CEG Parents of little ones, baby seat?

[Icefury]

As no doubt your aware, our back seats leave much to be desired in terms of room. That said, anyone use a baby (infant) seat in their Contour? How hard was it to find a seat that fit properly? Does the infant/baby seat effect the front seats?

CEG Parents of infants/children, would like to hear your feedback!

[hotdimmes]

Get recaros!

[rwea14]

I am in the same boat as you... I have a 3 week old and have just today put a car seat base in my car. My wife and I have a Graco Metrolite, and so far has been a great seat. When I did put the car seat in I noticed two things..the first is that the seat seems a bit too angled to the rear of the car due to the bucket seats.. I am in the process of looking into proper fitting. The room up front for the passenger although a bit tighter is not awful. My wife is 5'-6"and she was fine, however she is not able to recline as much as usual...but she does tend to like it way back..(good for me,,well before the baby!!) Hope this helps..
p.s. travel system was bought at Babies 'R' Us for about $200

[hectik1]

Get recaros!

Blue and black Recaro baby seat is going in to match my blue and black Recaros in the Evo.

[cuda06]

Put the seat in the center. That is where I kept mine for both the infant seat and now the toddler one. Fits just fine for me and I am 6-4 so I keep my seat all the way back.

[Jeb Hoge]

Center works well for a rear-facing seat, but if you've got a larger child (like mine), it can be a back-strainer getting the kid in there. The good thing about when they're little-little is that you can use those modular carriers and just click it into place.

When our boy got older, we bought a LATCH-equipped Britax seat for my wife's Mazda6, and her uncle gave us an older non-LATCH Britax that stays in my car most of the time. Having that in and facing the rear was tight...it *had* to be on the passenger side and that didn't leave much room up front. Once he could face forward, life was a lot nicer. Now he's tall enough that he can look straight ahead through the headrest posts, and he likes that.

[fornetti14]

These aren't the best cars for car seats. Try fitting two in there (I gave up).

I have the tan Recaro in the middle right now so I can at least take my toddler in my car if I need to.

You can fold a bath towel to build up the low part of the seat. If you're unsure, stop by the local police/fire station and they'll check it for you. It's a good idea even if you think it's in there properly. Kids are fun... when I rev the gas she says "faster daddy!".

[MattB]

Defently put it in the middle, fits nicely. We did that for the past 4 years and we just had our second and now we use the wifes car as the family car. The contour is used for the person going to work, we couldnt have both seats in the back and have enough room for a person in the passenger seat, unless they wanted to rest their head on the dash .

Matt

[morbid]

Jeez! I haven't had any problems with car seats in my car. I had a Cougar before this and *that* was impossible to install car seats in because the rears were buckets. The reason I got the Contour is because I could fit two car seats in the back. I've used the reversed infant seats, normal kid seats, and my older daughter is now in a booster. All of them fit with not problems.

Most seats are adjustable and if you need to lift the rear of the seat higher, there are foam type things for that purpose.

Also, you want to make sure you use seat-savers... especially if you have leather. Baby seat manufactures apparently don't care if their seats trash the car's seats (bottoms of their seats usually have sharp structural things)... and the seat-savers will keep that from happening.

I also used a folded up hand towel to put between the rear head rests and the top part of the car seat. That reduced the creases caused by the car seat.

Oh... and in case it matters, all the seats that I've had in my car (except for the booster) were the Eddie Bauer line of Cosco seats. And if there's a "Baby Depot" near you.. check it out. That's where I found the seat-savers and foam spacers and they have a bunch of other stuff not normally carried by places like Target or Toys 'R Us.

[Mystique97]

This is good information guys, I'm gonna have to put one in my Mystique come April.
Keep the info coming.