Booster Seat - Recommendations, Please!

She is too little to be in a booster (seatbelt positioner).
She needs to a bare minimum of 40lbs. and if your little girl is like mine those 4 lbs. could take more than a year to be gained.

Are you worried that she has outgrown the Marathon height wise?
She has not: http://www.britaxusa.com/car-seats/marathon/grow-with-britax

Keep her in the Marathon until she has outgrown it either height or weight wise. You could easily get 2 more years out of this seat.

Keeping her in a 5pt. harness for as long as possible is the best.

My DD is 5.5, 45lbs., 50" tall and still harnessed in her Britax Frontier.

HTH!

We are about to purchase the Britax Frontier 85 for our 2 year old.

I like the Graco 3 in 1 Nautilus that we just got for our daughter last month. It is actually highest rated on consumer reports. It is comfortable and goes from 5 point harness to high back booster to backless booster so I'll never need to buy another car seat again! I also have the Britax Frontier 85 and like that as well, but it does not change to a backless booster. Good luck finding one : )

Not familiar with the Jane Indy, but we use the britax frontier also! Five point harness as long as possible, It's the safest!

at 3.8 years and 36 lbs. she'd be better off in a harnessed seat for a while longer - most 4YOs need more time to develop the impulse control needed to sit properly in a booster seat without wiggling around, trying to put the shoulder belt behind them, slouching, etc. Does she still fit her Marathon (shoulders at or below the top harness slot) or are you planning to pass it down to a younger sibling now? If you need to get her a new seat b/c of either of those reasons, your best bet is to get what's called a "Combination Seat" - a forward facing seat with removable 5 point harness - when the harness is outgrown by height or weight the seat can be used without the harness as a belt positioning booster. The ones most frequently rec'd by certified Child Passenger Safety techs (for the high harness height/weight limits and ability to position the lap and shoulder belt well in booster mode) are the Graco Nautilus (about $165 retail), Britax Frontier (about $270 retail), and Evenflo Maestro (about $80 retail) - although the newest Recaro ProSport combo seat is also getting some good reviews (http://carseatblog.com/9824/recaro-prosport-review/)

Scroll down to "Forward facing only seats" in this link for details on the Frontier, Nautilus, and Maestro: http://carseatblog.com/carseatblogcoms-recommended-car-se...

In Massachusetts the law says 40 pounds AND 4 years of age for a booster. As your name shows you are from MA, not only is it unsafe it is illegal to move your child to a booster.

We have the "Compass" brand boosters.
We and the kids like it.
It has good reviews.
You can read reviews of it via Amazon.

http://www.consumersearch.com/booster-seats