Century Breverra Ascend: Makes Moving Your Child from Carseat to Booster Seat Painless!

I'm not sure when it happened, but suddenly My "baby" is three years old. Where did the time go? Somewhere during the past three years she grew up, went from a short and chunky toddler to a long and rangy three year old. In addition, she's now full of attitude and opinions, not the least of which is her latest idea that she must climb into her seat herself, and that she should drive everywhere we go. Well, I can't do a lot about her driving (for another thirteen years or so) but we did get her a new carseat for her birthday which made all of us a lot happier about car rides! We picked the Century Breverra Ascend and are thrilled with it.

Specs & Stuff
The Century Breverra Ascend is a newer version of the Breverra line, which was the first booster seat we got my son three years ago when he went through this stage. The Ascend is a very nice seat, and is adaptable for children from 30 to 80 pounds. For smaller children, like my daughter, this seat can be used as a front-facing carseat, with a five-point harness. For bigger kids (40 pounds and up), the harness is removable and a shoulder belt passes through the seat to function as a booster seat only.

The seat has the following features:

• Soft plush cover: The seat cover is a black velour like fabric, with a little diamond pattern in it. It is easily removable and hides stains well -- our seat has had several spills and mishaps and been washed with no visible wear at all!

• Easy Installation: The seat installs easily, with a pass-through slot in back that you thread your seatbelt through and a locking clip. Even better, the flap on the front of the seat flips up so you can access the strap and pass it through from the front. This sure makes installations much easier!

• Slightly rounded headrest area: The front of the seat edges near the top are slightly curved inward, so when my daughter dozes off it provides a little support on the edges. It's not as much as head support as in a child's carseat; however, it's significantly more than in most booster seats.

• Tether option: There is an optional tether which can be used, if needed, to stabilize your carseat in your car. Since many cars have uneven seats this is an important safety feature, and one which may greatly reduce your risk of your child's seat "tipping" when you go around corners. There is also a place to store the tether behind the seat so it is securely held and available if you don't need it in the car you're using at this time.

• Five-point Restraint Harness: This is the safest restraint format available, and is worth the extra second it takes to use (versus a T-bar or other system) just for the added security. A center clip holds the two straps together, and both plug into a solid buckle that comes up between your child's legs. This is fairly easy to use, for the most part (see my note below in dislikes for one caveat on this).

• Adjustable straps: Having had carseats that could only be adjusted from the back, this was a big concern of mine when buying a carseat. The Breverra Ascend has an adjustment lever for the straps that is located on the center bottom of the seat, allowing the parent to tighten or loosen the straps fairly easily. This means I can easily loosen the straps when my daughter has a bulky coat on, and tighten them up when she doesn't. It takes a few times doing it to get the motion down, then it's a breeze!

• Adjustable strap slots: This carseat has two sets of strap slots, so you can move the straps up over your child's shoulders as s/he grows. This is important to prevent undue pressure on your child's shoulders in case of an accident. Straps should always sit at the same level (or just above) your child's shoulders.

• Removable Cup Holder: This is a cute feature, and one that is incredibly handy for both parents and kids. There is a small plastic cup holder that fits into a slot on the carseat armrest, and is just the right size to hold a small cup. It's also the right size for a pacifier or favorite small toy, and my daughter says it's her "binky holder". We're trying to wean her off the binky, but it's nice to know it isn't rolling around on the floor of the car at least! The cupholder can easily be moved from left to right, if needed.

• Armrests: This may sound silly, but my daughter loves her armrests. They're soft and padded, and let her lay her arms down just like a grown up chair and she thinks they're great. It may make it a tad harder for her to crawl up into the chair, versus being totally open, but once she's into the car I think they are a distinct advantage! The pads also come off, if needed, to wash.

• Thorough Instructions: This may not be a huge feature to many people, but I have to mention that the instruction manual that came with our carseat was extremely thorough. It gave us very detailed information on installing our seat into many different types of cars and seatbelt options, which is great since we sometimes travel and need to be able to snap her seat in safely into a rental car, Grandma's car, etc. There is a small pocket on the back of the seat where we store the manual just in case we need it!

What I Would Change
These are just petty things, I know, but if I were to change anything on this carseat I would work from this list:

• Modify the center locking clip: It's currently a plastic snapping clip, and is more difficult to snap than the clip on any of our other carseats or booster seats. Perhaps that's intentional (harder for little kids as well?) but it's challenging to shut sometimes, and I'm afraid I'll hurt either my daughter or my own fingers sometimes with the force needed to shut this thing!

• Make the Armrests Adjustable: It would be nice if the armrests flipped up so that my daughter could climb up and in without hitting them. Then we would slide them back down. This is petty, I know, but would be a nice modification and one that would reduce one of my only negatives on this carseat.

• Add a slightly bigger curve to the headrest area. The center headrest is slightly curved and provides a little support, without blocking her view out the window. It would be nice if this was just a little more curved so that in a deep, deep sleep her neck didn't kink over so far. I will admit, though, that it is significantly more curved than some other booster seats we looked at so I shouldn't complain!

Overall Recommendations
This is a great carseat and booster seat, and one that has eliminated our "getting in the car" battles altogether. I am thrilled that we found this seat, which was under $60 after an online coupon for Babiesrus.com. I did a lot of research before we bought this, including reading all of the Kids & Family Advisors reviews (and a huge thank you to Dr_Steph for doing all of the research for me!). It paid off -- we got a carseat we love at a price we could afford.

I've already had several friends look at this seat and decide that they would buy this same one for their little one when they hit 30 pounds. If you need a seat that will make your little guy or gal feel like a big kid, without sacrifing his or her safety, this is a great choice -- and one that will grow with your child as well. My daughter and I are giving the Century Breverra Ascend Carseat and Booster Seat five stars.