car seats!
.

5 Comments

  • EP

    Everyone loves the Britax….I have only heard good things about them. We went with the Graco carrier option since it fits into the stroller, and we could have 2 bases so it didn’t matter which car we drove around in.

    Honestly though, car seat buying is a major PITA. I did the same thing when it came to buying a front facing carseat when Charlie turned one. And I had to buy two of them. Big sigh. I still don’t know if I made the safest choice in the end. Like I said though, everyone I know that has a Britax loves it!

    • kimberly michelle

      Thanks for the confirmation EP! I think it’s so hard to judge on car seats, especially when we all rode around in plastic buckets that barely snapped into anything. My only hope is that the baby loves being in the car as much as Chris and I did!

  • TikiBird

    I hear ya, Kim. Baby product research seemed to take the place of recreational reading for me. But hooray for Britax! We love both of our seats, and so does Henry. I bet you’ll love yours, too.

    • kimberly michelle

      Glad to know that the Britax brand isn’t scary and the books and reviews are right! :) We got it last night and need to break it out of its box and into the cars when the rain stops!