Best Infant Car Seats of 2025, Lab-Tested and Reviewed

While all child seats have to meet federal safety requirements, our ratings are designed to highlight car seats that offer a greater margin of safety.

A rear-facing-only infant car seat is a safe option for transporting your baby home from the hospital and for the first 6 months to a year. Based on our testing, CR recommends switching from an infant seat to a rear-facing convertible or all-in-one no later than the child’s first birthday.

CR’s infant car seat ratings include 14 load-leg infant seats, meaning a “leg” extends from the seat’s base to the floor of the vehicle. Load legs make the seat more stable, help integrate the car seat into the vehicle during a crash, and reduce the amount of impact a baby would experience.

Load-leg seats are becoming increasingly common in the U.S., but our tests reveal that not all designs are created equal. In general, there is an advantage to having a car seat with a load leg in a crash. But depending on the car seat’s overall design, our tests show that there may still be cases where the baby’s head can come into contact with the back of a front seat, increasing the risk of injury.

That impact against the simulated front seatback in our tests takes away points from the seat’s crash protection score. And some load-leg seats are easier to use than others, which can also affect the car seat’s fit-to-vehicle and ease-of-use scores. 

Child seats have come a long way over the years, but proper installation is key. On the “Consumer 101” TV show, Consumer Reports expert Jennifer Stockburger showed host Jack Rico what to do to keep little ones safe in a car.