Best Infant Car Seats 2023: suggested for safety and comfort

Most new parents will start using a rear-facing infant car seat within the first few weeks of their baby’s life. This is true whether they are bringing their baby home from the hospital for the first time, taking them to Grandma’s house for a quick visit, or taking them to the park for some fresh air. Even though there are many types, styles, and brands of car seats to choose from, an infant car seat is probably the best choice for the first few trips you take with your child. The best Infant car seats are usually a bit smaller because babies are so small, and they can also be used as a backpack to help you carry your new family member to and from the car.

They only face backwards for extra safety, have a five-point harness to keep baby safe, and can relax far enough to be safe for babies who can’t hold their heads up yet. Some adjustable and all-in-one car seats are also safe for newborns, but not all of them can recline to the right angle, even if your baby meets the weight and height limits. If you have a small child, this is especially important.

The Good Housekeeping Institute has experts on parenting and products who test all the must-haves for babies, toddlers, and kids, from walkers to toys and everything in between. To find the best infant car seat, we look at things like safety, customer service, and how easy it is to install, change the angle and harness, and take the carrier off the base. We then test the seats in cars of different sizes. Below we have mentioned the best infant car seats.

Best Infant Car Seats Comparison Table

Chicco KeyFit 35 Infant Car Seat

This baby car seat is the newer version of the KeyFit 30. Our Lab experts have always liked the KeyFit 30 because it is easy to install, which is important for making sure your child is safe. The KeyFit 35 is a bit heavier and more expensive than the KeyFit 30, but it has an anti-rebound bar and can fit slightly bigger babies up to 32 inches tall or 35 pounds. This means that your baby can stay in a rear-facing seat for longer, which makes the KeyFit 35 safer. The carrier also clicks right from the car seat base into a variety of walkers that work with it, making it easy to move around.

Our experts found that this pick has “all the things you want in an infant car seat,” such as a big canopy, a seat pad that can be washed in the washing machine, compatibility with strollers, and more. During testing, we liked how easy it was to put the seat in your car with LATCH and make sure your child was safe inside. Overall, this is one of the best Best infant car seats you can buy right now.

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Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX

The Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX has everything you need: it’s easy to use, it’s good quality, and it’s a good deal. When you use the base, it’s one of the easiest baby car seats to install, whether you use a seat belt or the LATCH system. The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is a high-end, stylish seat. Currently, this is one of the best Best infant car seats you can buy right now.

It also has some features that are usually only found on more expensive seats, like a seat pad that can be removed for easier cleaning, harness straps that you don’t have to undo and rethread to adjust, and a handle that can be moved with one hand. This seat also has an anti-rebound base, which is a metal bar built into the bottom of the seat that can help limit how much the seat turns (or “rebounds”) after a crash.

The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is the largest of our choices at 10 1/2 pounds. But our testers didn’t think it was too heavy to move easily, and it was easy to use and click in and out of its base. The seat can fit babies up to 32 inches tall or 35 pounds. This is the high limit for the category, and it’s likely more than most people will need. The only real problem with the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX is that its no-base, seat-belt-only install was hard for us to do.

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Chicco KeyFit 30

The Chicco KeyFit 30 is like the Coke Classic of baby car seats because it’s popular and has been for a long time. The KeyFit 30 is easy to put together, especially when the base is put together with the LATCH system. Putting the base in with the seat belt is also easy, but it takes some force (we had to sit on the base to put enough pressure on it) to get the base in tightly.

As with our top-choice Graco seat, this Chicco model’s installation with just the seat belt and no base leaves a lot to be desired, and it’s hard to get it to fit snugly. The KeyFit 30 is easy to take, not too heavy (it’s about a pound lighter than the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX), and simple to adjust. The bucket seat slides in and out of the base with a smooth click. Overall, this is one of the best Best infant car seats you can buy right now.

It has lower weight and height limits than our other three picks, so it might not be the best choice for babies who are bigger than average or for families who want to use an infant seat for longer. But it should fit most babies and toddlers for more than a year, which is generally enough.

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Chicco KeyFit 35

The Chicco KeyFit 35 has all the things we liked about our runner-up pick, the Chicco KeyFit 30, like how easy it is to use and set up, plus a few nice improvements. Like our top pick, the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX, the KeyFit 35 has an anti-rebound base for extra safety. For now, this is one of the best Best infant car seats you can buy right now.

Like our upgrade pick, the Clek Liing, the KeyFit 35 has a European belt path, which is rare in the US. This lets you install the seat more securely when you’re not using the base, which is a big plus for families who move a lot or take taxis. This seat also has a handy no-rethread harness, like the one on the Graco seat.

This means that as your child grows, you won’t have to take the harness apart and put it back together to change the height. The KeyFit 35 can fit people up to 32 inches tall and 35 pounds (hence the “35”), while the KeyFit 30 can only fit people up to 30 inches tall and 30 pounds. This may not be a big deal for most people, but it could be helpful if you have a bigger baby or want to use your infant seat longer before switching to a convertible seat.

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Clek Liing

If the Clek Liing wasn’t so expensive, we’d tell everyone to get one. It’s a very well-thought-out and well-made car seat. We have never seen an infant seat that’s as easy to set up as this one. It’s cleverly designed so that installing it with the base (either using the LATCH system or the seat belt method) takes very little work. Thus, this is one of the best Best infant car seats you can buy right now.

The Liing is easy to set up and use because Clek has put color-coded indicators all over the seat. Green means everything is fine, and red means something is wrong. This takes the guesswork out of how to use it properly. And unlike the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX and the Chicco KeyFit 30, the Clek Liing is easy to place snugly even if you’re not using the base.

This is because, like the Chicco KeyFit 35, it has a European belt-path configuration, which gives a more secure fit than an American arrangement. The Liing has an extra safety feature called a “load leg.” This is a metal support rod that sits between the car seat and the floor of the car. If there is an accident, the load leg takes some of the initial impact and limits how much the seat can move.

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