The Britax Companion Carseat and Britax Preview Stroller make a great travel system. The carseat is heavier than some others, but it is VERY SAFE and STURDY. The straps are easy to adjust, they never twist, and my 4 week old daughter always looks comfortable and secure in it. The harness straps can be adjusted easily each time with a built-in lever found under a flap in front of the seat. It is very easy to remove and install in our Honda Element. The fabric is easy to spot clean as well. It snaps in easily to the stroller which, by the way, is more like an umbrella stroller than the bulky strollers in most travel systems. Originally I bought the Graco Metrolite, but returned it and bought the Britax system because I felt it was safer and more durable. The price is more expensive than most, but I see no reason to skimp when it comes to the safety of my child. (CR rated this seat as #1 this past May.) I also do not have to purchase an umbrella stroller later on, so in a way, I've saved money!

I bought this carseat for its safety rating, but my four month old overheats in the vinyl onyx seatcover. After only a short ride (15 min) her hair is wet with sweat - after a long ride (1 hour) she needs a change of clothes to not catch a chill. I live in Hawaii but run the AC while driving to keep her cooler to no avail. She detests the carseat and I am concerned that it may be because she is overheating. Britax is sending me a cotton poly unity blue cover to see if this alleviates the problem.
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br /Another problem is that she is able to lift her head forward out of the side impact protection and if it is inflated snuggly she cannot put her head back - creating a safety problem. Britax rep did not have a solution for this.
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br /If you are quite tall, you may need to test it out in your car to see if you are able to use the seat in the center seat position or behind the driver.
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br /Weight not an issue: The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against using carseats in shopping carts due to 1000 injuries per year. Also consumer reports advises against subjecting carseats to wear and tear caused by using a carseat as a baby carrier. Aprica Strollers research claim it unhealful for infants to be in a carseat position for more than two hours per day. Therefore, i think it is good that the seat is so heavy and incovenient to remove. It helps me resist the temptation to keep her in the seat while shopping. I just pick her up and carry her or use a stroller - offering her more freedom safety and HUGS!
br /D.D.
br /Honolulu, HI

I am a HUGE fan of britax i was so excited to learn that Target finally carried Britax. I was having to buy all my carseats off other sites because no one carried Britax in the stores. I love this new infant one. It is soooo easy to install and big enough to let my baby grow in it. I had a problem with my old one which was a peg perego my son was out of it in 3 months and i bought my first Britax the roundabout. Which was also incredilby easy to install and very secure once it is put in. The new infant one is a little on the big side but i love that and the air adjustable head cushion is great. The straps are secure and easy to release and tighten. I am a BRITAX mom all the way i will never buy another brand of carseat in my life.

We purchased the Britax after doing quite a bit of research both online and in the stores.
br /Why we purchased -
br /1. Safety rating
br /2. Britax reputation
br /3. Compatible with a lightweight stroller
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br /Why we are glad we have it -
br /1. Head rest provides excellent support for baby. Baby isn't folded over at the neck.
br /2. Car seat does not move, at all, when installed correctly (check around locally to make sure you have it installed correctly).
br /3. FAA approved and fairly easy to use without the base, but it will take some practice both with lap belts and shoulder belts.
br /4. Baby cannot lift head out past the restaints when the strap is tightened and the "slide" is in place.
br /5. Cover is machine washable, and the straps are easy to remove to clean out the car seat. This is important when your baby out poops a diaper or throws up. Plus, it dries pretty quickly.
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br /Things that can be improved -
br /1. Handle, it's a bit uncomfortable to carry as the baby gets heavier.
br /2. Sun shade - could go down further.
br /3. Handle release - it's two handed, one handed would be easier.
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br /Our baby was 29" and right around 20 lbs. when she outgrew the seat so it can last awhile depending on the size of your baby. We have a Mazda Tribute and it fits well in the center. You will probably have to keep one of the front seats fairly upright in order to maneuver the car seat in and out.
br /ANY car seat is going to get bulky and heavy when a baby gets bigger. While the seat is probably heavier than most, the longest trip you may carry it for is from the parking lot into a building.
br /Definitely worth the money.

