I have been cutting down on doing product reviews ever since our 3rd kiddo came along in end of Sept 2013 and especially now with 4th kiddo due in mid of November 2016. I do still accept review pitches but only when time permits and if it is something that I can see it being useful and beneficial to our family. Also, as busy as I am with 3 kiddos, being preggy, home cooking, educating our kiddos, taking care of hubby's administration site of the business and swamped up with managing my FB page and blog, I just can't say no to reviewing products from a big brand name like Chicco, a well- established brand from Italy since 1958 and have been in Malaysia for 13 years now. All the more I gotta say yes!
About the company:
"Chicco has been in Malaysia for almost 13 years however, the brand started since 1958. Back in Italy, Chicco owns a baby research centre called the Osservatorio Chicco. Our research centre studies kids of age 0 to 5 years old psycho-physical, emotional and social need. The first few years are a vital period for the growth of all children, a period which full of significant changes and physical and psychological needs, for them and the families. We design our products based on our baby research."
We received 3 products from Chicco for our review and today's post will be on "Chicco Nextfit Convertible Car Seat Passion USA". I chose the Red Passion color (there are 2 more colors available which is black and sand) as I personally like the striking colors (can see from far hahahaha) as well as most of our baby products are in red anyway (the OCD-ness in me wants to match everything in a color hahahaha). Also the stroller we got from Chicco for review is also in red color as well.
Now what I like about this car seat is most importantly, it caters for kiddos with weight range of 0 - 36kg! That would be like from newborn to even 5-6 years old! I mean, as a parent with 4 kiddos (our 4th one is due mid Nov 2016), it would be very economical for us if the children products we use in our family can last as long as possible.
Alright, let's get down to checking out the features of this car seat!
Firstly, we noticed the 5-point harness which adjusts automatically as headrest is raised. Cool! Very nice for Chicco to be so thoughtful in this sense, to cater the adjustment of harness as the headrest is raised up or down. The car seat also has an adjustable chest clip which can accommodate growing children in both rear- and forward-facing modes.
Another cool thing with this car seat is it comes with ReclineSure®, where you can choose any of the 9-positions to recline for an accurate fit — the most of any convertible seat! Our previous car seats can recline 2 positions only and to have an option to recline up to 9 positions, awesome possum!
Next, to be honest, this is the first time I see a RideRight bubble levels at the sides of the car seat which easily indicates to you whether the seat is at the correct angle, whether it is rear-facing or forward-facing. Coolness!
As mentioned earlier on the adjustable headrest, I really like the height-adjustable headrest feature which is very easy for us parents to adjust and I'm happy with this feature as it can support for our growing children. Too many car seats in the market that we have come across that simply do not cater for growing child. You often see a tall kiddo slump or slouching in their car seat as the headrest was fixed together with the car seat.
Once hubby and I have checked out the car seat's features, we moved on to installing it in my Nissan Sentra. I'm not sure whether it is my backseat or hubby's plump hands (hehehe) but it was quite a challenge to slip in our Nissan's car seatbelt through the back of Chicco's car seat. We decided to install the car seat forward-facing as our youngest kiddo is almost 3 and I prefer to be able to look at what she's doing while I'm driving the car. There is an integrated slide path for re-positioning LATCH straps during conversion from rear- to forward-facing of the car seat.
This is how the car seat looks like once it has been safely and secured installed at the backseat of my car. Elegant and classy, eh?!
Then hubby and I realised we almost forgot one more feature of the car seat! The car seat comes with a removable cup holder for use on either side of the seat. But then we also realised most of our kiddos' water bottles are way too big to fit into the cup holder. Sigh... but nice feature though!
And finally, what is a product review if we don't test it out with our kiddo right? So, for our very next outing, we got our youngest kiddo (she will be 3 in end of Sept 2016) to sit inside the car seat and test it out. I think we need more practise with the chest clip as she keeps on refusing it to be placed higher (she's not used to this as all our previous car seats do not have this chest clip feature) so for now, we let the chest clip remains low as it is until she is more comfortable for us to raise it higher bit by bit. Once she was securely strapped in, she even gave a thumbs up sign and she looks so comfortably coccooned in the car seat.
Overall, a very good product that is versatile and caters to your growing child from even newborn stage! We love it!
You can check out Chicco stores
Do note that I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the products in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.
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