I have one but its for the new baby. It installed in my Vibe just fine, but haven't used it with a child yet.
Goes from birth to 40lbs and 40inches. Rear Faces to 33lbs. And its made to fit into smaller vehicles. It just might be the smallest convertible on the market right now.
The seat is deep allowing for space inside and not be too tall.
the seat looks great! I am definitely going to look into it for our sedan.
I wonder if you can fit a Nautilus on each side. (Not that it is a great plan to have to reach over and put baby in middle, but I can't imagine having Nautilus side by side.)
I have one but its for the new baby. It installed in my Vibe just fine, but haven't used it with a child yet.
Goes from birth to 40lbs and 40inches. Rear Faces to 33lbs. And its made to fit into smaller vehicles. It just might be the smallest convertible on the market right now.
The seat is deep allowing for space inside and not be too tall.
I have one but its for the new baby. It installed in my Vibe just fine, but haven't used it with a child yet.
Goes from birth to 40lbs and 40inches. Rear Faces to 33lbs. And its made to fit into smaller vehicles. It just might be the smallest convertible on the market right now.
The seat is deep allowing for space inside and not be too tall.
Obviously, precisely because it's the smallest convertible on the market, it's likely not going to last you all the way through the car seat years--40lbs is a very low max weight for a FF seat, and your kid may outgrow it by height before s/he hits that weight. But since, @lbkw, you already have a bunch of Nautiluses (Nautili?), you're already prepared for that contingency! 
Just something to keep in mind for everyone else.
(Nautili?)
I am totally laughing out loud at work!
Hey, at DD's rate, she'd probably fit into Coccoro until age 6! Watch this baby will be much bigger than my other two. But yes, we have back-up just have to keep track of expirations.
When does everyone feel comfortable with using the belt positioning boosters? DS's friends (who are younger and smaller than him) are in them and fortunately he doesn't complain. It just gets tempting to think the kids would fit so much better in the car if I got one of the narrow boosters. He is 6 yrs, 45lb and 46". Sometimes I think that we'd just use the booster sometimes, but you never know when something bad could happen while driving and I don't like the idea of taking the chance. However, at some point, he will have to be out of a 5-point harness.
I am totally laughing out loud at work!
Hey, at DD's rate, she'd probably fit into Coccoro until age 6! Watch this baby will be much bigger than my other two. But yes, we have back-up just have to keep track of expirations.
When does everyone feel comfortable with using the belt positioning boosters? DS's friends (who are younger and smaller than him) are in them and fortunately he doesn't complain. It just gets tempting to think the kids would fit so much better in the car if I got one of the narrow boosters. He is 6 yrs, 45lb and 46". Sometimes I think that we'd just use the booster sometimes, but you never know when something bad could happen while driving and I don't like the idea of taking the chance. However, at some point, he will have to be out of a 5-point harness.
Yeah, dd will probably be under 40lbs at 5 or 6, at this rate (she's 4 today and weighs about 34lbs), but ds was over 40lbs and 40" by 3, at least. So you never know.
I'm honestly shocked to see dd's little preschool friends (aged 2 or 3) in booster seats :( ds is 6, weighs 51lbs and is very tall, and he'll be in his Nautilus until he outgrows it. Hopefully he'll be closer to 8 by then, but it may be sooner depending on how fast he grows. I'm ok, now, having him in a booster occasionally (when a friend takes him home from school for a playdate or something), but for everyday use, I don't feel comfortable taking him out of harness yet. But we have a minivan, so fitting all the seats into the car isn't an issue for us--I hear you on that problem.
I'm honestly shocked to see dd's little preschool friends (aged 2 or 3) in booster seats :( ds is 6, weighs 51lbs and is very tall, and he'll be in his Nautilus until he outgrows it. Hopefully he'll be closer to 8 by then, but it may be sooner depending on how fast he grows. I'm ok, now, having him in a booster occasionally (when a friend takes him home from school for a playdate or something), but for everyday use, I don't feel comfortable taking him out of harness yet. But we have a minivan, so fitting all the seats into the car isn't an issue for us--I hear you on that problem.
DS has actually ridden in a booster when with a friend, but he was totally freaked out at first. He was holding back tears. It didn't make me feel that much better when the mom texted me (while driving!) to tell me he was doing fine. All in all, he came back unscathed. I kind of feel like it's wasteful to get a new booster when I specifically got the 3-in-1 seats. But with 3 kids and 2 cars, I'm sure I will get enough use out of them.
