Convertible car seats, Britax?

MrsIH · February 2011

Wow, LO is only a few pounds away from out-growing his infant seat (!!) I wouldn't have thought we'd have to get a convertible seat already

I have heard so much about Britax, here and from a few friends (one of which has 3 boys and she swears by Britax). Which one would you recommend? I might as well start looking for one now, TIA

lola808 · February 2011

We have the Marathon in our Camry. Started using it around 6 or 7 months, but LO would have been great in it sooner too. No complaints, especially when you get them on Amazon sales.

lola808 · February 2011

We have the Marathon in our Camry. Started using it around 6 or 7 months, but LO would have been great in it sooner too. No complaints, especially when you get them on Amazon sales.

lelekay · February 2011

I'm glad you posted this! We're going to need to go carseat shopping soon, too. I was thinking Marathon, but haven't decided for certain yet. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.

MauiWedding08 · February 2011

do you have access to a store that sells them so you can try them in your vehicle?

I had trouble finding one that would fit in the middle seat of my jetta because the opening is pretty narrow between the seats and the driver seat needs to be back pretty far since I'm kind of tall.

A marathon and roundabout fit ok behind the passenger seat, but didn't leave much room for the passenger.

I prefer Jack to be in the middle so I did not end up going with a britax. I have since been able to try a sunshine kids radian and it fit really well in the middle with really high rear facing limits so I anticipate buying one of those in the near future because the one we went with (combi coccorro) has a low rear face weight limit (33lb) and pretty short shell. Considering we never had an infant seat I'm still ok with the fact that we purchased it because it fits really really nicely and the tech loved the install.

It's strange because lots of people can get various seats in their "compact cars" but I never had much luck in my jetta. Not sure if it's because of my driver seat position or if it is the car. I think it has a little to do with the car because I tried out the seat that is in DH's car (a huge truefit) and it fit fine (didn't actually install though) in my work prius, in any seat configuration.

MrsNJSwimmer · February 2011

We have the Roundabout and have been happy with it.

lola808 · February 2011

MauiWedding08:
do you have access to a store that sells them so you can try them in your vehicle?
I had trouble finding one that would fit in the middle seat of my jetta because the opening is pretty narrow between the seats and the driver seat needs to be back pretty far since I'm kind of tall.
A marathon and roundabout fit ok behind the passenger seat, but didn't leave much room for the passenger.

Good point about trying it. The Marathon fits in the middle seat rear-facing in our Camry and 4-runner.

MrsIH · February 2011

MauiWedding08:
do you have access to a store that sells them so you can try them in your vehicle?

Yes! We do. I'm so glad you mentioned that because we have a Jetta as well. When we bought our Peg Perego we were driving my parents SUV because we were buying a few big baby items that day. We were really on the fence about buying the car seat without trying it in our vehicle. Luckily it worked out but it's a bit tight in the middle. We'll definitely be trying out the convertible seats to see what works best for our car. The Jetta is pretty compact but it's doable for us at the moment, in the near'ish future I think we'll definitely be looking for a bigger vehicle (especially when we have two kids).

SanHawaii08 · February 2011

MauiWedding08:
I have since been able to try a sunshine kids radian and it fit really well in the middle with really high rear facing limits

i'm thinking we might get the radian b/c of this, and also b/c it's supposed to have one of the smallest footprints - good if you need to fit 2 in the back!

MauiWedding08 · February 2011

SanHawaii08:
MauiWedding08:
I have since been able to try a sunshine kids radian and it fit really well in the middle with really high rear facing limits
i'm thinking we might get the radian b/c of this, and also b/c it's supposed to have one of the smallest footprints - good if you need to fit 2 in the back!

yeah, I really like the looks of it in person. The local cloth diaper store got some in recently.

I don't anticipate ever getting a larger car b/c both DH and I have to drive so far for work so it's important to me to find seats that will fit ok in small cars (same as you, keeping in mind seats that would fit well together if we have another child).

mrspresley · February 2011

we're shopping for one right now too funny how our kids are about a year apart and about the same size LOL

i'm pretty sure we're getting the britax boulevard since i was able to find a good price on it but i want to see how it fits in my car first. i heard good things about the radian. if you scroll back some on my FB page you'll see i asked about car seats and there were some answers from some other mamas there that might interest you...

Married2MrWright · February 2011

We just got a Britax Boulevard 70 CS online last week for a great price! Found it for $244.19 with free shipping at BabyCatalog.com With the storm, it hasn't arrived yet, but we expect it soon. I got it because of the great reviews and it's been rated well for taller/bigger babies, which we've got!

I hope we can keep her in the Graco SnugRide 32 until early March because we have to have her go to a friend's for babysitting while my mom is out of town and they prefer the smaller seat since they have two other carseats in their car already. She's not outgrown it just yet, so I am sure we'll be fine, but I know she'll be happy to not be so reclined once we transition her. That said, we plan to try and rear-face until she's at least 2. We shall see how that goes...

myday1708 · February 2011

We have the Britax Advocate 70 CS and it fits well in our VW Tiguan.

