Not having a comfortable car booster seat can make your road trips a real ordeal to go through, not just for your child but for you as well. After all, children (especially toddlers) are quite vocal when expressing discomfort, so you’re sure to get an earful of your booster seat is not to their liking.
A good booster seat combines comfort and safety to help you and your child have a pleasant ride. Since you will be using a car seat for a while, it makes sense that you take your time choosing one.
So, in the following sections, I’ve covered all you need to know about choosing a good car seat for children aged 0 – 7 years, along with my picks for top products. Read on!
What Is A Booster Seat?
Basically, a car booster seat is what you’ll be needing when your child outgrows their forward-facing car seat. They could outgrow their seat in terms of either height, weight, or both.
However, regardless of whether they outgrow their seat in terms of height or weight, they’ll be uncomfortable trying to squeeze into a seat that’s just too small for them. This is where a booster seat comes in.
These are specifically designed to raise your child in their car seat, thereby making securing seat belts around them far more convenient.
Booster seats don’t really have their own safety belts attached. They simply make it easier for you to secure your own car seat belt around them. However, booster seats do come with clips and other accessories to help the belt stay secure and in place even through bumpy rides.
Do You Need A Booster Seat?
If you have a child around 5 years of age, it’s generally recommended that you use a good quality booster seat. You may even be required to use a booster seat by law in your state, so there’s that as well.
Following are a few more reasons in favor of having a booster seat in your car:
- In the event of an accident, a seat belt that hasn’t been secured properly can actually end up injuring your child. A booster seat greatly helps prevent that.
- Having a booster seat makes sure your child stays comfortable for hours together.
- There are a wide variety of booster seats available to suit all car models across different countries.
- Booster seats usually come with additional accessories to ensure the complete safety of your child.
Types Of Booster Seats
In order to help you choose the ideal booster seat for your child, you’ll first have to take a quick look at the types of booster seats available. Generally speaking, there are two types of booster seats, which are as follows:
Backless Kid Booster
These booster seats are different from car seats in the sense that they consist only of a bottom seat with no back. This kind of booster seat is best suited to slightly older kids (above the age of 8) who have outgrown a high-back booster seat.
They weigh less as compared to high back seat boosters and cost lesser as well. Backless booster seats help position your child comfortably against your car’s headrest.
High Back Booster Seat
Unlike backless seat boosters, these boosters have both a bottom and a back. They don’t really have any sort of internal harness system. Instead, they make use of threads to guide your car’s shoulders and lap belts to keep them securely in position.
High back boosters are specifically designed for children aged 4-7. You could even use these before your child reaches the age of four if they’ve grown enough in height or weight.
These booster seats are considered to be safer than backless seats as they have side impact protection padding along with an adjustable headrest. They have a sturdy adjustable harness as well. These features ensure that your child is as comfortable as possible in your car seat.
Product Reviews
We will now take a look at some of the best car seats available today. Make sure you go through one carefully to help you make an educated choice.
EvenFlo Big Kid High Back Booster Seat
This booster seat has no less than 6 adjustable height positions to give your child the perfect height. Your child may even look forward to long rides, given how comfortable this seat is.
One of the very best features of this seat is that the back is adjustable. This means that it can accommodate your child’s growth by allowing you to keep the head and side supports in the ideal position.
You can even use it as a no-back booster if your child finds that to be a more comfortable seating position. The back is quite easy to detach and shouldn’t require any great physical effort on your part.
Also, there is soft padding around the head and body to ensure that your child is as comfortable as possible. It achieves this with the help of a high quality, energy-absorbing foam liner.
Your child is sure to love this seat as it has a seat belt booster fit that allows their ears to rest directly at or slightly below the top of the child restraint. This is a seriously underrated feature, and most seat booster manufacturers miss out on it all too often.
If you’ve taken a long car ride with your toddler, you’d know that they tend to get pretty restless when they start growing hungry. With this booster seat, you won’t have to worry about rummaging through your bag of essentials to grab them a snack.
The seat comes with elastic cup holders that can hold either drinks or small snacks. You won’t have to worry about spilled drinks or food stains either, as the seat has washable machine pads.
It is recommended that you use mild and soap and water to clean this seat only along the metal of plastic parts.
Is this booster seat helpful?
Purely as a seat that’s meant to accommodate a cranky toddler, I’d say this is one the most useful boosters seats available in the market today.
- It’s very comfortable for your child to be seated in for hours together.
- It’s quite easy to clean and maintain.
- It has a variety of adjustable settings.
- It has a detachable back.
