Britax Companion Infant Car Seat Onyx

I love this car seat! It's been easy to adjust as my baby grows, and I feel safe when he is in it. I love the head support! The base was easy to install, and easy to move when needed. The baby does get hot in this seat, but he doesn't mind. I use this seat with the maclaren easy traveller when I am out and about. The seat is a little heavy, so I prefer not to carry it around. It fits great! Worth every penny!

First for the pros --
Really easy to snap into and out of my snap n go double and its own base.
really light to carry for the level of safety.
Soft well padded covers. a breeze to take apart and wash the covers -- a must with spit ups and so on. mine came thro the wash really well, but wouldnt throw in the dryer, better to drip dry.

can remove the inflatable head insert once baby outgrows it/ starts disliking it though the recommendation is to not use without. Once you remove it, the impact protection will be equivalent to non SIP seats.

the above feature is unique compared to chicco or maxi cosi.
the anti rebound bar is another safety feature not found elsewhere.

nice and roomy for tall babies works to 30" -- just remember to re thread straps and adjust the head pad insert appropriately.

handle moves really easily into position though you do need two hands to get it to change position.

The foam insert for children under 7 lbs, keeps them much more reclined than the other seats. so works from 4 lbs -- thats another reason to pick this seat for me since with twins due, i had a reqsonable expectation of low birth weight.

CONS --

you have to pay extra for and order foam insert separately from britax. so really description should read 7 - 22lbs.

That head protection pad slides all over the place, making it tough to get a squirmy baby in place -- am going to try another reviewers suggestion of velcro.

The low weight limit. This does not bother me too much, I am hoping this will last 4 mo or so at least, but like with my older DS I hope to transition my babies into a roundabout or other rear facing convertible britax, and keep them rear facing thro close to 2 years old. At the time when they are the most vulnerable new borns, I want nothing less than the safest car seat out there, and I feel Britax delivers that thro the years.
I am petite, and don't hope to really carry my infants in their car seats once the combined weight tops 20 lbs that would be a 15 lb baby
The chicco was rated better for ease of use by consumer reports, not for safety, and guess what, they had a huge safety recall where those seats would not secure correctly to the base. The only britax I owned that was recalled, was the marathon, and that was more a seatbelt issue, than the seat construction. The britax is plenty easy to use, and so much more quality than graco etc.

This car seat is fantastic!!! It is very sturdy, well made and very comfortable for our son... he loves it!! He could sleep in it all day! It is also one of the highest rated safety car seats on the market right now according to consumer reports. The only thing that we have found is that it is slightly heavy and the shade that you pull down could be a little longer to cover more of the car seat. Goes great with the stroller too!!! I would highly recommend this to anyone!

This was a great car seat for about 6 months. My son was quite happy in it during the winter months. He seemed to get a bit sweaty in it once it warmed up outside. He grew fast, so we could only keep him in it till he was 6 months old.

My husband and I really liked this car seat. It easily snaps in and out of the base, and it does make an audible click, contrary to another review saying that it doesn't. If yours doesn't click when placing it in the base, you are probably doing something wrong. It was nice to be able to keep our daughter in the seat while running errands instead of having to constantly strap and unstrap her. Especially since most babies tend to fall asleep in the car.

The seat fit extremely well in our Dodge 3500. If you tried to aggressively move/wiggle the car seat, the truck would move instead.

The head pad/support is superior to any other car seat's. It is also adjustable via a little built-in finger pump. We never had any problem with her little head flopping around like I've seen in some other car seats.

A couple of things that prevented me from giving it a five star rating. The chest clip is not as sturdy as I would like. After a year of use ours had bent out of shape. However, a new chest clip only costs $3 on Britax's USA website, and I would highly recommend buying one or two extra and replacing them as needed. I am thinking that the reason they continue to use it on the Companion is because it seems like it is more comfortable than the bigger, sturdier clips that are used on Britax's other car seats. This chest clip is flexible and conforms around the baby's chest instead of pushing into it like the more durable ones might.

The other thing that I didn't like was that the Companion was advertised as being suitable for children from four to twenty-two pounds. But, if your child is less than seven pounds, you have to purchase the "Low Birth Weight Foam" and put that in the car seat, THEN it will actually be good for a smaller baby. Our daughter weighed less than seven pounds for her first few weeks, and she always seemed to be a little scrunched in her car seat during that time. We didn't realize until much later what the problem was. It does mention the need for the foam in the user guide, but we either didn't pay attention to it thinking that our baby would be an 7+ pounder, and/or we forgot about it. My recommendation is that you purchase the additional foam, use it if you need it and return it if you don't. That way you'll be prepared if you have a skinny baby.

Our daughter is pretty tall, so we had to switch to the Britax Marathon at 11 months, which is another great car seat.

Would we use this car seat again? Absolutely. We've already refurbished our original one by completely washing it and replacing the chest clip and adding the Low Birth Weight Foam. It's ready for our next skinny baby. :)