Britex Marathon vs Roundabout

I think a lot depends on the child. Our son moved to a booster at three (he's now five) and when he sees his peers in the Marathon, says, "So and so is still in a baby seat!" He was very ready to move on to the booster (very sensitive to big kid/little kid issues) and we were thrilled with the decision, too. Boosters are a million times more portable. Need to transfer it to another car? Just lift it out. No scraping up your hands trying to get seatbelts out from under the carseat and trying to be a magician reintalling it in another car. I also love that the booster has a cup holder. Very handy.

A lot also depends on your views about car seats in general. If you're into keeping your child rear-faced through elementary school, a booster won't work.

Good luck with your decision!
M.

Hi - I think you should keep your kids in a carseat as long as possible, and therefore we bought the marathon for both of our little ones (2 and 4 yrs old - and I'm expecting #3). Boosters are great, but everything I have read says that a 5 point harness carseat is the safest. good luck.

I have my 3 year old (she's almost 40 pounds) in the Britax Boulevard. It is an EXCELLENT car seat - I'd highly recommend it. It is like the Marathon but with side impact protection. In my book, the few extra dollars are SO worth it if it saves your child's life in a side impact collision. (Also, it makes it easier for them to nap in the car without their heads lolling around =) One thing I also love about the Boulevard is that you can adjust the height without taking the whole thing apart. You put your child in the seat and turn the little knob on the side of the seat to lower or raise the shoulder straps to the correct height. WAY easier than taking the whole car seat out of the car, removing the straps, etc etc.

When she grows out of the Boulevard, we're buying her the Frontier booster to keep her in a 5-point harness as long as we can. I love the whole Britax line - the Roundabout saved our older daughter's life when we were in an accident with her when she was a baby, and I'll never buy any other brand!

We have the marathon. It huge, but comfy. We set it in the middle of the back seat of our sedan. I can see over it, and see my kid, and she's in the center so I am not as worried about side impacts.

These are really plush carseats, I think they are easy to use, easy to vacuum and wipe clean and I think the length of time my daughter will be in hers will more than make up for the initial cost. Our other carseat is a Graeco and it's noticeably less comfy and it's mainly for short trips in the truck.

I personally cannot wait until she can sit in a booster seat because the only thing I do not like about the marathon is the transfering when my parents take her out in their car. So portability is a huge factor! But at the same time, my daughter is so petite, I know she will probably finally transfer to a booster seat around age 7 with our luck. It could be worse, we could have purchased two graecos.

I'm not sure about boosters, but my sister-in-law has the Roundabout and I have the Boulevard (which is the Marathon with the side impact protection) and I feel like the harness on the Boulevard is a lot stronger. It just feels like it’s a more secure car seat. What I did before I bought mine was go to Amazon and read the customer reviews. There is some interesting information from people who feel the crotch strap is too far back and makes it more difficult to buckle as your child gets bigger.
That's the information I have on those two car seats...I can't wait to see what people say about the boosters.

My husband and I went through the same delimma 2 years ago. We opted for the roundabout because it was smaller. Friends of ours had the marathon and when it was rear-facing the front seats had to be pushed forward. Also we figured when our child was older she would see other kids in boosters and would want to be in one too. My sister is going through this with her 5 year old not wanting to be in the "babyseat." Our child is on the petite size and we figured it would take years for her to weigh 40 lbs. She is almost 3 and is not even 30lbs. We knew we would have more children so if we needed to upgrade later to the M our new baby could use the roundabout. We now have 2 kids and 4 roundabouts. We love them and our children love them too. You can buy them online for $150 with no shipping and tax (look for online coupons) at www.babyage.com.

Up until recently I would've rec'd the MA over the RA in a heartbeat b/c the RA is almost always outgrown by height before a child is old enough and mature enough to use a belt-positioning booster. I had two RA's for my now-6.5YO twin girls and while I loved that the seats were very easy to use and solidly built, they outgrew the RA's by height before they turned 4YO, while they can *still* fit a MA although they're just about at the height limit. I ended up buying a couple Graco CarGos on clearance b/c it gave them another couple inches of harness height to grow into (but still had only a 40lb harness weight limit and doesn't make that great of a booster), which cost more than the price difference between the RA and MA

But now there are some nice combination (Forward facing 5-pt harness/booster) seats with high height and weight limits, so buying an RA should be fine for most kids because then you can move them to a seat like the Graco Nautilus (65 lb harness weight limit, 19" top harness height, then converts to a good highback or lowback booster), or Britax Frontier (80 lb harness weight limit, 19" top harness height, also converts to good highback or lowback booster), which has the bonus of looking more like a booster seat while still allowing you to keep your LO in a 5pt harness until he/she is developmentally ready for using the seat as a booster. Although boosters *are* more convenient than 5-pt harnesses, be aware that there are significant safety advantages to a 5-pt harness (which is why race car drivers use them), and that before you move your child to a booster you want to be confident that the child understands the safety importance of remaining buckled and sitting properly in the seat without squirming around all over the place.

Here's a link that helps explain the safety benefits of a 5-pt harness:
http://www.kyledavidmiller.org/pages/4211/Car_Seat_Safety...