"1 inch" rule vs. Infant seat specs

[calirose]

So, please forgive the newbie question, but I'm feeling a little confused on how to decide if DS has outgrown his infant car seat...

I have a Graco Snugride 22, which has a height limit of 29 inches. Riding in that Snugride is my just-turned-9-month old, who to my surprise measured 28.75 inches at his checkup yesterday! (When I do a "standing height" estimate at home he's more like 28 inches even. And since he can't stand yet, I just hold him against our wall mounted growth chart. :) ) Anyway, he's just under 19 lbs, so I was kind of thinking he'd be in his infant car seat for another few months. But, if the doctor's office measurement is right, we're pretty much at the limit for this seat.

So anyway, in reading online about how to tell when your kid outgrows their car seat, I saw some references to the "1-inch rule", and how to correctly measure for it. When I try this with DS in his infant seat, he still has room to grow. That combined with my at home estimate has me feeling confused, can/should I keep using his seat for a little while longer?

He regularly falls asleep in the car, so it would be nice to be able to port him around in the infant seat - but I'm not to going to take advantage of that convenience at the risk of his safety.

Any thoughts on when to make the transition to a different seat? I was planning to move him into his sister's Recaro Signo, which overall is probably safer than the Snugride anyway, right??

[rin]

My understanding is that the 1-inch rule is more accurate, since some kids have longer torsos, some have longer legs, so two kids who're 29" tall might have way different amounts of shell left over their heads. The height rule is about when their heads are too close to the top of the shell, and it doesn't really matter where their legs fall.

[HIU8]

Go by the 1 inch rule. Carseat height recs are guidelines. Some kids have longer torsos and some have longer legs. Your child will outgrow the infant seat when they have 1 inch of hard shell still above their head (do not include the fabric b/c it puffs up beyond the height of the hard plastic shell).

The cigno is not any safer than your graco infant seat. The cigno is a convertible (rear and forward facing seat). It will stay permanently in the car so you will be taking your child in and out of the seat and using a carrier or a stroller for toting around. If you prefer the convenience of the infant seat, you could buy one with a higher weight and height limit that will last much longer. The snugride 35 *(infant seat with base) goes to 35 lbs and 32 inches (again, you go by the 1 inch rule for outgrowing the seat and most, if not all, children will outgrow by height long before weight). I had the safeseat (basically a snugride that went to 32 lbs and 30 inches). My DD lasted until 14 months in the seat and many other children last until 18 months or longer. On the other side, as your child gets older and heavier you are going to want to keep the seat in the car permanently anyway, b/c they just get to heavy to carry around. At 10 months we stopped taking the seat out of the car (the infant seat). So, DD was in it for another 4 months before we switched to a convertible.

[jjordan]

You definitely need to keep an eye on his weight, as the 22# weight limit of the snugride is set it stone and is 22# for the baby AND whatever clothing he is wearing. If they weighed him in at 19# with just a diaper, clothing and a heavy meal could add to that, and you're only one quick growth spurt away from him being too heavy for the seat.

As for the 1" rule vs overall height rule, the best thing to do is read the car seat manual and see what it says as far as outgrowing the seat. Some seats give an overall height as just a guideline, but clarify in the manual that the seat is outgrown according to the 1" rule. Some seats (Dorel seats come to mind) say in the manual that the seat is outgrown when the overall height limit is reached, in which case using the 1" rule is technically against their instructions.

[calirose]

Thanks for all of the input, ladies! We used this Snugride for my DD, but we bought the Signo for her well before she came close to outgrowing the Snugride, so I haven't had to really think about babies outgrowing carseats before. :)

I also hadn't thought about how the weight limit *includes* whatever the baby is wearing, so that was really good to know as well! Overall it definitely makes sense that the 1-inch rule would be more accurate, but I'm thinking we need to move my little guy to another seat soon.

Reading the manual again it says that the child must be 29 in (73cm) or less, which puts DS really close to the limit (over it if I convert 28.75 inches to centimeters). So anyway, now I guess I need to decide on which kind of seat to put him in. Since we're always on the go keeping up with DD, it's definitely tempting to put him in a higher weight/height limit infant seat that I can just snap onto my stroller. Hmmm... Oh well, onto more research and shopping! ;)

[Joolsplus2]

I didn't buy a Snugride 35 till my dd was 8 months old, because it was so nice to keep her in the infant seat somedays... she fit in it till 19 months... https://picasaweb.google.com/joolstag/LeahInCarseats#5101172519647707202 that's roughly what the one inch rule looks like, too, even though she was over the stated height limit.

[calirose]

Thanks Julie! The picture definitely helps too!

I'm leaning towards getting a Snugride 35 or 32 for my little guy. It's awesome to hear that yours lasted so long for your DD! It would be fantastic to get a few more months of infant seat time with DS past his 1st birthday. Plus it would give DD some more time in her Signo before we move her up to a harness to booster combo. Sounds like a win-win! :D

[lhafer]

Thanks Julie! The picture definitely helps too!

I'm leaning towards getting a Snugride 35 or 32 for my little guy. It's awesome to hear that yours lasted so long for your DD! It would be fantastic to get a few more months of infant seat time with DS past his 1st birthday. Plus it would give DD some more time in her Signo before we move her up to a harness to booster combo. Sounds like a win-win! :D

I have a snugride 35 and my DD2 is 13 months old. I can easily see her getting to 18 months in this seat. Right now she has almost a whole hand above her head - and she falls in the 40-50% for height. The only reason I will have to change her seat before then is I promised my car seat to my sister who is due in late August. So I will probably hand it over in July sometime.

[mominma]

We moved my DS to a Snugride 32 at around 8 mos to get through the Winter and he still fits comfortably at 15 mos.