Babies Sleeping in their Car Seats
When you make the choice of your baby’s first car seat, you can either get a rear-facing infant seat, or a convertible infant and toddler seat.
The second option is financially more economical. But, the infant seat will save your sanity. Babies tend to fall asleep in the car. A baby in an infant seat can be unclipped or unstrapped and carried, sleeping, around wherever you are going, or back into the house. If you are expecting a baby right now, do not underestimate how important this option is.
Consider the sleeping baby in the convertible seat. You can’t take this seat out of the car and carry sleeping baby around. So what do you do baby falls asleep in his car seat? your choices, once you arrive at your destination are 1. Wake baby up. 2. Sit in car until baby wakes up.
Option 2 is clearly inconvenient, although I’ve done it when arriving home with my son. I had a stash of books, magazines and candy in my car just so he could get a decent nap in. I wouldn’t like to do that in the winter though. I knew another mom who did drive through banking, picked up medicine at the drive-through pharmacy, and got lunch at MacDonald’s drive through while her son slept in the car.
Option 1 is risky. Baby make wake up and then be extremely grumpy. If you are going home, you may be able to rock or nurse or lie down with baby and baby may go back to sleep. Or baby may not. Naps for the rest of the day may be thrown off.
Eventually, my son learned to go back to sleep when I bought him into the house from his convertible seat. It took several attempts before he’d consistently fall back asleep in his crib, so if you try and your baby won’t go back to sleep, don’t loose heart: keep trying.
From the day my son grew of his infant seat, until he learned how to go back to sleep, I missed the infant seat like mad.
So my advice is, get an infant seat, rather than a convertible one, for your newborn, and appreciate how portable your baby is. It doesn’t last long enough!
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Melissa H says...
Oh I couldn’t agree more about the infant seat being more convenient. When I was at first pregnant I thought that the cost of buying an infant seat and then a larger seat later was way too much. Some one got me the infant seat stroller combo though and so I used it …. and used it and used it…. and nearly cried when she grew out of it. No more slipping in and out of a store with a blissfully sleeping baby who isn’t even aware that you have done so. No more car ride to home nap combos that make life so easy. She will not go back to sleep after she has been pulled out of it. To any mom who is weighing the cost vrs benefit… let me weigh in as a mom of a 1 year old…. THE INFANT SEAT IS PRICELESS!!!!!! It will keep you sane.
Secret Mommy says...
I also found out from the car seat technician at my local baby goods store that the infant seats are FAR FAR better for babies under 20 pounds. I went to upgrade to the convertible for my 20 lb., 29″ son (who despite those statistics is kinda skinny) and the tech told me to wait until he was absolutely at the limit of the infant seat. He said it is far better (safer) to be at the limit in the infant seat than on the small side in the convertible.