Safety 1st sent me a Grow and Go to test out and review for this blog post. All opinions are my own.

The far left photo at the top of this blog post shows the seat rear-facing with the seat belt improperly routed. There is a (somewhat hidden) slot that is under kids’ legs. This path should be used to route the seat belt when in rearfacing mode. You can see how to install properly in this video. The belt path is shown around 1:45 in the video.
The Safety 1st Grow and Go is a 3-in-1 car seat that can be used from 5 pounds all the way up to 100 pounds. It transitions from being a rear-facing seat, to a forward-facing 5 point harness seat to a backless booster. For many kids this seat can take them from birth until they can ride in a vehicle without any form of child restraint.

My nephew Royce is due in about a month and this seat will work with him from birth but it can also accommodate his two siblings, 2.5 year old Kelsie and 5 year old Drew as well. We took one of Kelsie’s baby dolls that was roughly the height of a newborn (18 inches) to show you a really rough idea of what a newborn would look like in the seat.

With little ones who don’t have head control or the ability to sit up yet, it can be a pain to hold them while also trying to move the car seat straps to place them in their seat. The Safety 1st Grow and Go has these little slots on either side of the seat where you can place the buckle pieces to hold the straps out-of-the-way while you put your child in. Of course, you can use these with older kids as well but I think they would be particularly helpful for newborns.

Safety experts recommend keeping children rear-facing as long as possible and in a harness as long as possible for optimal safety. The Safety 1st Grow and Go has generous height and weight limits on both rear-facing and 5 point harness use so you can keep your little one rear-facing and in a harness longer.

On recline “2” for rear-facing (left) or upright “1” for forward facing.

Kelsie is 2.5 and around 32 pounds and she is able to use the Grow and Go in rear-facing mode with quite a bit of room remaining. While it is okay for children’s legs to bent or cross while they are rear-facing, Kelsie’s legs don’t need to fold up because the Grow and Go has lots of leg room. Despite having generous leg room, it doesn’t require that the seat in front of the seat is pushed up into the dashboard. It has two recline positions available in recline mode, though only the most reclined position should be used with babies until they can sit up. Kelsie was in the middle mode in the photos where she’s rear-facing in the car.

You can easily determine what level of recline the seat is in by looking at the side, it will show if it’s in recline mode 1, 2 or 3.

Once your little one is done rear-facing, the 5 point harness can be used forward facing for children 22-65 pounds and up to 52″ tall. Kelsie and Drew both fit within this range. The position of the crotch buckle is adjustable with three slots. Both Kelsie (2) and Drew (5) fit best with the crotch buckle in the third, furthest out position. The buckle is fairly easy to re-position but it does need to be removed from the car to do because you lay it on its back to adjust from underneath.

To adjust harness height pull gray handles towards the center and then push or pull.

With any child, the much more common adjustment involves the height of the straps. For rear-facing, they should be at or just below your child’s shoulder height. For forward facing, they should be at or just above your child’s shoulder height. The Grow and Go does not require re-threading of the harness just to change the harness height. To adjust it, you push both tabs on top of the seat and pull up to raise or push down to lower. I was excited to find that this adjustment can be done with the seat in a car and with kids in the seat. Seems how both Kelsie and Drew use the same crotch-buckle position, the only adjustment needed to use the seat with them is the harness and because of how simple the Grow-and-Go is to adjust the harness of, we can let the kids take turns in the seat. It takes me less than 10 seconds to adjust the harness from fitting one kid to fitting the next and that is so convenient.

Both kids love that there are two cup holders, which is perfect for a snack on one side and a drink on the other. Drew mentioned that this seat has a lot of padding so it’s more comfortable than his other seat.

Overall we were pleased with the seat and felt that it adjusted to fit both kids nicely. The Safety 1st Grow and Go is available at Babies R US for $169.99.

Emily

Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.

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