Yeah, dd will probably be under 40lbs at 5 or 6, at this rate (she's 4 today and weighs about 34lbs), but ds was over 40lbs and 40" by 3, at least. So you never know.
I'm honestly shocked to see dd's little preschool friends (aged 2 or 3) in booster seats :( ds is 6, weighs 51lbs and is very tall, and he'll be in his Nautilus until he outgrows it. Hopefully he'll be closer to 8 by then, but it may be sooner depending on how fast he grows. I'm ok, now, having him in a booster occasionally (when a friend takes him home from school for a playdate or something), but for everyday use, I don't feel comfortable taking him out of harness yet. But we have a minivan, so fitting all the seats into the car isn't an issue for us--I hear you on that problem.
Yea my DD is a peanut too -- She's 5 next month and 37 inches tall, 35 pounds. She was 6 lbs 0oz at birth. I'm thinking if this baby girl is similar I'll be fine. My DS is a little more normal = 2 yrs old, 27 lbs, 32 inches. So even if the new baby is more normal, I'd get at least 2 years out of it and by then, chances are I'd be pregnant again LOL.
So yea, I think we're going to get a cocorro. Unless we can find out definitively if another radian would fit -- 3 in a row.
My mom wants to buy boosters for the kids (2 and 5 yrs old!) for grandma's car. She thinks they're old enough and that she'll take them places enough. We live more than an hour away from her and I rarely leave my kids with her -- we do stuff together and if I left them with her I'd MOVE the radians for their safety -- it only takes about 20 minutes, but she hates planning ahead and/or waiting.
We plan on moving DS 5 to a backless booster earlier than I would have otherwise.
Right now he's in a nautilus( and will be in it till June sometime) and my DD 7 is in a backless booster already.
In order to fit 3 across I'm going to have to use 2 backless boosters and the cocorro.
Using the backless boosters with belt positioners they are more safe than we were when we were kids.
At one point Mr. Dingo did an exhaustive research on boosters (I love having a geek) and his conclusion is that the backless boosters do not pose any significant increase in risk. Plus they are way more easy to deal with.
ND
Quoting from stroller thread where I ended up soliciting advice about car seats. Wanted to move over here before I totally hijacked (too late!) 
There is always more to know about car seats, it's a never ending learning curve! I'd stick with getting an infant seat now if you see yourself ever using it outside of the car (or if you travel or want to be able to install it in other cars) and then worry about what convertible will work best for your car and baby's size when you outgrow it. It can be hard to make car seat decisions that aren't immediately in front of us!
We've been happy with the Graco snug rides (had a 22 last time but doing a 30 or 35 this time) for the infant seat. When he didn't like being in it anymore (by about 7-8 months if memory serves me correctly) we researched what would work for his long body and our car and we got a True Fit Premiere, which we've been so happy with. It kept him RFing until 2.5, when he outgrew it RFing by weight.
If you do want to get a convertible from the beginning, make sure you double check with the car seat board as to which ones realistically fit a newborn (because the shoulder straps must be below the shoulders when RFing, so some of the seats say they fit a newborn but the shoulder straps are too high). There are many that you can use from the beginning. If you're going to be traveling the first year, an infant seat does make that much easier!
Thanks to you too for this info. I think we will want an infant bucket seat, but unfortunately it's going to be tough to borrow one from someone. My brother is the only person we know well who lives close and has kids, and his wife is expecting another baby anytime, so I expect they and my parents will use his daughter's infant seat(s) for the new baby. We should probably revisit and see if we can identify a cheaper model if it's not going to be useful for that long, and/or maybe replace the Nautilus with a convertible on the registry. Now to do some research on that... it sounds like the True Fit is a good option. I'll see what Consumer Reports has to say too.
Thanks again! Starting to feel a teeny bit less clueless...
Glad you mentioned that even though they say they are for newborns, they probably won't be. We are planning to get a convertible that will accomodate the newborn, but were going to wait and try to get by with DD's britax advocate...it seems like that won't work in the short term, though. Wonder how big the kid will have to get to fit in the advocate rear facing....