After checking all the reviews and prices for infant car seats, we purchased the Britax Companion for our newborn. We are VERY pleased with our decision.
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br /Positives:
br /SAFE, SAFE, SAFE
br /Price is compromise between cheap and 'high-end' seats
br /High quality product - sturdy and comfortable for our little guy Side-impact/head support
br /Anti-rebound bar on base
br /Coordinating Britax Preview Stroller
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br /Drawbacks:
br /Hard to find (not in any stores in our area and out of stock most of the time online)
br /Heavier than most infant car seats (but this is also a positive)
br /Handle hard to move, especially with canopy in place (but it is getting easier after 2 months of use)

My baby used this carseat for almost 6 months, and I feel we provided her with one of, if not, the safest infant car seat out there. I was very impressed with the feel of the fabric, which is pleasantly soft and cushy, as well as the overall quality of the car seat and base. I have a friend who purchased a Snugride for her son, and after I saw hers, I changed my mind about the one that we had initially wanted to buy for our baby. It was not cushy at all, and her son just seemed to roll around in it. I am happy that we decided to change to the Britax, even though the price difference was fairly substantial. With the side impact head protection, her head never flopped around like other babies did.
br /It IS a heavy seat, as some have commented, but my friend who has a Peg said it was lighter than hers. I think that any infant carrier is going to get heavy the more you use it - that's just something we all have to go through.
br /We also purchased the Preview stroller that goes with the seat. It was not difficult to put together and rolled well and is very good stroller for the money. The only problem I had was that while she was riding in the carrier, you have to fully recline the stroller which causes the basket underneath to be unusable. I do like the stroller for it's weight and the $$. As a first time mom, you don't always know what to get and while there are other features I now know would be nice on a stroller, I can't say that I still wouldn't get it again.
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After a lot of research my husband and I got the Companion for our daughter, we both felt very safe with her in it. However our daughter is a baby that runs hot, and this seat does not have breathable fabic, she is always hot in it! Also the seat is very heavy which I agree means safe but it is so hard to carry even on short trips like from the car into the post office and back. Also since it is bigger than most car seats it's hard to take into a restaurant. Most car seats will fit in the wooden high chairs turned upside down, however the companion does not and a lot of the times it doesn't fit in a booth either. As with people saying it's hard to get into the base we found that if you hold the release handle and push down at the same time it goes in first time every time. I would buy the companion again because I feel it's worth the extra effort, just go into knowing it's not the most user friendly but it's the safest!

I bought the Britax Companion after I was convinced my son hated his peg perego. I, too, was impressed with the safety ratings, and I thought compared to my peg, it's not as heavy or bulky.
br /Pros-
br /Very safe, like the anti rebound bar, sturdy, good coverage from canopy, easier to carry then my peg, fits into pliko p3 and baby trend snap and go, can wash cover and order covers from Britax direct (to solve heat issue).
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br /Cons-
br /Not easy to get in and out of base (be careful that it is locked, have to check and check), hard to get baby in and out of (the TSIP is not secured by velcro or anything and tends to flop around), the straps to not stay aside to place baby in seat, harness does not click to let one know it is secure, have to feed straps through the back in order to adjust height (this is just a slide up and down feature in my peg), carrier handle also difficult and noisy (wakes sleeping baby). Also, the TSIP seems like it over-confines my baby (3 mos) even completely deflated. I want to remove it, but then I'm removing the SIP. Not a worry in the peg since the SIP is built in and adjusts with the seat belt positioning.
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br /All in all, I like the Britax line and will likely return to it for the next seat up (decathlon or marathon) but I think this seat has too many quirks as pp said. Also, my son no longer constantly screams in his peg, so it must have be a developmental thing.

My daughter is 6 months old, and has been using this seat since we brought her home rom the hospital. It has the best ratings from Consumer Reports, which is very important to me, but my baby also enjoys being in the seat, which makes life easy. I have to disagree with the people who gave this seat poor reviews; this seat is NOT too hot. I live in CA and we have plenty of hot days (maybe you should turn off the heater and turn on the AC, or not dress your baby too warmly), it's not too smooshed (like I said, my baby is still using it at 6 months), my baby has enough room to turn her head, the plastic piece that holds the straps together is NOT flimsy, and the straps never twist. I do agree that this seat is on the big side, but it fits in my Honda Accord just fine, and bigger means more safe. Someone complained that it won't fit behind the driver or passenger seats, but you're suppoed to have it in the middle anyway, for the safety of the baby. I also agree that it's a little heavy to carry, but it's a small price to pay for my baby's safety (I'm small at 5'2", but I can carry it). The handle bar IS a little hard to put down when in the car, but that's too trivial to make me dislike the seat. This seat works perfectly with the stroller combo, too. All in all, this seat is SAFE, comfortable, and easy to use and I would buy it all over again.

I bought this carseat because it was rated number one by consumer reports as the "safest" carseat against peg perego, graco snug ride, and others. However it is on the upper end of the price scale. When the car seat arrived, it was a perfect fit for my daughter who was a preemie.. she came home at 4 lbs and 6 oz. I really liked this car seat because my daughters head did not flop around like in other car seats and she seemed to be quite snug in it. The red buttons to raise or lower the handle bar are a bit tough to press, and sometimes the car seat doesnt want to cooperate coming out of the base. But I guess thats the price you pay for safety. I hope that all is well in your travels with your new bundle of joy(s).

