I'd Take This Crocodile For A Ride Down The Nile!

At the end of December, we found a Britax Marathon at BJs, a Costco-like warehouse club. For the record, I had not seen Britaxes before, and I have not seen them since this incident. We had talked about getting a Britax when our daughter grew out of her infant carseat and decided that it would be something we would do eventually, but when faced with making a spur-of-the-moment- it was a little frightening!

In the end, we decided to take the plunge. $220 is a lot to spend, but it is worth it when we are talking about our daughter’s safety. And this price is $60 less than the price of a Marathon at Babies R Us, so that made it an easier decision to make. Also, we had a coupon for $10 off a $100+ purchase at BJs that we had not planned on using, so that helped too.

After bringing it home, the Britax was treated with great respect, and given its own living space, albeit in the basement. My husband was in a car accident, and we did not feel comfortable using the infant seat base that had been in his car. So, once the car got back from the shop, we dragged the Britax up and installed it.

The Britax Marathon is a convertible car seat. This means that it can be used as both a rear facing carseat and a forward facing carseat. You could put a newborn (who weighs at least five pounds) in this seat- and you could put a child who weighs up to sixty-five pounds in this seat.

Because our daughter was not big enough to ride forward facing, we installed the seat rear facing. Officially, the requirements for being forward facing are that the child must be one year old and twenty pounds. But you do not have to turn the seat around!

According to the product information on the Britax website, a child can remain rear-facing until s/he is thirty-five pounds and has a seated shoulder height of up to sixteen inches. Many people- us included- are choosing to keep our children rear-facing. This is a particular concern of ours because at thirteen months old, our daughter is 31 inches tall, but barely 21 pounds. We want to keep her as safe as possible.

Installing the Britax was very easy. My husband did the installing, and he just attached the LATCH clips and tightened. Actually, we recently got back from a trip to California, so we did a lot of installing and uninstalling. We tok the seat out of our car, put it on the airplane, took it out of the airplane, installed it in the rental car, uninstalled it in the rental car, put it back on the plane, took it out, and reinstalled it in our car. The way the seat is designed made it easy to install in all of these places.

In our home car, a Honda Accord, we have the carseat installed in the middle seat because of the side curtain airbags. We have it rear-facing. Some cars have additional tether clips behind the front seat central armrest/console, but our Accord does not have this. The manual shows placing the tether clips over the seat to buckle them in the backseat tether clips. This is called the Australian method of tethering, and we opted not to do it.

When we were on vacation, we had a Toyota RAV4. We opted to install forward facing, and we had to install in a window seat because the middle seat is narrower than the two window seats.

The one thing to consider with a Marathon is that it is a large carseat and it might not fit in all cars, especially smaller ones. We have not tried, but I don’t think that it would fit in my Mazda Protege . I would recommend working with the associates at the store and seeing if the seat will fit in you car before you purchase it.

I mentioned that we have flown with the Britax, and I would be happy to elaborate. The Britax Marathon is approved for air travel. I don’t know if all car seats are, but the Marathon definitely is. I had made inquiries on my mommy message board, and so I knew to ask for a seatbelt extender. On the flight out, we placed the seat forward facing and the baby had very little legroom. This is more of an issue with the airplane, but it was very frustrating because the baby is only thirteen months and she is too young to know not to kick. She had nowhere else to put her long legs except up against the seat, and she naturally pushes against things to strengthen her legs. I mentioned this on the mommy board, and someone suggested that we put the seat rear-facing for the returning flight. This was a little trickier because we were dealing with a very small space to work with, but we were able to get the seat safely in the rear-facing position. This was much easier. Our daughter still did not have much legroom, but she was not kicking anyone else’s seat. And, she seemed much more comfortable than she did on the first flight. Overall, while the Marathon’s massive size really highlighted the extreme lack of space on the airplane, I found traveling with it to be a very pleasant experience.

This Crocodile Marathon is very comfortable-looking. The seat is nice and plush. There are rubber bits that keep the chest clip from sliding too far down. There are also plush bits towards the top of the shoulder straps that keep the straps from rubbing on the child’s neck. Finally, there are little Velcro bits on the seat itself and on the straps. This lets us hold the straps in place when the child is not in the seat, so when we put her back in the seat, it is easy to get the straps on because they are not twisted or under the child, etc.

You can buy additional replacement parts- including covers- on the Britax site. The cover is also machine washable- which is great for any spills that might occur.

I’m not in love with the pattern. The seat cover is tan with a crocodile skin print, also in tan. If I had a choice, I probably wouldn’t have chosen this pattern, but the seat does its job and keeps my baby comfortable and safe.

I am extremely satisfied with the purchase. Even at the reduced price at BJs, a Britax Marathon is hardly a bargain purchase. But the seat has high ratings for safety, and I think it was well worth it. The seat keeps my daughter comfortable- she falls asleep in it easily. I also love the little details like the Velcro bits to hold the straps in place and the comfort pads.

I highly recommend the Britax Marathon in Crocodile print.