Safety 1st Smooth Ride

Seat is Good for You If:

You need the most bang for your buck.

There are plenty of inexpensive car seat options out there. Unfortunately, many of those seats can feel like more trouble than they are worth: lots of them are difficult to install, hard to adjust, bulky…or all of the above! But the Safety 1st Smooth Ride is an easy-to-install car seat and straightforward, and lasts most kids from birth to preschool — all for under $100! 

We can’t overstate how impressive and important this car seat is: as a user-friendly and financially accessible option, the Cosco Scenera Extend is a groundbreaking car seat.

You are looking for a convertible car seat that works from birth. 

This is one of the best convertible car seats to use for a newborn. It has very low harness slots, so as long as your baby is at least 19", it will work well. 

You often travel via Uber/Lyft/taxi.

The Safety 1st Smooth Ride weighs around 7 pounds, so once your child outgrows an infant seat, this is one of the best options to tote around with you. You can easily attach it to a stroller handle with a bungee cord. We have also found that it works well with the Mountain Buggy Nano Stroller when the car seat is placed forward-facing. 

You frequently fly with your child.

After your child has outgrown the infant seat, this may be a great next step for you if you fly frequently. It’s lightweight at around 7 pounds. 

Use Caution if:

You need to fit 3 across. 

The Safety 1st Smooth Ride is 19" wide, so it's not one of the seats we would recommend if you need to fit three people in one row of your vehicle. Check out these instead.

Your baby is above the 90th percentile in height or weight.

The Safety 1st Smooth Ride will allow most children to rear-face until they turn two years old. However, it may not last much longer than that for bigger kids. We have a 13-month-old pictured here to show how short the seat is. 

You plan to use this seat forward-facing, too

We recommend maxing out rear-facing limits of your car seat before switching to forward-facing. The manufacturer of the Safety 1st Smooth Ride actually requires that you do so!  Due to this car seat’s height, weight, and harness height limits, when you max it out rear-facing, you have nearly maxed out the forward-facing limits as well.  

When your child reaches the rear-facing limits,  are a minimum of two years old, and you plan to switch them forward-facing -- plan to purchase a forward-facing only combination (harness and high back booster) seat unless you want to rear-face longer in a different seat.

Quirks to be Aware of:

Use the inside-out trick to install.

The Safety 1st Smooth Ride doesn’t have any fancy features to make installation easier, but that’s okay if you know this installation technique! Whether you’re installing with lower anchors or the vehicle seatbelt, pull the car seat cover up off one of the sides and tighten from inside the belt path. With the inside-out trick, this car seat can be securely installed in no time!

It’s usually outgrown forward-facing before it’s outgrown rear-facing.

The top harness height is only 13.5”. Many kids are able to use it longer rear-facing than forward-facing. This is because the harness should be at or below the shoulders when rear-facing, but must be at or above when forward-facing.