best infant car seat?

Hello and congratulations.

Both the COSCO infant carrier and base model converitble fit comfortably in the rear center seats, _however_ you will not be able to use the base on the infant carrier, as it pushes the infant carrier out too far. You'll get used to lacing the seat belt thru it pretty quickly, it's not difficult.

We did not try other infant carriers since we knew that they would only run for about 6-9months before outgrowing it.

The same brand convertible fits in the gen 2 in both rear and front facing configurations with the front seats 'comfortably' configured. Britax blvd convertible will fit in front facing only (so, you'll have to wait a year.)

Note that you should really check whether the seat will fit rear facing for you. Depending on how far back (and how reclined) the front seats are, this will actually remove choices for you pretty quickly. There are very few convertibles that will fit rear facing configuration in the gen2 prii, (or most cars for that matter.) The problems that we saw were primarily related to the rear facing configuration puts the 'head' side of the seat really close (or touching) the front seats. Also, none of the infant carrier bases were really that suitable. Not really a problem though for most of them, the seatbelt can be laced through the infant carrier, not using the base at all.

Would recommend going to a real store and asking to fit check in your exact configuration. This is especially true for the convertibles since they're a bit bigger and heavier.

Also, if you haven't done so already, would highly recommend a car seat class, it helped us make an informed selection by helping us filter through the hype!

Congrats and good luck!

 

We recently had to purchase a carseat because my newest child outgrew her infant carrier/carseat. After doing a crap-load of research, and looking at every available seat, we went with the Clek Foonf. Yeah, that's the name. It has 2 drawbacks: It's expensive, and it's heavy. I honestly think that we got our $ worth. It is very well designed and built.