Clek Infant-Thingy Infant Insert – What’s the big deal?

It’s no secret that the Clek Fllo and Clek Foonf are two of my favorite convertible seats on the market, with the Clek Fllo being, in my opinion, the best high-end convertible seat out there, just as the Kiddy Evolution Pro is the best infant seat on the market. That said, the Fllo and Foonf suffer one great flaw: they can’t be used until your baby weighs at least 14 pounds. And if that weren’t bad enough, your baby also needs to be able to sit upright without help.

In other words, most parents can’t start out with the Fllo or Foonf because most babies aren’t going to be able to sit up alone and cross the 14 pound barrier until they’re at least 6 months old. This is where the Infant-thingy comes in. It sounds kooky, the way everything by Clek does, but, much like most things Clek does, it’s pretty awesome. It’s basically an infant insert that lets you fit newborns into the Fllo or Foonf, as long as they weigh at least 5 pounds. And in typical Clek sense, it’s designed stylishly and made to be easily cleanable, since you know your baby’s going to make a mess sooner or later.

Buy the Clek Infant-Thingy Infant Insert on Sale at Amazon here.

Clek Infant-Thingy Infant Insert – Fast Facts

The Infant-Thingy can be used exclusively in the Fllo and Foonf when your baby weighs between 5 and 22 pounds and is between 19″ and 33″ in height. The insert can only be used while rear-facing, and it must be used until your baby weighs at least 11 pounds. The crotch strap is 3″ and set to the rear position slot. The bottom harness slot is 9″ high when used with the body support. The head support includes a range of energy-absorbing materials, and the included manual is designed to overrule the Fllo and Foonf manuals.

Using the Clek Infant-Thingy Infant Insert

Head rest removal

The first thing to do with the infant insert doesn’t involve the insert at all; it involves the head rest on your Foonf or Fllo: you’ve got to remove it. You do this by lifting the head rest until it’s in its highest position, and then using your troubleshooting tool (it’s on the back side of the car seat) to get the head rest out. The tool is designed to fit in a tiny hole on the front part of the right head rest guide. A paper clip will also work if you don’t have the tool handy. This is all summarized nicely in the instruction manual for the infant insert. Don’t throw the head rest away, as it’ll be necessary once your child is a bit older again.

Head Support

You need to use the head support that comes with the infant insert until your child weighs at least 14 pounds, is at least 25″ tall, and can sit up without help. You can use the head support beyond this point, but you can’t stop using it before this point. Once you remove it, you need to put the car seat’s head rest back on, as it serves the same function as the Infant-thingy’s head support.

You can tell when your baby should stop using the infant insert head support and start using the Fllo or Foonf’s head support by visual inspection. When his or her head is above the highest part of the infant head support, it’s time for the regular head support.

When you first install the head support, do so 3 slots above the bottom set of slots. Keep in mind that as you move up your harness slots to keep up with your growing child, you’ll do the same with the infant head support to keep it 3 slots above the harness slots you’re using.

Body Support

You need to use the body support if your child weighs between 5 and 11 pounds, but you can keep on using it until your child weighs 22 pounds. You’re also required to use it if you have the car seat’s built in head rest installed and if your child weighs less than 14 pounds, is less than 25″ in height, and can’t sit up without help.

Something neat about the Infant-thingy that you might notice is that the body support is thicker than the head support. The purpose of this is to keep your child’s head tilted a bit back in order to keep his or her airway open. This, by the way, is also why achieving an appropriate recline is a big deal when rear-facing children in car seats. Pretty neat, right?

Other things to keep in mind about the body support is that you’ve got to use the inner crotch strap position. However, if you have to use the longer length, you can. And you’ve also got to keep the belly pad, since it’s required to be used along with the harness buckle.

There are a pair of hip supports that are designed to sit between your child’s hips and the lower lap straps. The lap straps are supposed to go over the hip supports as designed from Clek, so don’t worry about the typical rule of avoiding padding between your child and the car seat harness.

Harness Slots

Finally, it’s worth taking a look at whether the Infant-thingy does its job. What’s it’s job? To help newborns safely fit the Fllo and the Foonf, which weren’t designed out of the box to fit newborns. The minimum requirements for those seats involve kids who weigh at least 14 pounds, who are at least 25″ tall, and who can sit upright without help.  So where does the infant insert change things?

Well, even though the general rule in rear-facing seats is that harness slots need to either be at the shoulder height or below the shoulder height of the child, Clek has tested the infant insert and determined it’s okay for the harness to be above your child’s shoulders even at the lowest slots of the harness if your child is using the infant insert, as long as your child weighs at least 5 pounds. Keep in mind that once your baby starts growing past the lowest harness slots, you’ll want to go back to following the standard rear-facing harness rule.

Buy the Clek Infant-Thingy Infant Insert on Sale at Amazon here.

Why Buy the Clek Infant-Thingy Infant Insert?

The Fllo and Foonf are two of my absolute favorite convertible car seats because they’re two of a very small number of seats that allow you to rear-face children (which is the safest position for our little ones) until they reach 50 pounds, and they’re the only seats on the market that allow you to do it while being able to fit in 3 across positions in virtually every car sold in the United States.

The biggest drawback to these seats, however, is that they couldn’t be used with most infants until they were at least 6 months old. Thanks to the Infant-Thingy infant insert, these seats have now become a very real option for parents interested in using the same seat to rear-face from birth until 4 or 5. I love this!

With this change, there’s no doubt in my mind that the Fllo and Foonf are the two best convertible car seats out there. You can leave the infant seat behind entirely if you want, and just start out with one of these. I wholeheartedly recommend the Fllo, the Foonf, and the Infant-thingy infant insert. You can buy the Clek Fllo here, the Foonf here, and the Infant-Thingy infant insert here. Canadians can buy the Fllo here, the Foonf here, and the insert here.

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