The "70" in the name refers to the newest model, so if you get a Britax, make sure you get a 70. The older models are cheaper but don't have the new side-impact feature.

CS refers to Click-Safe or Click-Smart... It's a click that you hear when the strap is tight enough. I thought at first that it was unnecessary but now I love that feature.

In addition to the "true side impact technology" that the other seats have, the Advocate has extra side-impact barriers. That is good bc it's safe. But it makes the seat HUGE. Meaning that it's too big for an airplane and doesn't fit into our airplane car seat bag. So we'll probably buy a cheaper COSTO car seat for travel. If that is an issue for you, I'd probably recommend the Boulevard 70 CS.

Oh, and I got it on sale with free shipping from BabyCatalog.com

HTH!

MrsZiz · February 2011

myday1708:

CS refers to Click-Safe or Click-Smart... It's a click that you hear when the strap is tight enough. I thought at first that it was unnecessary but now I love that feature.

We have a marathon that I loved at first and now I hate it. It's hard to adjust the straps tight enough. We also have the CS feature and when I took Bella in to the car seat fitting I found out that it "clicks" even when it should go down tighter... so it's a false alarm thing IMO. I thought it would be a great feature for DH or for grandparents but then when the tech said "this thing should click about 3 more times before it's really tight enough for her", it worried me. So I told DH not to listen to it.

That said, it's a LARGE seat and if you plan to have more kids (the situtation we're in now) you can only fit 2 seats in the back of a car. So WHEN we have a 3rd child, we'll have to get a new car or new seats. The sunshine kids radian seats are better for 3 across the backseat and are smaller width wise. We'll be getting that when DS needs a cnovertible seat. Also it will ONLY fit rear facing in the middle seat of my civic so we have an appt to get both seats fitted in my car tomorrow. That said, I'm hoping they can figure out a way to keep her RF and have DS's car seat in the car RF too... Obviously he has to be RF but she can be FF if she needs to be (she meets to age/weight) but I was really hoping to keep her RF until 2 or maybe longer! I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow

I would highly suggest goign somewhere and trying it in your vehicle. See if it will fit RF in the middle AND the sides and go from there. Put your LO in and adjust the straps and get him in and out a few times. Be sure it's a seat that works for you.

It's not a bad seat but it could use some improvements IMO. I won't be buying another one. My friends raved about it so I was pretty much like "ok done" without testing it enough. I wish I would have tried it more (in the sides RF and putting her in and out) because it's a BIG seat and now that she's 31 inches and RF it's hard to get her over the side without bumping her head. It's not a compact seat for sure!

MrsZiz · February 2011

myday1708:

CS refers to Click-Safe or Click-Smart... It's a click that you hear when the strap is tight enough. I thought at first that it was unnecessary but now I love that feature.

We have a marathon that I loved at first and now I hate it. It's hard to adjust the straps tight enough. We also have the CS feature and when I took Bella in to the car seat fitting I found out that it "clicks" even when it should go down tighter... so it's a false alarm thing IMO. I thought it would be a great feature for DH or for grandparents but then when the tech said "this thing should click about 3 more times before it's really tight enough for her", it worried me. So I told DH not to listen to it.

That said, it's a LARGE seat and if you plan to have more kids (the situtation we're in now) you can only fit 2 seats in the back of a car. So WHEN we have a 3rd child, we'll have to get a new car or new seats. The sunshine kids radian seats are better for 3 across the backseat and are smaller width wise. We'll be getting that when DS needs a cnovertible seat. Also it will ONLY fit rear facing in the middle seat of my civic so we have an appt to get both seats fitted in my car tomorrow. That said, I'm hoping they can figure out a way to keep her RF and have DS's car seat in the car RF too... Obviously he has to be RF but she can be FF if she needs to be (she meets to age/weight) but I was really hoping to keep her RF until 2 or maybe longer! I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow

I would highly suggest goign somewhere and trying it in your vehicle. See if it will fit RF in the middle AND the sides and go from there. Put your LO in and adjust the straps and get him in and out a few times. Be sure it's a seat that works for you.

It's not a bad seat but it could use some improvements IMO. I won't be buying another one. My friends raved about it so I was pretty much like "ok done" without testing it enough. I wish I would have tried it more (in the sides RF and putting her in and out) because it's a BIG seat and now that she's 31 inches and RF it's hard to get her over the side without bumping her head. It's not a compact seat for sure!

MauiWedding08 · February 2011

MrsZiz:
That said, it's a LARGE seat and if you plan to have more kids (the situtation we're in now) you can only fit 2 seats in the back of a car. So WHEN we have a 3rd child, we'll have to get a new car or new seats. The sunshine kids radian seats are better for 3 across the backseat and are smaller width wise. We'll be getting that when DS needs a cnovertible seat.

this is really important to me. We will always have at least one small car so I'm happy with the coccorro and will add a sunshine kids at some point. if/when we have a new baby I know that both AND a passenger will easily fit in my car. Move the baby down to the coccorro (also a convertible) and J up to a sunshine kids (it does fit RFing behind the passenger seat, especially in a less reclined position that is ok for older kids, but I'm not sure we will have another child before he's 3 or so).

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