Thank you to Graco for providing us with these car seats to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I’ve mentioned quite a few times how important car seat safety is to me. When Blaire was born, I was CLUELESS about car seat safety. In the hospital they told us she looked good in her car seat and that was that. I look back on some photos and realize her straps were too loose, or her chest clip was too low. And ugh, how I wish someone would’ve told me. But, I get it, it’s hard to give someone information regarding the safety of their child without possibly insulting or upsetting them.
We kept Blaire rear-facing until her fourth birthday. Occasionally someone would make a comment about it being “weird” that she was still rear-facing at her age, but studies have found your child is 92% less likely to be seriously injured in a crash if they are rear-facing. To me, that stat makes it worth someone thinking I’m “over protective” or “crazy” or “weird” or whatever.
Since extended rear-facing was so important to us, I was SO excited to get both Blaire and Ben into Graco’s 4Ever Extend2Fit Platinum Car Seat! Not only can they both stay in their seats throughout each of the various stages of car seats, boosters, etc. In the Graco 4Ever Extend2Fit Platinum Car Seat Blaire would be safe rear-facing until she reached 50lbs. For reference, she was about 37lbs on her 4th birthday. I’m so happy we were able to reach our goal of keeping her rear-facing until her 4th birthday.
Before we turned her forward-facing, we started a count down the week before her birthday. She was really excited to finally be forward-facing because to her it was such a symbol of becoming a big girl.
Blaire has been using this car seat for over 4 months and has loved it. She says it’s comfortable and was especially comfortable while she was rear-facing. She loved that it had the little tray (that provides extra leg room when extended rear-facing) for her to rest her legs on.
I have shared before that we love and trust Graco. They’re affordable, and most importantly, they are a brand we trust to keep our babies safe. Their seats have always held up well, which is especially important with a seat like the 4Ever, since we can use it for the next 10 years.
This 4Ever Extend2Fit Platinum car seat is perfect for us. They are the seats we use in my car, which is where our children ride 99.9% of the time. (They usually spend less than an hour per week in Jason’s car, where they both have Graco 4Ever car seats.) It makes me so happy to know Graco takes the benefits of rear-facing (and extended rear-facing) seriously, and is doing their part to allow parents to keep their children rear-facing as long as possible.