Graco Car Seats or Bust

So here are my thoughts currently...buying anything for kids can be a major pain in the ass. Step one in making any purchase is ensuring that what you buy is the most safe and/or effective product. You do your research and narrow it down...great, that was time consuming! Now you have to make sure that of the products you've narrowed down, they are within your budget. You find yourself hitting up all the different websites for the best deal; discounts, sales, free shipping, etc... Great, that was exhausting! Now you're down to maybe 1-3 items and what's left!? The aesthetics. Does the item actually appeal to you, and/or will it appeal to your kids. (Let's be honest...you could care less about what your kids really think as long as it satisfies your safety standards and wallet).

I just recently went through this whole process trying to buy Wake a new car seat. We have never had car seats in anything but my car because I was always home with the kids and therefore their eternal chauffeur. However now that I am going back to work, Joe and I will be sharing the driving duties so his car needed some car seats. I was a little overwhelmed with all that choices BUT what I discovered is that Graco makes the best car seats. Boom! How easy was that!? I just made all those ridiculous decisions for you...and here's why...

According to A Secure Life, "Graco is one of the best-known and most popular manufacturers of all types of baby equipment for their high quality and affordable prices." The rear-facing Graco Snugride 35 is one of the best infant car seats around because it's easy to use, super safe (check off step one above) and affordable (check, step 2). The Carseat Blog said The Graco Nautilus with Safety Surround "is the latest version in the Nautilus line of combination car seats. Since their debut, they've been highly popular car seats" and this is because of it's "safety surround." "Safety Surround is an added thickness of EPS foam to the headrest. Because of the lack of side impact testing in the U.S., Graco decided to use the European side impact testing standard (no longer in draft form). Since the headrest moves independently from the harness, you can adjust it to fit your child to provide optimum fit for safety purposes." And obviously (and sometimes most importantly), Consumer Reports ALWAYS includes Graco car seats on their top rated car seats lists. Just recently, the Graco Contender 65 was featured on their site. It has "an eight - position external harness adjuster, and has a lower price point than most competitors with a similar feature. It has impressive crash - test performance, and it scored very well in both ease of use (awesome) and fit to vehicle (thank you)."

Now with all that being said, these are just opinions. SOOOOO, I would love to hear what you guys think is the best car seat. What do you use? What do you look for; safety, specific brand, cost? I'd love to get the conversation going so all us moms can connect and learn!

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