Cutie Patootie Car Seat Cover Review

When Lindsay’s first baby was in an infant car seat, Lindsay dressed him in his Michelin-man-like snowsuit or used a thick bunting bag to keep him warm in the wintertime.

Lindsay didn’t read the warnings in her car seat manual about avoiding bulky clothing or adding aftermarket components to the seat that interfere with the harness straps. Lindsay didn’t know that bunting bags and thick snowsuits can prevent the car seat harness from being properly tightened, since these thick layers can compress with the force of a collision and put the child at risk of ejection.

Don’t be like Lindsay! Get a Cutie Patootie Car Seat Cover from Carry Me Mommy for your infant bucket seat this winter!

Made in Pincher Creek, AB by stay-at-home-mom Tiffany, and proudly sold by Grand Prairie’s Carry Me Mommy, these affordable and functional car seat covers are, as we say in the biz, “shower-cap style.” This means that the cover goes around the exterior of the car seat like a shower cap, insulating baby and shielding them from the elements without affecting the harness straps.

I don’t like to use even a thin, car-seat-safe snow suit for my twins when I put them in their car seats. This is mainly because I don’t want them to overheat once the van warms up, and also because I find it takes more fiddling to get the correct harness fit even with a thin one-piece suit. Instead of a jacket or suit, I dress them in warm, close-fitting layers, add the appropriate winter accessories, a blanket, and then put the Cutie Patootie cover on top.

Cutie Patootie covers are lined with fleece and have an exterior layer of woven cotton in a variety of fun prints.

The cover fits over our Chicco KeyFits easily, and the elastic keeps it snuggly in place. The zipper allows you to fully open the cover to place baby in the seat. To protect baby from the elements as you head from the door to your vehicle, there is a flap to cover the face opening. This flap is secured to the cover using snaps, so you can remove it entirely, or just flip it up and out of the way to play peekaboo.

Our favourite things about the Cutie Patootie Car Seat Cover:

A safe alternative to bunting bags and thick snow suits
Affordably priced for a quality product that is handmade in Canada
Full-length zipper for easy access to baby and easy buckling
Removable flap to shield baby’s face from the elements
Adorable prints to add some fun to the sometime very un-fun process of leaving the house with children in the winter

This car seat cover is not designed to be used alone if you are spending extended periods outdoors in extremely cold temperatures. If you are using your infant seat with a stroller system and going on long walks when it’s well below zero, you will need to dress baby more warmly than you would for just a car ride. But for transporting baby to and from the vehicle, whether it’s just a bit chilly or it’s the dead of winter, the Cutie Patootie is perfection.

On crisp-but-not-freezing fall days (my favourite kind of days if I’m being honest), I can use the cover and a light blanket, leaving my boys dressed in just a single layer of clothes. When it’s face-freezing cold, I can layer them up, add a toasty blanket and we’re good to go. Once the vehicle warms up, they’re free to kick off their blankets if gets too hot. Remember that if you’re finding yourself sweating and wanting to remove your winter apparel as you drive, baby is probably feeling the heat too! Parents tend to overestimate how much clothing their babies need to travel to and from the car.

Once in your vehicle, it is always recommended to remove any car seat cover from the seat to prevent accidental suffocation or overheating.