Like a mini lazy boy

At 4 months my child outgrew his "basket" carseat. You know the type, Graco-made, easy to nap in while mom moved him from the house to the car to the grocery store and back. Faced with a looming giant, we headed off to the baby supercenter on a quest for a carseat large enough to handle junior and safe enough to protect him even at his young age.

My husband is not interested in looks when it comes to baby safety features (our Graco carseat was black, not exactly a "cute" baby pattern and in my opinion, rather ugly), so it didn't faze him at all that the Boulevard didn't come in many fabric choices. He was only interested in how safe was it and would it adequately protect a 4 month old.

Fortunately for us, the sales lady was actually very knowledgeable at babies-r-us -- it was her only job to know about car seats. Now I don't know if it was because the location we went to was brand new or babies-r-us was stepping it up with their customer service the day we went in, but we actually had help picking out this car seat. It was clearly explained to us that the funky "wings" near the child's head were designed to protect against side impact, the five point harness would keep a child safely strapped in and, because I drive a mid-sized SUV, the saleslady explained that the Boulevard would fit in my car rear facing and would adequately protect the precious cargo within.

Having had all the safety features properly explained to us, we noticed that the Boulevard uses the LATCH system for instilation, something that at the time was not very important to us but ultimately has been a great time saver. The cost of this carseat seemed a bit pricey, but we noticed that all Britax carseats are on the expensive side. This too was explained to us as it seems that Britax is sort of the gold standard in safety for carseats.

The Boulevard came in an enourmous box, which weighed a surprising amount. As the only thing in the box besides the carseat was a small pamplet, it was then that we realized the Boulevard is a giant carseat that is on the heavy side. Fortunately, my x-large baby had helped me gain muscles in places I never had them before and carrying the carseat is not a problem. In fact, I hardly noticed the weight of it when I installed it or later on the occasions when I had to remove it from my car.

Installation is relatively easy. Because it has a well designed LATCH system, even a small adult can properly install it (I would recomend sitting or kneeling in the seat to make sure it is installed tightly enough though). To remove, just push the 2 LATCH buttons and lift out. It's not as convenient as the Graco basket carseats, but it is much less of a nusiance that I thought it would be.

Cleaning the fabric is also pretty easy. The material comes off without much trouble and, if left to airdry, can easily be put back on to the seat.

Problems, our Boulevard has velcro tabs to protect the strap from digging into the child's neck. My now 2 1/2 year old son took these off months ago and threw them on the ground. I think it'd be better if they were sewn on to the straps so a child couldn't remove them.

Adjusting the safety straps can also be tricky if you have a child who is old enough to understand what you are doing, but not old enough to understand that he shouldn't play with the safety straps. Since the mechanism that adjusts the straps is just hidden by a panel of velcro, we have run into this problem a few times.

There is one more interesting feature on this car seat that I haven't seen on many others. Under the buckle that goes between the child's legs is an extra piece of fabric. The extra fabric is to put next to the buckle when the child is wearing shorts in the car. Basically it protects your child's skin from a potentially hot buckle. It's actually a really neat idea, although for most of the year my son just sits on the extra fabric.

Overall, it's a great carseat (not for regular cars though, it's HUGE) that is both safely made and well designed.