What car seat/booster to choose...

[champion2b]

Okay. Here is my dilemna that I need some help with. Bryce is 26 months old weighs 34 lbs and is 38" tall. He has (2) Britax Roundabouts (one for home and one for daycare provider) that he has used since he was 5 months old.

We recently returned from a weeks vacation and purchased a 2004 Honda Pilot. He has no problem going to the babysitters in the morning, but he wants NOTHING to do with his carseat on the ride home. The most frustrating thing is he has no problem going into the same carseat in her car (Nissan Pathfinder). I don't know if it's the carseat or the new car.

I am looking at purchasing another carseat or booster for "daddy's" car (2000 Honda Accord). At this point, I don't know whether to put his Roundabout back into the Accord until he outgrows it and purchase something new for the Pilot.

I tried to get him to sit in some boosters and test them out at BRU on Monday, but he wanted nothing to do with any of them. At this point, he is just going to have to deal with it because there is no option -- he MUST be in a carseat.

What do you think about the Graco Ultra CarGo, Britax Marathon, or Britax Wizard? Should I spend the extra $ on the Britax or should I change him to a combo seat and use belt positioning booster at 3 yrs old? What is the difference between the Marathon and Wizard?

[mom2kandj]

Here's my two cents.

DS is 29 mon, 30lbs, and about 36". We just bought a Volvo XC90 and as he was outgrowing his convertible, we bought a Britax Marathon. We had to go Britax because of the higher weight and height limits(65lbs & 49") versus other harnessed boosters which usually top out at 40lbs. There is absolutely NO WAY that my squirmy guy is going to be *disciplined* enough to be in a belt positioning booster at age 3. FWIW, DD moved into a Graco Turbobooster at age 3 1/2, but she follows direction well, KWIM? We did not go with a Wizard as the side head protection wings are not removable and I thought that they would bother a toddler who has never had that type of constraint before. The harness height adjustment is supposed to be really easy with a Wizard, but adjusting the strap height was never a problem for me before. Both the Wizard and Marathon shells are the same size, so the basic differences are the wings and the harness adjustment. If I was buying for a baby, I'd probably go with a Wizard. I'm glad I went with the Marathon. We're thinking that DS will just be in a TB or a backless around age 5-6. If we had gone the other route, I probably would have ended up spending at least $150-200 on the two seats when you can pay around $250 for a Marathon and a backless. One more thing - you can't use a belt positioning booster on an airplane and you can use a Marathon. HTH!


Rose
mom 2 Katie 12/02/00
& Jack 04/16/02