Britax Advocate 70 Car Seat Review - Two Overlooked Reasons to Love It

It is no secret that I am a HUGE fan of the Britax Advocate car seat. It's the car seat I have come to rely on for younger children for many reasons. Some of these reasons are the Advocate's high rating for crash tests, high quality construction and the company's excellent customer service. While all those are important, I want to mention a few often overlooked reasons why I consider the Britax Advocate to be the top of the line for convertible car seats.The first reason is the near perfect angle at which the car seat is positioned once installed. For many convertible infant seats, the angle will position your child comfortably when rear facing but leave him or her sitting far too upright when forward facing or vice versa. Some of the lower priced units on the market even manage to avoid proper reclining in BOTH positions. The Advocate doesn't have this problem. No matter if you are using the seat in rear facing mode for a young infant or as a forward facing seat for your eleven month old, you will find that the Advocate's reclining angle is perfect in both situations. An easy way to see this is when your child falls asleep during a drive. In the old Evanflo convertible we used to use, my eldest daughter would always end up slumping forward when snoozing during a road trip, even after we worked the seat's base adjustment to its limit. It just wouldn't recline back far enough for her.The next point is general comfort. This seems to be something many car seat makers couldn't care less about. Try this experiment: Go to your local Target, Walmart or other mass retailer in your area and look at some of the selections they offer for car seats. Slip your fingers between the main molded part of the seat and feel the foam cushioning. Notice anything? Many will seem to have practically no real padding at all. At best, some have nothing more than about a quarter inch of cheap foam. Do they really expect a thirty pound child to be comfortable in that? Just looking at the Britax Advocate will tell you it is totally different. The design for the padding and how it is attached to the seat gives more the impression of an overstuffed recliner. That is exactly the kind of comfort I wanted for my little one. Think of it like this: If you had to spend four hours in a car, would you rather be in comfort, or strapped into the equivalent of one of those cheap, plastic desk chairs from a college lecture hall?I know most people are primarily interested in safety when it comes to car seats. Yes, safety should still be your highest concern. Every car seat maker likes to trumpet the safety ratings of its products in all of its literature, and you will actually have to look hard to find a seat that doesn't have at least a decent safety rating. The points I've gone over mainly deal with your child's comfort when traveling. What I'd like to make clear is that with the Britax Advocate, you can easily have both safety and comfort. This is why I've switched to using it for my child, and why I recommend it to others.