The main feature of rotating car seats is that the portion of the seat that holds the baby and includes the harness, known as the shell, spins upon a separate base. While the rotating shell doesn’t come off the base completely, its ability to swivel on the base offers one key advantage: easier access for harnessing.
Rotating the seat to face the car door can help with the loading, unloading, and harnessing of a child simply because you don’t have to perform these tasks at an angle or lean into the car. That straight-on view can be helpful to ensure that the harness is positioned and tightened correctly before then swiveling the seat back to the position the child will ultimately travel in.
Some of these seats also offer a second advantage: Once the base is installed, you don’t have to remove it to transition the seat between rear- and forward-facing orientations. Essentially you won’t have to relearn how to install the seat to make that change.
We have tested six rotating child seat models. Three (Baby Jogger City Turn, Cybex Sirona S, and Nuna Revv) are convertible models for use both rear- and forward-facing. The three others (Evenflo Gold Revolve 360, Graco Turn2Me, and Maxi-Cosi Emme) are all-in-one models, designed to accommodate kids from birth to booster age. Our test results show that while they all offer the convenience of rotation, they are not all created equal.
Some things you should know before you buy a rotating car seat:
• Rotating child seat models aren’t inexpensive. Of the six models we have tested, each is priced at more than $350, with the most expensive going for $550. With the average price of both convertible and all-in-one models around $250, these seats come at a premium.
• Because the seat rotates, you will need to check that the shell is locked securely to the base in the appropriate direction before you travel.
• They are among the heaviest seats in their categories. When combining the base and shell these seats often weigh more than average models. If moving a child seat between vehicles is something you need to do often, these may not be right for you.
• These are not well-suited to small cars, where the combination of the base and shell means that the seats may take up more room on the rear seat and sit higher. This may mean limited space for passengers seated in front of them or contact between the seat and the vehicle ceiling.
• Unlike rear-facing only infant seats that can be removed from their bases and used separately, the shell portion of the rotating seats remains with the base and does not double as a carrier.
