Britax Endeavours Car Seat Review: Safety First for Our Girl
Second, only to a mother’s love for her baby, is her concern for his safety.
It seems the moment we find out we are expecting a child we start to worry about all the things that could happen during the pregnancy and after… all the way to college, adulthood, and beyond. We spend a lot of time looking for ways to keep our kids safe and to avoid as many mishaps as we can in areas we can control. We may not be able to control if or when our child is involved in an automobile accident, but we can ensure we’ve done our best to keep them safe by putting them into a safe, sturdy child seat like the Britax Endeavours car seat.
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The Britax Endeavours Infant Seat is Compact and Perfect for Larger Families
When I had my first two children, 13 and 8 years ago, we used a very common brand of travel system… a nice car seat with a base, and a stroller. They all matched and they were super easy to use. I felt good about the safety of my child in that system. Fast forward many years and boom, we found ourselves looking at infant seats again for our baby girl. Because our family has grown not only in number, but our boys are also bigger kids now, it was important to me that our new system not only be safe but compact too, because the three kids would most likely be seated together. I was really excited when A Girls Guide to Cars and Britax gave me the opportunity to review a Britax seat, and to pick out the model I felt would work the best for us.
Related: What You Need To Know About Car Seat Safety – It Starts With How They’re Made
Why the Britax Endeavours Infant Car Seat?
I chose the Britax Endeavours model because of its compact size, snap-in base, and the fact that it could pair with a Britax B-Lively stroller for a complete travel system. I purchased the stroller (currently $239 on Amazon) and car seat adapters myself and requested the car seat to review.
I really didn’t know what to expect since I hadn’t handled one of these seats myself. When it arrived I was shocked at how heavy it was! Now I know that this weight is due to the steel frame inside the seat, which is what helps to make it one of the safest infant seats on the market. I had made a good choice.
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LATCH and Britax: A Brand New Adventure for Us
Our car seat arrived the day after our daughter was born, so my husband left the hospital to go pick it up and he was the one who got to unbox it and figure out how to install the base in our car. It was 4 months before I had to ask him how to do it because he always just took care of moving the base. Once he showed me how it worked, I was shocked at how simple the LATCH system is. I love the seat level indicator that lets me know if I need to adjust the wedge under the base to level out the seat so baby isn’t sitting too upright. The seats we had for our boys were not LATCH-equipped so this was a whole new experience!
The base for the seat includes an anti-rebound bar (this presses up agains the back of the car’s seat) which prevents the seat from flipping up too far and rebounding back into the car’s seatback in the event of a crash. This can protect your little one from a major jolt, or the sudden impact of their feet and legs against the seatback.
I do like that the seat can also be used without the base. Some days I just need to make a quick run in our SUV, which we rarely drive, and I don’t want to fool with moving the base from our daily driver. Or my husband may be gone and the base is in the car he’s driving. Being able to use the car’s shoulder belt to secure the car seat and know that baby is still very safe gives me peace of mind while we’re on the road.
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Customizing the Fit of the Car Seat to Your Infant
Newborn babies are so tiny that even an infant seat can appear to swallow them up. The Endeavours comes with a nice padded insert to help cradle your infant properly positioned in the seat. It also has a quick-adjust harness system that slides up and down so you can adjust the position of the shoulder straps without re-threading all the straps. There are soft pads to velcro onto the shoulder straps to provide a comfy ride. We found these were too big and bulky for our newborn, but they came off easily and we saved them for use later. It’s also handy that they come off easily for washing cause we all know babies are prone to spitting up on everything.
Pairing the Britax Endeavours Car Seat with a Britax Stroller
The click-on mechanism that allows the seat to snap into the base in your car, also allows the seat to snap onto a stroller. When researching which of the Britax strollers to pair with the Endeavours seat, it seemed the B-Lively stroller would be the best fit for our family. To accommodate the car seat I had to order some adapters which were very easy to install and now my baby’s seat goes from car to stroller effortlessly.
The Endeavours seat and base run about $319.99. The B-Lively stroller is around $239, and I believe we paid about $35 for the adapters, making this travel set around $593. It is definitely the most expensive gear our baby has, but it is also what could save her life in the event of a crash, and it’s something she will use a lot since we are a family on the go!
I have been really happy with our choices when it comes to the seat and the stroller. The ease of use is so important when you’re a busy mom with full hands. The stroller gets used daily around here since her brothers like to push baby sister around the yard and she sits in it while we work in the garden. I love how the canopy on the stroller and the canopy on the car seat meet in the middle to provide complete shade for the baby so I don’t have to worry about her getting sunburnt.
Disclaimer: The Britax Endeavors Car Seat was sent to me by Britax for the purpose of this review. I do get to keep it. All photos and opinions are my own.
Categorized:Car Safety