child outgrowing infant car seat - - please recommend one!

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

We have a Britax Diplomat (since discontinued, I think) and a Boulevard and while I'm happy that we got the safest seats on the market, I get frustrated wtih these seats on a daily basis. Something in the design makes them VERY difficult to tighten, especially when DD is wearing her big puffy coat. The straps get stuck from time to time and I have to practically dislocate my shoulder to get them to tighten every day. They're safe - that's great - but I would not really recommend them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:especially when DD is wearing her big puffy coat.

This is why kids should never wear thick coats in the car - impossible to get the straps tight enough. Too much slack can cause ejection from the seat in a crash.

[Anonymous]

We had a Britax Boulevard and I tremendously disliked it. It was bulky and the straps were awful. We switched to the Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 and love it. Much easier to deal with. However, the Graco Nautilus is only forward facing so if you need a rear facing seat for a little longer, that may not be a good choice.

My recommendation about the Boulevard is to go to the store and play around with it a little to see if you like it.

[Anonymous]

We have a Boulevard with CS and I hate it. Everyone is right in that the whole CS feature is a crock and I sort of don't like the Britax seats because of the stand that they are on - I find the seat sits up really high in my car and with my taller DS is it hard to get him into the seat without bumping his hood on the roof of my SUV. Looking into the Radians if folks highly recommend those.

[Anonymous]

What about Recaro's ProRide convertible?
We just checked out the Radian at BBB, based on this thread's recommendations, but the straps were *terrible* - probably partly because people mess with the display models all day long, but even after the salesman spent a long time readjusting everything the straps were still awful to adjust.
We then looked at the Recaro ProRide and loved it. It only goes to 35 lbs/50" RF, but for my skinny DC I think that will still take us easily past age 2. Any comments from actual users?

[Anonymous]

We have a Britax Marathon, but it is a couple of years old (DS is 4). We love it. I think it is one step down from the Boulevard, but is still highly rated. Maybe because it is more basic that it does not have CS--it uses a tab that you lift to loosen and a strap to pull to tighten.

[Anonymous]

DD is 2yo and has been in Britax Marathon since 6 months old. She is over 80 percentile for height and weight. We love the Britax and expect to use it until she graduates to booster seat.

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

I have a Britax Marathon - super easy to install and goes up to 65 lbs. This is in my car. DH's car is a little more sporty and has a narrower rear seat so we have the Radian XTSL. That thing was the biggest pain in the neck to install but it is VERY well made and it goes up to 80 lbs. Just keep in mind that you will need to convert from LATCH to a shoulder harness install when your child hits 40 lbs (for most cars, some go up to 48 lbs for LATCH) but that isn't a concern for you for a long time. You can contact your carseat manufacturer for more information.

BTW - both of these carseats are normally 250 - 300. I have seen the XTSL for 230 recently and the Marathon is normally available for under $200.