# I hate my new Britax Boulevard? (please help)



## mama2004 (Nov 14, 2007)

So I've been wanting a Britax seat for several months now, since before ds was born, but we ended up with a baby bucket for the first 7 mos. I just received the seat of my dreams, I thought (aforementioned Britax Blvd.). It was even greatly reduced in price, thank you, Amazon.
My husband ended up installing it before I had a chance to put my little one in it here in our living room to get it all adjusted, but everything I have read says what a dream they are to adjust and how wonderful and easy and blah blah blah it is to put your child safely into the seat. I did not find that to be the case yesterday afternoon when I had to take it for its virgin drive. My ds was sleepy, and it was cold and rainy outside, and there is considerably less room for me to wiggle around in the back seat now, but I spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to get my little guy safe and cozy in that seat and I finally had to give up and cancel our plans because I could not for the life of me figure out how to get the straps properly tightened. According to my rushed and stressed reading of the instructions (great that they're attached to the seat, unless you are actually trying to read them), it is supposed to be a simple matter of using that little lever/doohicky thing right on the front edge of the seat, under the flap of fabric, right? Is that it?
I could not for the life of me get it to tighten much at all with ds in the seat, and couldn't make it work by taking ds out, tightening some and trying to put him back in, hoping that I had magically done just enough to make it fit perfectly. We also use cds, so ds is well padded in the bottom, and the bottom clip was a nightmare to get fastened.
Will someone please just tell that I was having a bad moment or several and that it really is easy? I was sooooo excited to get this seat and to be able to keep ds (28", about 16#, by the way) rear facing for a good long while. Is there something silly that I missed that I should have seen in the instructions? A special prayer I should say? Anything?
Thank you!


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## alegna (Jan 14, 2003)

It's a ratcheting motion. Pull. Release. Pull. Release. etc.

good luck!

-Angela


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## grumpybear (Oct 5, 2006)

Oh yuck. Just when I was contemplating on buying a Britax because I was sick and tired of the Radian ratchet.
Do all convertibles tighten that way?
I do find that I have stronger biceps now after moving my son from his bucket to the Radian.
To the OP, maybe just think of it as a workout?









Sorry, no sane advice here.


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## an_aurora (Jun 2, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *grumpybear* 
Oh yuck. Just when I was contemplating on buying a Britax because I was sick and tired of the Radian ratchet.
Do all convertibles tighten that way?
I do find that I have stronger biceps now after moving my son from his bucket to the Radian.
To the OP, maybe just think of it as a workout?









Sorry, no sane advice here.

The Britax straps are 10000000 times easier to adjust than the Radian. We have one of each and it took me a solid month to get the ratchet on the Radian figured out.

To the OP, I'd take off the HUGS pads, and practice ratcheting the strap. Angela is right, it's a definite ratcheting motion instead of one smooth pull like you would think.


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## mama2004 (Nov 14, 2007)

Thanks, Alegna & Grumpybear. I'm sure a little more patience and a little next pressure next time I try it will improve things, but, sheesh. Alegna, would it be reasonable to think of loosening the harness each time to make it easier to fasten, then tightening it? I'll have a chance to try again tomorrow without the babe, I hope and maybe it won't be so tough...I hope...


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## mama2004 (Nov 14, 2007)

Thanks to you too, An Aurora, simulpost. I'm thinking good thought about ratcheting. Never imagined myself using those words together in a sentence.


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## an_aurora (Jun 2, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *annalivia* 
Alegna, would it be reasonable to think of loosening the harness each time to make it easier to fasten, then tightening it? I'll have a chance to try again tomorrow without the babe, I hope and maybe it won't be so tough...I hope...

It will get easier, I promise. I have DD2 in a Marathon, and I loosed the straps every time to get her out & back in, and tighten. It's second nature by now! I'd bring the seat inside, plop it on the floor and play with it & get used to how it works before you have to do it in the car.


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## Katerz2u (Jul 14, 2006)

I agree, bring it in the house and practice if you can. As far as the short crotch strap, Britax makes theirs shorter so the harness fits across their upper thighs. If you have the seat installed using the seatbelt make sure you didn't accidentally thread the seatbelt over the crotch strap (just lift the cover on the lower half to check). I did this once and was







: trying to figure out why it was so much tighter then when I installed with LATCH.


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## thepeach80 (Mar 16, 2004)

I don't loosen mine every time, but it's Evan's seat and he's 3 this week. I do still loosen Ilana's straps every time in her infant seat though. Evan's seat is VERY hard to use right now b/c I have the trainer on it to keep him from loosening the harness and my fingers are not long enough to lift up the little metal lever anymore.







I found if I put him in and it's not quite tight enough, if I unbuckle the buckle I can get it tighter than if I tried to do it while it was buckled. I love my BV though and I'm sure you will too.


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## MayLibertySprout (Jul 17, 2007)

Yikes! this is carseat we are looking at. From discriptions I thought it would be a lot easier too!! I just found this web site (havent "used" it yet iykwim) but I did see a section where you ca ask child seat techs ?'s on installing-sounds cool...maybe that could help!? And looked like a lot about Britix there...HTH ..(not that you wont great advice here!







