I have the Aria V1, we got ours before the V2 was released. We have had no issues with the V1 and use it with the uppababy minu travel stroller (love this stroller too). I believe the new V2 features allow the car seat to be used a little longer than the V1 (worth confirming I’m not mistaken), but I’ve been seeing the V1 on sale recently for a great price! Both are great choices, having a lightweight newborn car seat is amazing for pp recovery and when the baby gets heavier over time haha
We started with a convertible to avoid having to buy an infant seat. Our daughter was born winter, and after a month or two we decided to bite the bullet and get an infant seat and an extra base. The ability to carry her into appointments in the seat, as well as to snap her into the stroller for quick stops was really helpful. Also, much easier to deal with a little baby in the infant seat when it is raining or snowing, and the seat is warm when you put them in because it stays in the house.
Now that she is older and in a convertible seat again, we find it often leads to us having to be much more careful about planning. We like to time our longer drives around naptime, but that means once she is asleep we can’t really make any additional stops, unless we are both in the car and one person stays with her.
Getting an infant car seat with good longevity is recommended. We had an Aria v1 and she grew out of it really fast due to design flaws(she’s not a small baby but not huge). She is still nowhere near the limits on paper but was really uncomfortable. Hopefully the V2 is much better, but based on my experience I probably will go with a different infant seat for our second baby, thinking maybe Clek Liing. I would really like to keep the second baby in the infant seat to 12 months at least, hopefully longer.
I have the mesa and my baby is now 9 months. My biggest regret is not getting the aria!
This seat is so damn heavy!!
The aria v1 is on sale everywhere because the v2 comes out soon.
We use the aria at first because it came with the travel system that my mother-in-law gave us. But she was very uncomfortable with that, would cry all the time and while I’d like that it had the stroller attachment, which made it convenient, we rarely used that. We use the bassinet instead. We wound up getting when she turned about four months to the Chicco fit 360, it’s a bigger seat, but she is so comfortable and so happy.
You can go to snugglebugz and they let you try the infant car seats in your car to see the fit
We have CRV and RAV4 and went with the Liing mainly due to the load leg and increased weight limit over the aria. We did buy the vista v3 as well and the attachment works fine and is low profile.
However the aria V1 now is on sale and if we hadn’t purchased the liing already we would’ve gotten the aria V1 instead given the lower price point at $350
We went with the Mesa (v2) to fit in our gen 3 Prius and Honda Fit, mostly because we knew it would work seamlessly with the stroller system (Cruz v2). It was a snug fit, but it worked. We had tested a bunch of seats out at Snugglebugz before buying and found the Mesa to fit decently in both vehicles. The Nuna Pipa straight up didn't fit in my Prius. 😥
The Aria had JUST come out when I was looking, and I liked that it was extra light and extra compact, but my son was very large and we decided to play it safe and get the regular size Mesa so that we could use it for longer. He was definitely over 22lbs by the time we switched him to a convertible seat, so he would have maxed the Aria out. I also ended up attaching the carrier to the stroller nearly all the time I had it out of the car, so the weight was a non-issue.
Top Travel Car Seats on Reddit
1
Cosco Kids
Scenera Next DLX Convertible Car Seat
78% positive of 238 users
Super light, cheap, great for air travel, but outgrown fast.
Altruistic_Gain_430
