Do you know which brand you want? I usually just buy car seats directly from the supplier, since the consequence of getting a knockoff from somewhere like Amazon is potentially so risky.
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No, I really don’t! I’m looking for ease of installation. When we bought one for W we just went to BRU and they had a guy who showed us a bunch of them.
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Two suggestions:
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Get an extra base for the same brand that dd already has in her car. That way you can just plop in the same car seat into your base.
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Chico keyfit and Graco snug fit are bestsellers for a reason. We know lots of people who have been happy with them (we had the Graco) and they have pretty easy easy install. I think we went with Graco because Pipsqueak was measuring small at it went down to like 6lb
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Agree with #1 - we bought an extra base for my Mom to announce our pregnancy
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There were a couple local baby gear stores that had some car seats and strollers to look at/play with. We also happen to have a “Babylist showroom” an hour away which was great because no pressure to buy on the spot, just exploring different gear. Obviously Target, Walmart will also have some, and I think Pottery Barn Kids will have a few, but these are generally small selections.
If you want more hard facts/stats recommendations, my husband has been a fan of babygearlab (related to an outdoor gear review site he likes).
Which doesn’t really help with where to buy, but maybe helps pick a seat to buy from the manufacturer?
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Do the parents already have a ‘bucket seat?’ if so, you can usually buy an extra base and not the whole seat?
Edit, I see that I am echoing two others above 
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Our small baby fit fine in the keyfit!
A factor to consider: Graco requires that car seats be discarded after ANY ACCIDENT of any severity, whereas a Chicco only needs to replaced after a more significant accident. When the cuckoo was 11 days old, someone hit my van in the parking lot bad enough that it was in the shop for several days (my MIL was waiting in the van with her while I went to Target, they were not hurt). A Graco would have been trash after that!
Anyway, I agree with the advice to get an extra base if DD is using a bucket. If not, consider prioritizing ease of loading baby. My mom (68 at the time) used a rotating car seat when she had to bring my niece’s baby to her work for Niece to feed.
Buy Buy Baby still exists, is there one of those near you?
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Do they? All the ones near me shut down.
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There is one in the Denver suburbs.
We went to Kohls after tai chi this morning because I remembered that they have a lot of baby stuff, and we could at least look at some. They did only have Graco, but we could see how they worked.
Dd has whatever big car seat Costco carries and seems unclear about whether it has a base. It doesn’t look like it to me.
I think I’d like an infant bucket seat that we can sling into the grocery cart and just click back into the car. Also maybe the stroller frame for it as dd doesn’t have a stroller - in all fairness it’s January in Wisconsin and no one is strolling- but it seems like it might make life easier.
And then of course we’ll eventually need a bigger car seat and we will definitely get one of those that swivels around.
Talk about inflation! Holy moly but those prices have gone up. No wonder people aren’t having babies!
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PSA that this isn’t recommended for safety (but I’d probably be a hypocrite if I said I’d never put a car seat in a cart or a floor). But be sure you can watch neck/head/breathing and don’t put the seat on top of the cart (drop/fall risk, obviously… ).
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I am thinking about getting an air purifier/cleaner as we have 3 dogs and the dust and hair is just unmanageable. I basically need to dust and vacuum everyday, but probably do it 3x a week.
We tore up our backyard this fall removing an inground pool and it is basically dirt covered in straw and is making everything much worse as more dirt is tracked inside than normal.
Does anyone have any experience/recommendations for an air cleaner? The main family room area is about 450 SF. Any other suggestions for keeping things cleaner would be appreciated as well. I did get a huge (7X11) waterhog door mat for the new back porch, which is helping some. A robot vac doesn’t seem viable as it’s a step down to the family room and lots of furniture and dog toys to navigate.
Sorry for going on and on, I’m just kind of over it and need help!
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We use coway air purifiers but they are mostly for small (heppa) particles. There is a pre filter that catches some larger dust but Im not sure if that’s what you mean by air cleaner?
We have three different models and they all work really well for keeping the AQI good indoors if that’s your main concern.
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My main concern is dust and dog hair. I don’t think it would do much for the dog hair, but reducing dust would be a big plus. I’ve read that a pre-filter will help some with hair.
How loud are the ones you have? Where do you place them and do you think placement makes a big difference?
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I have one in each (upstairs) bedroom and one at the transition between the (downstairs) dining room/living.
I live in Los Angeles, where air quality is not great and where we have fires every few years that make it extremely bad. The air purifiers are extremely effective at keeping the air quality good. I have a separate AQI monitor (air things) and it’s very clear that the air quality indoors is good, we see a spike if we open windows on a bad air day and it comes back down when we turn up the air purifier. I usually run them on automatic so they kick up to high which is loud on occasion but are usually very quiet. There is also a sleep mode that is even quieter but I prefer the white noise.
The coway models are sized for sq ft so I just go by that. Many of their models have a pre filter and they have recently introduced multiple options for the prefilter. So there’s a mesh screen that catches some dust/debris, a pre filter that’s usually some sort of activated carbon, and then the hepa.
We have used blue air in the past and they work but I like the options on coway to have lights on/off, variable speeds, and the form factor. My parents have some from Honeywell that also work fine.
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We also have a Coway, and whenever I clean the prefilter there is a ton of cat hair on it, so it’s doing something! (We have two cats). We bought it a couple of summers ago when we had terrible wildfire smoke, but thankfully we have not had too many repeats of that to test it out again.
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I’m not sure that it’s exactly what you want, but the Wirecutter writeup on air purifiers might be helpful!
My experience is with the Coway and blueair brands. The Coway seems quieter/better for larger spaces. It’s done an extremely good job cleaning the air in a construction/house project zone, but it’s capabilities are limited in the sense that if a particle isn’t in the air it can’t catch it. So if I let it run on auto until it’s back down to a good air quality measure it really minimized how much dust gets into the rest of the house. But there is still a lot of dust/debris that settles out onto surfaces in the construction zone, even with the purifier running 24/7
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Any brand recommendations or anti-recommendations for a kitchen faucet? We’re probably going to pick one out in person, but it would be nice to narrow it down. The issue with the one we have now is that the handle loosens (and is possible but very tricky to tighten) and it’s really difficult to control the temperature.
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I love my Kohler faucets so much, all of our sink faucets are now Kohler. They also have great customer service.
I got them open box on eBay or from the Amazon returns section for a significant discount. Note that all the big brands have a cheap line that they sell all the big box stores, and a high quality line that they sell at plumbing supply stores, so look for models sold at the plumbing stores.
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Kitchen faucet see heavy use and if they fail it’s a major problem for daily life. I only buy the most reputable brands like Delta and Kohlerand Moen. They cost more but last a lot longer and have solid warranties.
For a sink faucet in a guest bathroom I’ll cheap out and get whatever is on sale. Much lower stakes.
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