)
www.car-seat.org


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## mama2004 (Nov 14, 2007)

Hey Katerz2u, thank you so much for the suggestion about the seatbelt install, that was definitely a big part of the problem, and I might have gone on banging my head for a while if you hadn't suggested that. Now on with the ratcheting practice...


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## Katerz2u (Jul 14, 2006)

YW, Im glad it was something simple!


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## linguistmama (Sep 25, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *thepeach80* 
I don't loosen mine every time, but it's Evan's seat and he's 3 this week. I do still loosen Ilana's straps every time in her infant seat though. Evan's seat is VERY hard to use right now b/c I have the trainer on it to keep him from loosening the harness and my fingers are not long enough to lift up the little metal lever anymore.







I found if I put him in and it's not quite tight enough, if I unbuckle the buckle I can get it tighter than if I tried to do it while it was buckled. I love my BV though and I'm sure you will too.

Do you have a link for the trainer? It sounds interesting.

OP, we have a Blvd too and it has taken awhile to get used to tightening it. It works great now after some practice, but it is still the only thing I don't like. The easy tightening on our old Evenflo was the only thing I liked about that seat, otherwise I hated it!


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## thepeach80 (Mar 16, 2004)

I don't have a link, I will have to take a pic tomorrow. I had Evan in his seat one day and he figured out how to loosen his harness and just hopped out of his seat! He can't do it now w/ this piece on there, but neither can I. lol


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## mama2004 (Nov 14, 2007)

OP here... I've been messing with this seat for a few days now, and can not get it to tighten at all when my ds is in the seat. When I take him out, it's as easy as pie to adjust the harness, but when he is in the seat the harness will not budge. Seriously, not a bit; there is no ratcheting or anything at all, just me pulling on a strap that will not move.
Any suggestions?


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## an_aurora (Jun 2, 2006)

I'd post this question on www.car-seat.org. I'm sure you will get lots of help over there! Sorry it's not working for you


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## mom2PJS (May 25, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *annalivia* 
OP here... I've been messing with this seat for a few days now, and can not get it to tighten at all when my ds is in the seat. When I take him out, it's as easy as pie to adjust the harness, but when he is in the seat the harness will not budge. Seriously, not a bit; there is no ratcheting or anything at all, just me pulling on a strap that will not move.
Any suggestions?


The biggest help for me is to only buckle one side and the chest retainer then tighten the harness then buckle the other side.... We also pull the harness tight around the hips and help "feed "the harness out the top.

Are your harness straps routed properly? I've seen installs before where the parent has the harness routed around the bottom of the base.. then when you weight the seat with the child you can't tighten it. I'm concerned that you can't budge it at all. That sends up red flags that something is not right. Beyond that the carseat.org link is a good one... there is some overflow of techs onto this site, but it is definitely more active.


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## mama2004 (Nov 14, 2007)

Thanks for the feedback--I'm concerned, too, about the fact that we're still having troubles with the tightening. I haven't worked on this project for a couple of days, since the seat rides around in the car with my husband and we're here at home, mostly. I didn't make any changes to the harness before the install, we just put it in the way it arrived, so I'm thinking that we didn't mess anything up, but I don't know. I think it's time to bring it back inside and spend some time again tonight trying to figure this out. Fortunately, there is a car seat clinic coming up in our area next weekend, and I am definitely stopping in to have the install checked. We don't have any traveling to do between now and then, so at least I don't have to worry about my babe riding in an unsafe seat. It's just so strange--the harness tightens beautifully as long as ds is not in the seat...


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## treqi (Dec 31, 2006)

yeh that sounds like there is something wrong with the straps... I LOVE my Blvd. and every thing about the adjusting is easy as pie.....


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## MPsSweetie (Jan 29, 2006)

Ugh, we just got ours put in last week and I'm hating it already too! And I've brought it back in the house 3 times to mess with it and play with it.


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## beka1977 (Aug 1, 2004)

We love ours and I find it very easy to use. The one time we had an issue was when a strap twisted - sort of inside and behind. I would check to make sure that you have everything threaded correctly and no twists.


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## rainyday (Apr 28, 2006)

Are you trying to tighten it while you're in the back seat? I find that I absolutely can not tighten the straps on our Marathon when I'm in the back. I have to get in front, turn around and pull from there. Even then, I find it to be really hard, but it is doable for me. Sometimes I won't be able to pull enough to get it to ratchet down, and I'll have to manually push the ratcheting clip back down in the slightly tighter position. Then I'll repeat. Also make sure the hugs pads aren't too far back. I think it's harder to tighten with them touching the back of the seat. Dh is stronger and he has no problem tightening it, so I kind of think everyone who says it is easy is just stronger than I am!


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## kadas33 (Sep 21, 2007)

I just installed ours yesterday and I'm having the same problem. I'm going to try some of the suggestions on this thread and hope for the best.


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## Ironica (Sep 11, 2005)

I haven't used a Boulevard, but I find that in our Marathon (which has a different tightening system) that it is MUCH easier to tighten the strap properly if I lift UP on the shoulder strap when I tighten. I get much less resistance that way. Basically, I put my hand under the strap just above DS's shoulder and lift all the slack up, then pull it tight (of course, my hand goes down as I do this). We didn't discover this until we'd been using the seat over two years







: but it's way easier this way!


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