Eddie Bauer Deluxe 3-in-1 Convertible Car Seat
From Dorel Juvenile Group
This Eddie Bauer Deluxe 3-in-1 is the only car seat you will ever need. This car seat can be used as a rear facing infant seat 5 to 35 pounds, a harnessed booster front facing 22-40 pounds and belt positioning booster 40-100 pounds. With EPP foam in the headrest, infant head support, adjustable head pillow, side bolster pillow, pivoting and padded armrests and 5 point harness with up front harness adjustment, your child will be provided with comfort, support and security. This car seat is LATCH equipped for easy installation.
Looks great but not made to fit a baby
First let me say that I work with children, so I do know something about fitting car seats. We wanted to get our newborn a really nice car seat and, since I like Eddie Bauer stuff this seemed great. I also really like the idea that it can stay rear facing for so long and is the only car seat that one ever needs, or so I thought. I still really hope that it will work when he is older and can face forward.
Cons (fitting in car): (1) In the rear facing position it is huge. It just fit into my Subaru if the front seats were all the way forward (good thing I am short). Even in my parent's Envoy the front seats were uncomfortably far forward. It was tempting to put it behind the passenger seat but the center is safest. So only get this as a rear facing seat if you have a huge vehicle. (2) In theory it is not hard to install but had one major design problem: In order to tighten the seat belt or LATCH belt you have to pull back the seat cover and then once the car seat is in place it takes very small, dexterous fingers to get it back on again. This also makes the cover very hard to remove for washing. (3) In order for the rear facing seat to be at the recommended angle the base required a lot of padding. The instructions recommended towels but I ended up with four folded towels which made it difficult to tighten and I still don't think that the line is quite level with the ground (our other car seat needed one small towel). I suspect that many people will end up the seat at the wrong angle because of this.
Cons (fitting to baby): (1) The crotch strap is very short so the buckle is between his legs instead of in front of his pubic bone and pushes into his thighs. (2) The infant insert only has one set of holes for the shoulder straps. He actually fit it quite well when he came home from the hospital (5lb 2oz) but had out grown it by the time he was a normal newborn size even though he could still have used the support. There is no recommendation as to when to use the insert even though if you try to use it with a larger infant it makes it almost impossible to tighten the harness enough which could put children at risk. (3) The seat has a lot of padding which seems good but it is not in the right places. Imagine sitting with a big pillow behind your lower back and another behind your head but nothing behind your shoulders or upper back. I have tried every adjustment that I can find but if the shoulder straps are in the right place (level with the shoulders) and the harness tight enough (one finger fits underneath) that is how my baby looks. I even tried calling the 1-800 number for suggestions but was told that all babies are shaped differently and some just fit better in some car seats better than others (they did not have any suggestions as to what I could try that might help).
Pros: I still hope that the seat will work when my child is old enough to be front facing.
Great Car Seat
I had absolutely no problems installing this car seat and my son LOVES it! The only thing I wish different about this car seat is the center base buckle... its a little short. It makes it a little harder to buckle the baby, but still manageable!
Padding is awful!
Let me start this by saying my husband is a police officer and a nationally certified safety seat technician.
We have a similar seat for our 2 1/2 year old, so we figured we'd just get this one and be good to go. While we noticed it had more padding, we didn't think it would be a problem. Boy were we wrong! As the other reviewer said, there is so much padding, it doesn't provide for a comfortable seating arrangment for the baby. He is pushed so far forward that he can't sit nicely. In addition, the seat had to be jacked up with pool noodles to even be at the right level...and we had to push the drivers seat so far forward to have it at the right angle. We ended up bringing this seat back and opting for the one with less padding...it works much better!
