Note: We received the Britax Parkway SGL 2013 to facilitate our review. All opinions in this post are honest and are entirely our own. We are huge Britax fans and have purchased two Britax seats for our kids prior to this review.
I have always been very aware of car seat safety for my kids, and J has still been in his five-point harness Britax Marathon seat up until very recently (can I just say that I love that the Britax seats have such a high weight limit? We’ve definitely gotten our money’s worth with the seats). He started kindergarten this week, which I’m still slightly in denial about, and he asked us multiple times about switching to a “big kid” seat. We knew we wanted to get him a booster, but to be honest the switch from a five-point harness made me a little nervous. So, after a lot of research we learned what we already knew – the Britax Parkway SGL 2013 has the features we want that make the booster incredibly safe and functional.
First off, if you’ve looked into booster seats at all you know there are two kinds – those with backs, and those without. We wanted one with a back, which the Parkway has… BUT you can also remove the back and use it as a backless booster. I love this, because that means this can be the seat he’s in until he’s big enough to not need a booster anymore. It’s just another way that Britax shows their value, in my opinion. I’ll talk about the features in a minute, which are what really impress us… but the sheer length of time you’re able to use Britax seats is enough on its own to make these worthwhile.
Now let’s talk about features. This is no ordinary booster – it’s SO well designed for safety and for easy use.
• ISOFLEX Flexible Lower LATCH Connection System secures the booster seat to the vehicle in seconds from either side of the booster seat with two clicks and a pull. ISOFLEX prevents the booster seat from becoming a projectile when not in use, and stabilizes it during a crash. This was SO easy to do. Brian placed the seat in the car, as you can see above, and then he used the two LATCH straps to connect to our anchors in the car:
And then – without having to climb into the seat and awkwardly shove his knee into it – he just easily pulled the strap on each side, heard the clicks, and voila! the seat was securely anchored.
• Base with SafeCell Technology designed to keep your child safe and secure in a crash by compressing and significantly lowering the center of gravity, reducing the forward movement of the car seat.
• SecureGuard works with the vehicle safety belt to prevent the child from sliding under the lap-belt portion of the safety belt (submarining) during impact, thus minimizing the risk of abdominal injury. We love this feature, too – the shoulder guide keeps the top strap where it needs to be, but there’s also the SecureGuard “hook” – for lack of a better term – that slips over the lap-belt and keeps it in place over your child’s legs rather than on their abdomen, (the soft abdomen is not safe placement in the instance of a crash, so this is really an awesome feature). Of course, since the SecureGuard is between your child’s legs, it also serves to help keep them from slipping down underneath the lap belt.
Shoulder Strap Guide
SecureGuard
Some other great Parkway SGL 2013 features include:
- 120-pound Weight Capacity for safety and comfort as your child grows
- Quick- Adjust Head Restraint easily adjusts the head restraint from the front of the seat for a more comfortable fit and enhanced safety (this is SO easy to move up and down as needed, just by squeezing a handle on the back of the head restraint)
- High Density Comfort Foam (under removable cover) provides an extra layer of padding to cushion your child
- Easy-Remove Cover allows easy cleaning (no more wrangling it off in the inevitable instance of a spill!)
- Color-Coded Vehicle Belt Guides provide clear indication of the positioning of the vehicle lap and shoulder belt
- True Side Impact Protection distributes crash forces, shields from vehicle intrusion, contains the head and body, and keeps the head, neck and spine “in true” or aligned, to limit injury
- Armrests provide a natural and comfortable place to rest arms
- Retractable Cup Holders are designed to hold children’s cups and snacks (J’s FAVORITE feature of the seat… he also likes to hide toys in the cup holders and then stick them back into the booster)
- Removable Back allows the booster seat to easily convert to a backless booster while maintaining safety of SecureGuard
- MSRP (USD) $159.99 – You can buy it on Amazon for $119.99, though!
We weren’t surprised at all to find that we loved this booster. It gives me the peace of mind, and J the sense of independence – a perfect balance. We will always be a Britax family when it comes to car seats for our kiddos.