We bought both the Britax Companion Car seat and Britax Preview Stroller after Consumer Reports reviewed the Companion Car seat as the safest of the infant/rear-facing seats on the market. The seat is a bit bulky and heavy, but it fits easily in our Oldsmobile Alero and Honda Odyssey. I'd suggest buying an extra base (you can find them if you search Froogle) if you are going to be moving the seat between two cars often. The 5-point harness is easy to adjust and the front access lever makes getting the harness secure easy. We have only used the LATCH system, but the safety ratings for using the seatbelt instead were just as high in Consumer Reports. Safe, easy to use, very easy to snap into the base, and a great seat! I highly recommended this seat.

Yes this carseat may(?) be slightly heavier than other car seats (I haven't put it on a scale) but if you care about your child this is the car seat to have bar none! Look at a graco or evenflo. It is all plastic with maybe 1/2 inch of soft foam padding behind the babies back. Britax puts soft foam in for comfort and then installs dense foam between layers of plastic like a motorcycle helmet. Also unlike some carseats the locking mechanisms are metal instead of plastic. As for the extra cost consider that the length weight limits are more generous than other car seats.
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br /You can buy what you want for your child but for mine it is a Britax or they stay home!

We used this seat for about 6 months. Our son outgrew it quickly (he was too heavy for me to carry it any longer). We liked it, and we felt that he was secure in it. He seemed comfortable. It is a deep seat, but we are comparing it to a carrier type seat we had five years ago...the head pad was never used...I don't know if our son had a large head or if it was just useless. I could not get the canopy to operate properly. This could have been my error.Overall, we would use this seat again. It fit fine in our F150 Supercrew. I have to also say that it was hard to get it in the base at times. Sometimes I would get it in on the first try, and other times I had to rock it back and forth like the other reviewer stated.

This is a very safe car seat but it does have its querks. First of all it can be difficult to get it to latch into the base. My wife and I had to keep rocking it back and forth to get both sides to latch. We called Britax and they really had no idea what it could be. So I used some WD40 and sprayed it into the latch mechanism inside the car seat and this seemed to help quite a bit. Also, our son hated, and I mean hated the head support that could be inflated. We finally removed it and it was a world of difference in his reaction to being in the seat. It does fasten extremely easy onto the matching stroller. The stroller is great that goes with this seat. So in conclusion, very safe car seat, but it isn't user friendly and does has some idiosyncracies.

This is my fourth infant car seat and by far is my favorite. I have used Graco Snugride, Graco SafeSeat, and Eddie Bauer Cosco. The blue fabric is much softer than the other colors. I live in South Gerogia and the baby has not over heated yet. I admit it is a heavy carrier but after carrying the safeseat it seems light. We bought this after the base of our Graco Snugride broke. I just wanted something sturdier and my 22 month old loves his Britax Marathan. By the way, our baby loves the head cushion.

After much research, say 7 mos into pregnancy, I settled on this car seat along with the Preview matching stroller. My main reason for choosing this carseat was due to the top rating on consumer reports. My husband and I went to the store to look at and feel the model before ordering online. Yes it is a bit heavier than other carseats, but as some people pointed out, heavier usually means better safety.
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br /I like to wash everything whenever I get it home before the baby is exposed to it. All of the cloth can come off both the carseat and the stroller. I handwashed and lined dried them. Getting them back on was a bit of a challange, but they went on.
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br /It does take a bit of practice to get the carseat to snap into the base in the car and also the stroller. Sometimes this can be annoying when the baby is in there, so get a lot of practice before birth.
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br /The inflatable headrest also took some patience to get correct. I wouldn't replace it with the cloth ones that one can pick up in the store because the headrest that comes with the seat improves the side impact protection. My baby did slope the neck a few times before I figured it out all the way.
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br /After a few times of use, it all seems to be working correctly. I feel relieved knowing that this is the safest one out there. I just wish Britax would get the demo videos working on their website to make things easier.

I ordered this car seat when I was 6 months pregnant because my children ride in nothing but Britax products. Safety should always be the first concern where car seats and other gear are concerned and nothing beats Britax. I ordered the stroller at the same time as to make sure I had both products ready when my baby arrived, as they are hard to come by in a store. My child outgrew it rather quickly (she only lasted 3 months in it), but it was well worth the money. She now rides in a Britax car seat as my other child rides in the booster made by Britax. I feel more secure knowing my kids are safe.

it's clear when you use this thing that your kid is safe. it takes a while to figure out all the configurations, but it's worth the trouble. my main gripe is that the red lever you pull to get it out of the base takes a lot of pressure to make it work. if you have a new car with the latch / isofix system, definitely get a latch compatible seat like this one. when our daughter go to about 18 lbs. she found this seat a little confining and would cry until we took her out. also, she didn't like riding backwards, but who does. i know it's safer... we've now switched to the bigger britax model which can also be used with infants, but doesn't really protect infants as well as the companion. so, be a sport and buy your kid the safest infant car seat on the market.

