Do You Need a Second Base for Your Baby Car Seat?

I hate to be anti-climatic, but the simple answer is no.  In fact, to my surprise (seriously) you don't even need one base for your car seat.  Clark is my first and only child, before him I had no experience at all with small children.  His was the first car seat I ever handled.  I thought a base was required to install a car seat.  When my wife needed to take the baby somewhere, I removed the base from my car and put it in hers.  Then vice-versa later in the day.

All your base are belong to us!

One day I was looking at the stickers on my son's car seat and I realized the installation instructions on that sticker were different from the instructions on the sticker located on the base.  Then it hit me! You can install a car seat with nothing more than a seat belt (lap or shoulder).  No base required.

The car seat base and definitely a second base are just conveniences.  Convenient, but not necessary.  Loading a car seat into a car with a base probably takes less than two seconds (click-click).  Loading a car seat without a base will take 5 second for a speedster, but probably closer to 15-30 seconds for the average person (pulling the belt, buckling it and locking it into proper position).  Same for removing the car seat.  However, many people leave their car seat in the car permanently, once the baby is too heavy for them to carry around in his carrier, so differences in loading time becomes negligible. With a base the seat belt is threaded through the base.  This keeps the seat belt away from curious little hands and baby bodily fluids.

Putting an Infant Car Seat in Shouldn't Require a PhD

With all due respect to my writing partner, Alejandra's dad, who has an engineering degree,  it doesn't take an engineering degree to install a baby car seat.

People make it out to be more complicated than it needs to be.  If you place the infant car seat in the center of the back seat of your car, installation is not much different than fastening your seat belt on an airplane.  Thread the "center" lap belt through the base of the car seat.  Then tighten as much as possible. Ta Da!   Otherwise place the seat on the left or right side of the back seat.  Thread the shoulder-lap belt through the base of the car seat.  Pull the belt to its furthest extent and then tighten.  You are done!  Place baby seat on base and you can go about your parental business.

The guy from the "Baby Store" who helped us wheel the box with our travel system that included our car-seat, said he had purchased the same model and his wife had the same car model as my wife.  He mentioned that in order for this brand-new car seat to function properly he had to weld a hook onto the back seat.  Um ... Why?

The instructor of our baby-care class told the class a story in which a father who went to pick up his wife and new baby from the hospital was told that his car seat was improperly installed and incompatible with his car.  He purchased two more car seats that day until he found one that worked and was able to get his baby released from the hospital holding cell.  That story can't be true, because I'm pretty sure 98% or more * of all cars are compatible with nearly every car seat installation by following the super easy instruction mentioned above without any deviations or welding classes required.