Graco Atlas Harness Booster And High Back Booster Seat
This 2-in-1 booster car seat works as both a forward-facing car seat and a high back belt-positioning booster. You can convert it to either as and when your child grows and requires more space to stretch out comfortably.
The easy to adjust harness allows you to adjust the headrest to 5 different positions so that your child can lean back on it comfortably. You won’t always need the harness to make the most out of this booster, though.
When not in use, you can store the harness in the hidden storage compartment to keep it safely out of sight. Both the harness and the headrest can be adjusted to 10 different height positions to ensure your child is comfortable and secure at all times.
Your child can even place their drinks within reach by placing them in the dual cup holders. The problem of staining doesn’t arise here either, as the harness straps can be cleaned quite easily by machine washing.
The seat pad and buckle covers can be machine washed as well.
Is this booster seat helpful?
This booster seat is very practical and well-designed to help accommodate your growing child’s changing needs.
- It has side impact protection to ensure maximum safety.
- It can be converted to a high belt-positioning booster.
- It has parts that are very easy to clean.
Chicco Kid Fit 2-in1 Booster Seat
This booster set has been specifically designed to cater to your child’s safety needs over their growth period. The backrest is detachable and can be easily removed once your child is too old to need it.
The DuoZone head and shoulder side-impact protection is combined in a way that gives you access to no less than 10 positions that ensure maximum comfort for your child.
One of the very best features of this booster seat is the double foam padding that molds into your child’s body shape. The perfectly contoured seat design helps with this as well.
It also has impact protection to make sure your child is as safe from injury as possible in the event of an accident. The latch attachment also helps ensure that the seat is held securely in place at all times.
This saves you the time and effort of having to check if the seat is secured tightly enough every single time your child gets into it.
The single recline seat adjustment is another impressive feature that will make it easier for your child to nap on long journeys. Also, to take care of hunger pangs, you can use the compact cup holders that don’t take up any additional space.
Both the seat pads and armrest covers are removable and machine washable to help you keep the seat as clean as possible.
Is this booster seat helpful?
This booster is worth every penny as it’s very comfortable and has impressive safety features for the price.
- You can convert it into a backless seat booster as your child grows.
- It can easily fit children that weigh up to 110 pounds and are at least 4 years old.
- It’s very soft and comfortable.
- The cup holders don’t take up any additional space
Graco Affix High Back Booster Car Seat
This booster seat comes complete with a latch system that helps ensure that it’s securely connected to your car seat. This is an especially great feature to have in emergency situations.
You’ll find that this booster requires little to no adjustment with regards to how well it’s secured, as it absolutely doesn’t budge no matter how many times you use it.
The fastening adjustment is very easy to use and saves you a considerable amount of time it can sometimes take to secure your booster seat securely.
This booster seat has been impact-tested for maximum occupant retention and delivers very well on that front. It achieves this with the help of a standard vehicle harness system, which is available in the high back mode.
A unique feature of this booster seat is that it’s perfect for stubbornly independent toddlers. How? Well, since it used your car’s tethers to keep it securely in place, your child will be able to buckle themself quite easily.
Is this booster seat helpful?
The easy to use adjustments alone make this booster seat worth investing in.
- It can fit children weighing 30-100 pounds and those who are less than 57 inches tall.
- It can be cleaned easily with mild soap and water.
- It allows your child to buckle themself.
- The latch attachment secures it firmly to your car seat.
Britax Pinnacle Click Tight Harness Booster Car Seat
This booster seat can be transformed from a harness to a belt-positioning seat as and when your child grows. This makes it a worthy investment despite the heavy price tag it comes with.
It has no less than 3 layers of side impact protection for maximum safety in any situation. The sturdy steel frame and base are designed to absorb impact to protect your child from injury.
This booster seat also has a forward movement reducing tether that prevents your child from rocking back and forth on bumpy roads.
The best feature of this booster seat is undoubtedly the 9 adjustable harness positions. These eliminate the need to rethread every time your child grows, and you need to manually adjust the seat to make them comfortable.
It also has a latch that allows you to secure it tightly to your car seat to prevent it from sliding forward in the event of an accident or abrupt braking.
Is this booster seat helpful?
This booster seat is quite useful to have around both in terms of safety and convenience.
- The adjustable positions help save the time and effort required to rethread frequently.
- It’s designed for children weighing 25-120 pounds who are over 4 years old.
- You can use the booster seat’s harness if your child isn’t comfortable with your car’s seat belt.
- It has side impact protection to ensure maximum protection for your child.
