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child outgrowing infant car seat - - please recommend one!
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Anonymous
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Please recommend your car seat for a baby that has outgrown the infant seat. I've read the baby bargains book tips, but I value your experience!
Thanks! MK |
Anonymous
| Britax Boulevard, although pricey, is one of the most highly rated safety-wise. That's what we chose (4 carseats--2 for each car) & they work well for us. We went to Abeebaby.com for good prices. Just checked, they're having a 25% off sale on all Britax models. We got a couple regular ones & a couple CS models--found that CS made no difference. |
Anonymous
| Another vote for the Boulevard and another vote for not bothering with the CS. It is supposed to click when the harness is tight enough but I find it isn't nealy tight enough for my comfort upon hearing the click. I think they may come in different fabrics though, or at least that was true of what was in stock when I bought mine from Buy Buy Baby, so I mostly selected it because I liked the way it looked. We are about to get another for DH's car and will not bother with the CS. |
Anonymous
| We also have a Boulevard and love it. We're moving DS out of it now (he's 3 1/2) and putting our 8 month old in it. He still has plenty of room in the Boulevard but his poor brother desperately needs it! |
Anonymous
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I also like Britax seats, but you should consider your car and whether you plan to stay rear-facing in the convertible seat. We stayed RF until 2, but we could not have fit a Boulevard RF in our smaller car (we are both tall) so we got a the Diplomat (don't think they make it anymore though?). We got a Blvd for our van and it could be RF. Anyway, the point is just that some of these larger seats may not work RF in a smaller car, esp if you are putting it in the middle and are tall, so you need the driver's seat back pretty far.
I also say don't bother with CS. We had alot of problems with tightening it and eventually got Britax to send us a new (non-CS) seat. |
Anonymous
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Love my Britax Boulevard. HATE the CS feature. Total PITA.
9:50 - how did you get them to send you another seat??? |
Anonymous
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Radian XTSL. It has a number of points over the Boulevard. Made of steel, SOLID, crash tests very very well. Will harness longer and RF your child longer.
It also folds which is handy for air travel or whatnot -- there are special hooks on the back which connect to their special shoulder straps to turn the thing into a backpack. Just wore it through the airport, easy. I used to be a Britax girl but will not ever go back. 
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Anonymous
| Also, you can fit a Boulevard RF in a mini cooper. Really. Most of the time people saying it doesn't fit either have a younger baby who needs the full 45 degrees + a very tall adult OR don't know the angle can be less for an older baby. |
Anonymous
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I'm 9:50... re. returning the seat...
I had called them a few times about the fact that I was having increasing difficulty getting the seat belt tight and they told me to remove the belt guard (didn't help), that it might be the angle I'm pulling due to it being RF, and other unhelful things. Finally, I reached my breaking point of frustration with the seat... it was virtually impossible to tighten. I called them and told them I could not tighten it, had called before, etc., and that this is a big safety issue in that I cannot get the straps tight enough (not to mention that the CS feature I had paid extra for was WORTHLESS). In our case, I could pull the straps tight if my son was not in the seat, but with his weight in the seat, it would not tighten. I think it just got worse as he got bigger. Anyway, they said they'd send me a new one and I told them to send me a non-CS. They shipped it out with a prepaid label to ship back mine. I don't know if the problem was because of the CS, but I've read people on message boards also complaining about this, so maybe it has something to do with that mechanism. Re. fitting it RF in a smaller car-- maybe we could have with a better angle? We are tall though and have the seats all the way back. We switched our big DS out of the infant seat at 6 mos so I'm not sure if it would have worked. It would have been nice to get a bigger seat from the beginning so it's worth checking on if you can get it to work. |
Anonymous
| What does CS stand for? And why is it a PITA? |
Anonymous
THIS. We were all over the Britax seat for DD when she was an infant, but the Radian XTSL is an awesome seat. Extra bonus: 8 year expiration date. Basically, you will not have to buy a Britax Frontier because your child will still be harnessed in the Radian. |
Anonymous
| How wide is the XTSL? We have a full-sized sedan (Hyundai Sonata) and DH would like for adults to be able to sit comfortably on either side of the car seat, since he often needs to ferry coworkers around. |
Shopmom
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| I currently have two car seats for my two year old...a maxi-cosi priori convertible in my husbands Large SUV and a Graco brand convertible in my sedan. They're both nice seats but I happen to favor the Graco. Its easiest to adjust and/or transfer in and out of the car. It also seems to have more room in the seat. |
Anonymous
| CS is Click n' Safe which is a Britax gimmick that supposedly clicks to tell you that your straps are tight enough. I've not ever heard someone say this has worked-- for us, it clicked with the first pull and the straps were still super loose. I also think it somehow interfered w/ the tightening mechanism making the straps very difficult to tighten (or maybe my particular seat was defective). You pay extra for this convenience! They call the seat Boulevard CS or Marathon CS if they have this feature. |
Anonymous
| The Radian is narrow. Comfortable for kids, but narrow enough to fit three seats across. In fact, we can get two adults into the back of my VW Passat with my DD's Radian. |