What to use for carseat on plane?

[Nennie]

For those of you who travel with little ones in carseats, what do you use for the carseat? Do you just take the carseat out of your car and bring that? DS will be 10 months old when we fly again.

The reason I ask is that installing the carseat in the car takes so much time, plus I don't want my nice carseat getting banged up underneath the ME bus. I was thinking of getting another carseat just for flying purposes, but don't want to spend a lot of money on it either. (We won't be renting a car when we get to Florida, so just need it for the plane only).

Maybe I just use the regular carseat and deal with the hassle of reinstalling it in the car when we get back to our home airport?

Last time we flew he was still in the infant seat which made it so much easier to fly with b/c it just clicks in and out of the base. Now that he's in a regular convertible seat I'm not sure how to handle it. I was even wondering if I could cram him into his old infant seat just for the plane, but DH already called me a nut for that one!

Also, while we're at it, what wheelie system does everyone recommend for wheeling the seat around the airport?

 

[kaytieeldr]

Do you NEED the car seat? If he can sit up, you should consider getting - either purchase, or rent on EBay - the CARES harness.

Otherwise, yes, your choices are: use his actual car seat with all the associated annoyances; or borrow/buy (maybe rent?) one with the FAA sticker, locally. Yes, I realize you don't know if a used car seat is safe, i.e. has it been in an accident. It doesn't matter here. You will be using the car seat to keep your son upright and secure in his plane seat - not to keep him safe in case a car hits the plane.

Just, if you do use one whose history you don't know, please either return it to the source or destroy it when you're done.

 

[laughinplace199]

Is your baby definitely too big for his infant seat? My older two kids outgrew theirs pretty quickly, but my youngest was in his infant seat for over a year. We used it on a trip to WDW when he was 9 mos and it was great to snap it onto the stroller and not have to lug the carseat through the airport.

If the infant seat isn't an option, I suggest getting a Cosco Scenera convertible seat. It's safe, lightweight, and only costs about $50 at Target. We have one that we use for travel (we have a Britax Marathon as our reg seat but it's too big to travel with). The only thing that I don't like about it is that I find it hard to install RFing in the rental car. However, if you're not renting a car, you won't have to worry about that anyway.

 

[Nennie]

Thaks so much everyone!

I'm going to look into getting a used carseat, or the Cosco!

Thanks for the CARES suggestion, but he's still too little for that. Maybe next year though!

Thanks again!!

 

[bumbershoot]

Definitely love the Scenera!!!!!

 

[kaytieeldr]

Thaks so much everyone!

I'm going to look into getting a used carseat, or the Cosco!

Thanks for the CARES suggestion, but he's still too little for that. Maybe next year though!

Thanks again!!

Yeah, I figured but it was a thought. If you do get one eventually, remember you can rent it out on Ebay afterwards if you want.

Also remember, whatever car seat you use has to have the FAA sticker on it.