Don't put too much stock in Consumer Reports-- they really don't know a quarter as much about car seats as a car seat tech does! CPSTs seem to like the True Fits, Diono/Radians, Graco MyRide, Complete Air, but really... convertibles depend a lot on your particular car to see what fits well RFing. Britax convertibles tend to give you less RFing room for the baby's legs, so that wouldn't be my first choice. You want a seat with a high shell AND a high rear facing weight limit so that you can stay RFing a few years with it comfortably. But of course, getting the high shell to fit RFing in your car can be a challenge.
I'd stick with registering for a good infant seat now. If you get a Snugride 30 or 35 it should last you a bit while you figure out what to get next
I was looking on the car seat board the other day to double check about the car seat we had settled on. We have limited options with trying to fit something in the back of our VW Beetle as it is! Turns out you can't really use any of the Britax seats with a newborn unless you end up with a pretty big baby. I was so bummed because that's what I really wanted. I've settled on the Evenflo Triumph even though it's not really my first choice, but it will fit in my car and is a convertible that can be used with a newborn. All of which were my criteria. I can always upgrade to a Britax after a bit if I want, I guess.
Something I did not realize at the time, but all 3 of our convertible seats have a high forward facing height minimum. If you decide to forward face before age two, it might not be possible with a convertible.
I think we got our car seat confusion straightened out over the weekend. We decided to go with the Baby Trend infant seat that comes in a jogging stroller travel system (this may not be the best stroller in the world but the price is insanely lower than any other such product), and then we added the True Fit convertible to the registry as well just in case someone is feeling generous (or maybe just to remind ourselves that we will need to buy one at some point). The Baby Trend is supposed to be good up to 30 lbs, but even if it turns out not to be, we should be covered to RF for quite a while once we either receive or purchase the convertible.
We went to the store and examined a bunch of different seats, and I still really wanted the Chicco (or maybe the SnugRide), but it's not compatible with a jogging stroller system, and seeing as we were going to get an infant seat and jogging stroller anyway, I just couldn't see passing up the price of the Baby Trend. As far as the convertible, I appreciate the recommendations here for the True Fit and a few other seats, because I can't imagine how we would have narrowed down the options for convertibles otherwise. They had at least 3 rows of them in the store that all looked pretty much exactly the same, had similar specifications (at least in theory), yet differed in price by hundreds of dollars. I've checked reviews online and ended up more confused than when I started. It's enough to make your head spin...
If you haven't picked the particular TrueFit yet, I wanted to put a plug in there for the TrueFit Premiere. The anti-rebound bar http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Years-Premier-Convertible/dp/B002WN20GA
Obviously, precisely because it's the smallest convertible on the market, it's likely not going to last you all the way through the car seat years--40lbs is a very low max weight for a FF seat, and your kid may outgrow it by height before s/he hits that weight. But since, @lbkw, you already have a bunch of Nautiluses (Nautili?), you're already prepared for that contingency! Just something to keep in mind for everyone else.
Was looking at Nautilus this weekend - the ones we have now are in my parents' and baby-sitter's cars so I don't see them all the time. They didn't seem that wide. @XanaduMama, I believe you own a Nautilus and Radian. Can you (whenever you get a chance) compare the width of those two seats IRL?
I'll try to measure them as soon as I can find the tape measure! The Radians are the narrowest seats around, so the Nautilus will definitely be wider, but it's not that wide, you're right. Love both of those seats! My ds is giant for his age (I forget exactly, but he's around 50lbs and 50+" tall; he's 6), and I'm pretty sure we're going to get several more years out of the Nautilus for him. dd is pretty much exactly average for her age, and ditto on the Radian; in fact, we just turned her FF a few months ago when she hit the 33lb limit (and she just turned 4).
Just wanted to pop in to share that we just got our Combi Coccoro today and I installed it and it fit (yay!) along side the two Radians in our 96 Subaru Impreza Outback wagon.
So if you've got a small-ish car, there's how to do it :)
If you have any questions for me, ask away -- I like talking carseats and my husband is already done hearing about the new one :)
Just wanted to pop in to share that we just got our Combi Coccoro today and I installed it and it fit (yay!) along side the two Radians in our 96 Subaru Impreza Outback wagon.
So if you've got a small-ish car, there's how to do it :)
If you have any questions for me, ask away -- I like talking carseats and my husband is already done hearing about the new one :)
What color Coccoro did you get? I have been saving "points" from a program and I think can only get the orange one.
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