Our three kids are used to sharing a lot of their things, but as they grow older they tend to stake claim to what is ‘theirs’ and the daily lessons of generosity seem to be never ending.
Our middle child had her third birthday not too long ago, and we noticed that her carseat was seeming a bit snug. It will be a great fit for our youngest, who is the perfect age to move up from an infant- to a rear-facing carseat. But we faced the conundrum of what to do – buy a bigger, five-point harness style seat for the next few years, and then buy another booster style seat when she’s big enough? Or hope that her brother will outgrow his booster seat by then and be able to hand it down her? Not too mention that her current carseat is ‘hers,’ one of those items she staked claim to and had no intentions of sharing.
Imagine our relief when we discovered the Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 Car Seat. This car seat will help keep our kiddo secure from 22 to 100 lbs. That’s a car seat that literally pulls it’s own weight! Nautilus™ is a 3-in-1 car seat that converts from a harnessed booster to a high back belt-positioning booster and finally to a backless belt positioning booster. Not only will our girl be safe until she’s well into her school-age years, but once she is big enough to use only a seatbelt while in the car, the Nautilus will convert right back to a harness- or belt-booster for our youngest to use too.
We were so excited to install the new Nautilus for our middle daughter. After we opened the box and made the strap and height adjustments (which were some of the simplest adjustments we’ve made to a car seat yet!), we were all ready to do the musical chairs version of car seat installation and put everyone in their new place.
Except for our middle child. She was convinced she would NOT share her current too-small-for-her car seat with her younger sister and she definitely had NOTHING to do with the new, special, only-for-her Nautilus. We pointed out the cupholder, the secret compartments on the inside of the arm rests, the reclining seat feature. We talked it up so much that our oldest kid asked if it could be HIS carseat instead! It took quite a few days of coaxing, explaining, and pep-talks to bring her around, but finally we took a weekend morning to shift all the car seats to their new places. The Nautilus snapped right into place with the industry standard LATCH system and with a few tugs of the anchor belts it was ready for use. Even our daughter – the one who fought the whole process – happily climbed up and into the car seat and enjoyed a morning car trip around the city, proudly buckled into ‘her’ new car seat.
The Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 Car Seat will provide our family with safe, comfortable, and stylish travel for years to come. Here’s to hoping that through those years, our children will happily hand over ‘their’ Nautilus once they outgrow it to the next one in line.