To prove my point ...

Back in 2007 I bought Miranda a Britax Marathon which was one of the top brands of car seats you could buy at the time. I did my research, spent the money which then was about $230, and kept my daughter rear-facing until she was three years old. I probably could have kept her rear-facing longer but my husband and I had agreed on three at the time and I was satisfied enough with that goal. She still could fit in it forward facing, but it's expiration date is coming up in October. Since it was the seat we had passed down to Elliott, we had to find a new seat. 

(If you don't know why or when car seats expire, please click here or google the question to find out.)

So, first thing I did was to go on www.car-seat.org and I asked what seats were recommended for my child's size, age, price range and my car. I got a lot of good recommendations. I researched the seats online to figure out which ones I liked the best. I narrowed the recommended list down to a handful of seats and then Adam and I went to the store to look at them in real life. We could have gone even a step further and taken the seats out of Babies R Us to install in our car, but we have installed many seats so we decided to skip that part.

We decided on a First Years True Fit. It cost us $167.26, which as you can see is much less than the seat I bought in 2007.

Here are the two seats side by side:

As you can see, we got a lot more bang for our buck this time around. 

The pros that I like about this seat are number one: THE SHELL HEIGHT! My god, look at that thing!! To prove that it is really tall, here is a picture of Miranda sitting in it. 

If she weighed less than 35lbs (which is basically what she weighs) she would STILL fit rear-facing in this seat. At FIVE YEARS OLD! That's crazy tall!! I love it!! I don't think I will have to worry about flipping Elliott around for many, many years to come. Sweet!!

A con about this seat, is that the rear-facing weight limit is only 35lbs. If this seat had a 40 or 45lb RFing weight limit, it could get many kids to 4 or more riding RF'ing!

It has a seven year lifespan instead a usual six, but it's already almost a year old, so we'll only get six years of use out of it.It's really wide and heavy, but as long as you're not trying to get three across, it should work in most situations. I also love that it has a no re-thread harness. Basically, that means that I don't have to uninstall it to raise or lower the harness. I also love that you can take the cover off without uninstalling or taking the harness out. A very handy feature!!

All in all, I am really very happy with our purchase. I'm happy I did my research and decided on the best seat for my kid. I highly suggest you do the same. 

Here's to MANY years of car safety to come!!