Wayb Pico

With a compact fold and an optional backpack for convenient carrying, the Pico is a great option for ride-sharing parents who want to keep their child safe! It’s miserable to lug a large, heavy car seat around on every family outing. But it’s not safe to skip the seat, either. The Pico is a great option for families who need to bring their car seat along wherever they go!

Travel is truly where the Pico shines! The Pico solves all the logistical challenges of schlepping a car seat through the airport. It’s so small and lightweight that it’s one of the easiest seats we know of when it comes to airplane travel. Installing with the airplane lap belt is a piece of cake, and the seat is so low-profile that your child will probably be able to use the tray table in flight for snacking or playing! While it’s certainly an investment, especially compared to some of our other favorite travel car seats, frequent flyers just might find that the convenience factor is worth the price tag.

At under 15 inches wide, the Pico is the narrowest car seat available in the US. This means it can fit in places that no other car seat can! Now, before we can give it our ringing endorsement as the best-ever car seat for three-across, we need to touch on the fact that this seat can be difficult to install with the vehicle seatbelt (more on this below!), so it may be a challenge to securely install this car seat in narrow center spots. But if there’s no other car seat small enough to fit, well, it’s probably worth it to take on that challenge!

The Pico is a unique car seat that only offers forward-facing mode. It also has lower limits than most other forward-facing harness options, as it’s outgrown at 45” or 50lbs. It also has a fairly short harness height compared to other seats, at 16.5” high. This means that most kids will outgrow the Pico by height, weight, or torso height earlier than they’ll outgrow other premium car seat options.

For kids who are average or petite for their age, the Pico should last long enough for the child to go straight to a belt-positioning booster after outgrowing the Pico. However, larger kids may outgrow the Pico by 4-5 years old. And those kids will need another harness car seat to bridge the gap until they’re mature enough to sit in a booster.

Outside of the US and Canada, vehicle seatbelts typically don’t have a locking mechanism for installing car seats. You’ll need another way to lock the vehicle seatbelt: a locking clip or a car seat with a built-in lock-off. Since there’s no lock-off on the Wayb Pico, you’d need a locking clip to use it outside of the US and Canada — but locking clips are cumbersome and challenging to use. Especially on a seat like the Pico, which is already hard to install with the vehicle seatbelt! Depending on your destination, you may find vehicles that have lower anchors (also called ISOFIX). If so, you can install this seat with lower anchors instead of the seat belt. And the Pico is easy to install with lower anchors, so that’s what we recommend! Watch this step-by-step video to learn how to use a locking clip and practice lots before your trip!

There’s no way around it: the Pico is really tough to install with a vehicle seatbelt. The lap belt must be routed through two small belt guides within the car seat — but it’s really hard to tighten the seatbelt enough once it’s routed correctly. Because of this, we recommend using lower anchors for installation whenever they’re available in the vehicle. The good news is that this seat is so lightweight that lower anchors can be used all the way through 50 pounds — that’s the life of the car seat!

The Pico has one single harness height. This is a very unique design — we’re all used to adjusting our children’s harness heights as they grow! Instead, users will adjust the headrest height to properly contain the child’s head, while the harness height stays the same. For smaller kids, this can create a bit of an awkward-looking fit, with the harness several inches higher than the child’s shoulders. Don’t worry! This is how the seat is designed, and it’s safe as long as the harness is tightened properly.

And speaking of tightening that harness, this is another unique aspect of the Pico! Instead of pulling a single strap at the front edge of the car seat, parents must tighten each harness strap individually by tugging on a tail by each of the child’s hips. Each harness strap must be loosened individually as well. While this process can feel strange to get used to, we don’t think it’s difficult — but if it is too cumbersome, most kids who are old enough to use the Pico can probably squeeze their arms in and out of a tight harness, and you can avoid adjusting it each ride.

The crotch buckle length is one of the only common user complaints we hear about the Pico. It is fairly short, and you can adjust or move it further away from the child, like most car seats allow. This can turn into a comfort issue for some children as they approach the upper limits of this car seat.