Re: Best Infant Car Seats - Consumer's Report
First of all - congrats!!
I would go with the Britax Advocate. It's good from birth (5 lbs) to 65 pounds. So no need to buy an expensive infant car seat and then less than a year later spend another bucket of money on a bigger car seat.
We have the same Britax Advocates 65 CS (65 meaning good up to 65 pounds, CS is click safe) . I did hours and days of research in every way possible - online, asking around, forums, Consumer Reports, etc etc. The Britax came out on top every time and the Advocate is the safest and has the most side/head protection. It also has the CS (click safe) feature which is so nice when trying to figure out how tight to have the straps.
They cost us nearly $500 each brand new from Babies R Us. Luckily mu parents paid for the first one. So they aren't cheap. But the way I see it is I would rather save and work hard to get the best seats for my kids because a vehicle is a dangerous place to be and if anything happened I'd look back wishing I'd paid the bit more for a good seat...
The Britax Advocate also allows for your child to be rear facing for up to 35 or 40 pounds (it says if you look online at babiesrus.ca - - sorry csnt remember now lol) . Rear facing is always the safest as a baby's/toddler's head is something like 25 percent of their body weight (don't quote me on this I just know its a lot more in proportion to an adults from all the studies I have read in car seats). This means that their neck can snap so much easier if they are forward facing. We just lost our car a few months ago but up until then we still had DD and DS rear facing and they are 18 months and 28 months. Lots of people make stupid comments about having them rear facing still but I have done my research and I know what is safe and what kind of car seat I have.
I'd go with any kind of Britax model. Keep your eye out for sales on babiesrus.ca and you can sometimes find them $100 cheaper.
Good luck!