Chicco Go Fit Backless Booster Car Seat
This backless booster has a contoured seat Ergo Boost with double foam padding. This padding accommodates your child’s body shape and size comfortably and provides them with maximum comfort.
The padding is cleverly placed in all the right places to ensure your child can be seated comfortably for hours together, even on long road trips. Moreover, the integrated lap belt guides along with the shoulder belt clip make it easy to secure your child safely in their seat.
One of the best features of this booster seat is that it has a built-in carry handle that allows you to transfer it from vehicle to vehicle with no hassle. It doesn’t have latch connectors, though, which would’ve been a useful feature to have.
It also has 2 fold-away cup holders that are pretty compact and don’t take up any additional space in your car. As for spilling food and drink on the booster seat, you won’t have to worry too much as cleaning is quite a simple and straightforward process.
You can use a sponge along with some warm water and mild soap to clean the plastic parts. It’s not recommended that you leave the parts to air dry, though, so you’ll need to towel dry them.
Even the foam may be rinsed by hand, but you’ll have to be careful not to use any bleach on the foam, plastic or fabric.
Is this booster seat helpful?
This booster seat is easily one of the best backless booster seats available today, and it’s quite affordable as well.
- It’s easy to clean and maintain over a long period of time.
- It’s ideal for long journeys.
- It has a built-in handle, which makes it easy to transport.
- It’s perfect for children over the age of 4.
Evenflo Chase Harnessed Booster
This 2-in-1 combination booster car seat is ideal for children weighing 22-110 pounds. It’s designed for children who are 4 years and older.
The harness can be used for children who weigh between 22-40 pounds and are between 28-55 inches tall. The belt positioned seat, on the other hand, can be used for children who weigh between 40 – 110 pounds and are about 43.3 – 53 inches tall.
You can easily convert it from a 5 point harnessed seat to a belt-positioning car seat. This particular feature makes it a worthy investment as it can be used for years together as your child grows.
It’s a lightweight seat that has latch systems that makes it easy to install and transfer between different vehicles. Also, it has integrated cup holders that don’t increase the width of the seat. This allows you to fit multiple booster seats on the backseat of your car easily.
It’s been designed to provide your child with maximum comfort as it ensures that their ears are positioned below the top of the child restraint headrest. This is useful for children below the age of 2.
This booster seat delivers quite well on the safety front, too, as it has been tested for both side-impact and structural integrity at high energy levels.
As for cleaning, you can use the headrest quite easily with some mild soap and water. You don’t have to towel dry it when it’s wet or damp as it air dries fairly quickly.
However, you’ll have to be careful not to use any abrasive solvents or cleaners to avoid damaging the fabric and padding.
Is this booster seat helpful?
This is one of the most reasonably priced booster seats available today that delivers exceptionally well on the safety front.
- It can be cleaned easily and left to air dry.
- It can be transported between multiple vehicles.
- It has an adjustable harness and can be used with your car seatbelt too.
- It accommodates the needs of growing children.
- It exceeds Federal Crash Test Standards.
Britax Frontier Click Tight Harness Booster Car Seat
This booster seat can be installed and secured easily with the help of your car’s seat belt. It’s made of durable steel and mesh fabric that is great for impact absorption as well as comfort.
You can install it without any rethreading and adjust the harness into 9 different positions with the headrest. The forward-facing harness can fit children weighing 25 – 90 pounds, whereas the booster mode can fit children weighing 40 -120 pounds.
You can convert this booster seat from a harness to a belt-positioning car seat as your child grows older. It has 2 layers of side impact protection with its steel frame and impressive impact-absorbing base.
The fit in harness mode is arguably its best feature as it provides for secure yet comfortable seating.
Is this booster seat helpful?
This impact-absorbing booster seat is designed well and is quite durable to ensure you won’t need to purchase another booster seat for years together.
- It’s perfect for children aged 2 and over.
- It has 2 layers of side impact protection.
- The harness can be adjusted to accommodate 9 different positions
- It has a strong latch to prevent the seat from sliding forward
Conclusion
Car booster seats aren’t just designed for toddlers; you can use one as your child grows older as well to ensure they’re protected in the event of an accident.
They’re a fairly small investment to make for the many great features they offer you. Besides, it’s not just the safety factor that speaks in favor of buying a car booster seat.
They can make long and bumpy rides more comfortable for your child as well. Most if not all of the booster seats I’ve reviewed above are designed in a way to accommodate your child’s seating needs as they grow.
Make sure you go through each one carefully to ensure you pick the best one to suit your child’s needs and preferences.