I really like this car seat, I know alot of people say it is heavy but it is really not that heavy even with my little one in it. I think they could have put the handle relese buttens in a better place but I figure that if this is my only problem with the car seat and it is the safest one out there then I don't mind

Although this is a safe infant carrier, it is extremely heavy and bulky. We bought this carrier for our first child as we were impressed with the safety rating. In retrospect, there are other carriers available that are just as safe, but much lighter than this one, and also much smaller which would have made it much easier for me. Lifting this becomes such a chore, it's really heavy once you get your baby inside, and it's really hard to just "run errands" as it's too heavy with baby inside, unless I transport the carrier to my stroller or a snap and go.
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br /Forget walking into meet your friends with your new little infant casually slung over your arm in this carrier, you'll either be trucking your little one in this carrier in a stroller, or using two hands and all your strength to keep upright, and it's difficult when there are stairs involved.
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br /Also, it's huge, be sure to take measurements as once it's in our car, a SUV, I have to have my seat forward more than I usually do so as to accomodate the size of it.
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br /My advice is to go into a store that has several carriers, pick them all up, try them over your arm, consider the size of them all and imagine carrying your little baby, who only gets heavier by the week, around for six months in this.

Yes, this car seat is heavy and bulky, but I feel it's worth it. It's very well built, and the bulk and weight enable it to absorb more impact. The inflatable head restraint is great. It's also larger than some other car seats, so you'll be able to use it longer. I didn't pick the car seat for convenience, I picked it for safety, and this one is the best.
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br /On the downside, it might not fit into a small car. It fit into Mazda Protege and Toyota Corolla with no room to spare.
br /Also, the release handle on the back is difficult to access, and the buttons that move the handle are tough to press. So what? As long as it offers the best protection, I'll live with the inconveniences.

Because I have been a big fan of britax products for many years, I waited 2 months for the companion car seat to be back in stock so i could purchase for my newborn. After all the waiting I was very disappointed in this car seat.
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br /First of all it is extremely bulky and heavy, making it practically impossible to carry your baby to and from the car. I consider myself to be a strong person and I can barely manage to carry my 3 month old in it with both hands. Also, the lever that unsecures the car seat to the base is sometimes difficult to unhook - causing me to have to practically yank the seat out. Most of us mothers have to take our baby along with us when we run even the simpliest of errands, having to juggle a million things in our arms - so being weighed down by such a bulky car seat is inefficient and impractical.
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br /The canopy is also difficult to move back and the the button to move the handle down is at a very awkward position, there have been times where I have had to slam the handle down because I could not manage to get it down as you would an ordinary car seat.
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br /I do not deny that this seat is probably extremely safe for its main purpose, but as the baby grows heavier I cannot imagine being able to easily transport her in this seat. I plan to buy another lighter and less bulky carseat.
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The seat is too heavy to carry even WITHOUT the baby, making the portable option all but worthless. The seat is so deep it's hard to take the baby in and out (and since I have to do this and leave the seat in the car due to its weight, the baby always wakes up).
br / The fabric is very hot, and the straps are very awkward. I never want to leave the house. The seat sticks in the base and the straps are hard to loosen.
br / I would not buy this car seat again. It's a hassle. The stroller that works with it (forerunner) is just as bad, and I cannot usually fold it. It's simply too hard to do. Despite high safety ratings, if a seat is so bad the parents never want to take the baby anywhere, what's the point? Maybe the reason it's so safe is because using it encourages the parents and baby to never even get in a car and risk an accident.
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I'm sending this carseat back because it's just too big. I really like the safety features it offers, but it's not worth it. Not only is it heavy, but it's bulky. It seems like it would be very awkward to carry and it doesn't fit well in either of our vehicles, a VW Passat and a Ford Escape. There is no room between the back of this carseat and the back of the seat in front of it, which makes it nearly impossible to get out because the handle that releases it from the base is right there. It is also impossible to put the handle down once it's in the car because of the lack of space, and it says the handle is supposed to be down when it's not being carried.

Make sure you do your homework before buying this. The latest consumer report says that this seat did not pass the latest crash testing. That's a lot of money to spend for it not to pass!!!