Booster Seat Review

Introduction to Booster Seats

This report covers car seats for toddlers, for keeping your child safe when they are too large for an infant or convertible car seat, yet too small to use your car's safety belt alone. Please see our other reports on infant car seats (which also double as infant carriers) and convertible car seats (which can accommodate infants in the rear-facing position and kids up to approximately 40 pounds in the forward-facing position).

The best car seat reviews come from Consumer Reports, the only reviewer that performs independent crash testing, conducting similar tests to those performed by the federal government. The books Baby Bargains and Toddler Bargains cover virtually every type of baby gear you're likely to need. Editors don't crash test car seats, but the authors Denise and Alan Fields evaluate subjective factors ignored by Consumer Reports, like comfort, brand reliability and customer service. They also give reviews and ratings for most currently available booster seats, unlike Consumer Reports which only evaluates a handful of models.

The website of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) offers a comprehensive ease-of-use rating system. This system assigns each seat a rating out of five stars in each of five categories: labels, instructions, securing the child, installation features and overall ease of use. While this is helpful, car seats are not evaluated on any other performance aspect.

Dorel Juvenile Group, which manufactures booster seats under the Cosco, Eddie Bauer and Safety 1^st brand names, has had an interesting on-again, off-again, on-again history with their booster seats. Several years ago, a previous version of the Eddie Bauer High Back Booster performed poorly on crash tests. Reviewers revealed that, when the seat was used as a booster with the automobile's lap/shoulder belt, the belt guide on the car seat caused the belt to jam, allowing slack. Some parents noted that their child was indeed able to slide out from under the belt. The Eddie Bauer Deluxe High Back Booster (*Est. $120) now has an open-loop shoulder belt adjuster that allows the vehicle's safety belt to slide freely in and out. The same is true for the Cosco Summit High Back Booster (*Est. $70), which is essentially the same car seat with different fabric. This new system gets good reviews from both experts and parents, and we've chosen to include the less expensive Cosco car seat -- the Summit High Back Booster -- in ConsumerSearch Fast Answers as one of the best toddler car seats.

Most car seat/booster combos (like the Cosco Summit High Back Booster) accommodate children at about 30 pounds, when the child has outgrown his convertible car seat but still needs a five-point harness (best for kids up to about 40 pounds, or three to four years old). After the child has outgrown the need for a harness, the seat converts to a booster seat for kids up to 80 or 100 pounds (depending on the model). Booster-only seats are meant for 30 to 100-pound kids who no longer need a five-point harness, but need to be elevated to use the car's adult seat belt. Some booster-only seats have adjustable backs, while others are backless, using the car's rear seat back for support. Some come with a back that can be removed.

Safety experts say children should remain in booster seats until they reach 80 pounds, and the biggest safety concern among experts is parents who don't keep their children in car seats long enough. There's a tendency for parents to "slack off," using seats for older kids occasionally or not at all. In a crash, children secured only by the car's seat belt can slide under the belt, which is why experts recommend a booster with a belt-positioning system to elevate the child to the proper height to safely use the vehicle's lap/shoulder belts. Belt-positioning booster seats properly situate the car's seat belt over a child's stronger hip and shoulder bones, instead of his more vulnerable belly and neck.