One car seat to go…

The past ten days have left my family a bit travel weary. We’ve been to Chicago, New York and now today, back to Boston. My sister-in-law got married last night, and we’ve been celebrating with her and getting my girls ready for their supporting roles as flower girls (they were superb – more on that later). After the debacle with the rental car seat in Arizona, some of you suggested that I make it a habit to travel with car seats for both kids. I took this advice to heart, and also took the opportunity to test-drive a relatively new product, the Safeguard Go seat.

Before we left, Magic Beans was actually out of stock on the Go seat. We had ordered just a few to see what our customers would think of them, and they sold right out. Fortunately, our first stop was Chicago for a pre-wedding celebration, so we sent my sister-in-law right over to our good friends at Galt Toys Galt Baby to pick up a Go seat.

The Safeguard Go seat is a totally unique concept in forward-facing car seat design. It’s got a nicely cushioned seat with armrests, but the back is basically just fabric with a supportive head rest. When it’s not installed, the fabric folds over onto the seat, making the Go seat easily the most compact, lightweight and portable forward-facing car seat I’ve ever seen. It weighs just 8.6 lbs, and comes with a storage bag, so it’s perfect for travel. The seat can be used two ways – as a forward-facing car seat or as a latch-equipped backless booster seat. As a forward-facing seat, the fabric back conforms to the contour of the car’s seat using a top-tether strap to secure it in place. The only catch is this – to install the seat forward-facing, you need to have a vehicle with a top tether. The actual installation of the seat part can be done with LATCH or with a seat belt.

At the airport, my sister-in-law picked us up in her car, and while my husband got to work installing our Radian, I took a stab at the Go seat. Unfortunately, while I was unpacking the box, my sister-in-law had loaded all the bags into the trunk of her SUV before we realized that the tether was located in the floor of the trunk. Oops. But that one small snag was the only issue I encountered, and it was easily remedied. Otherwise, the seat installed very easily and my older daughter fit into the harness perfectly.

I’ve been very impressed with the Safeguard Go seat, and we’ve used it throughout our trip. It’s even quite comfortable for my daughter to sleep in, as we discovered heading home from the wedding late last night. Hopefully, I’ll make this my new permanent car seat – I just may need to wrestle it away from my husband first.

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