Safety 1st TriMate All-in-One Convertible Car Seat

I have multiple children and have had at least one child in a car seat for the past 10 years, so we have been through many car seats. This one left me actually excited to leave a review! I received this product as part of the Stellar Product Testing Panel, and it truly lives up to everything it claims. The feature I am the most excited about is how easy it is to wash! Car seat I have previously owned claim "easy to wash" when in actuality they are washable, but it is an extremely annoying process. On only the 2nd day of use, my daughter had an accident which made washing the car seat necessary. This is the exciting part! It had snaps! I was able to remove the seat cushion and leave the car seat in the van. It snaps around the straps so taking the whole car seat apart is unnecessary. I was also able to put the cushion back on without taking it out of the car. It washed up very nicely. I did not wash the back rest, but I did remove it to make sure it was just as easy to remove/replace. It also is slim as it claims. I put it in the rear middle seat of my minivan and there was room on each side for another child. My 3-year-old said, "mommy this is nice" and "mommy this is so comfy" without any prompting :) She has fallen asleep in it multiple times so it must be true. It can be belted in and also comes with the latch system (picture included) The removeable cupholders are another bonus. I have found cupholders a pain to wash in previous car seats.

The Safety 1st TriMate All-In-One Convertible car seat is great! Right away I noticed the design and how clean it looked. The Dunes Edge fabric is a lighter color than other car seats we have, and I think that's great as I'm sure it would absorb less heat if parked in the sun. As soon as we pulled it out of the box, our 14 month old son climbed in and loved it! The headrest is easily adjustable, and makes it so our son is comfortable while we drive. Plus, the ability to move the straps as our son grows is great. We have two sedans, so the slim profile allows for bringing more with us wherever we go, and it fits well behind the front passenger seat in the backwards configuration. We do have to have that passenger seat moved up a bit, but this seat fits better than others have, and when we flip it around as he gets older it will fit even better. I love that it also comes with cupholders, but we quickly found that our 14 month old son was able to remove them easily, so they've been in and out. It's great having a spot for his water bottle though while we drive. Installation is also easy, but the included anchors were a little tough to tighten for proper safety, so I wound up also using the seat belt. Overall, this is a great car seat and we plan to use it for many years! Thanks to the Stellar Product Testing Panel for sending me this to review.

Great comfortable seat for my grandson

I was given this all in one car seat to try as part of the Stellar Product Testing Panel. Right away my son was very interested in this car seat out of the box. The instructions for installation were very simple and helpful. We did have trouble with the tilting function of this seat. Once we got it laid all the way out we could not get it back to a happy medium for my 1.5 year old. We ended up taking it out and fussing with it before re-installing it, which wasn't fun. I, personally, liked the light weight feature of this car seat. Especially during installation. My husband disagreed with me saying it made it "feel cheap." Other than that, I appreciated all the extra cushions and neutral color scheme. I'm looking forward to using this for many years to come as my child grows!

I received the Safety 1st TriMate All-in-One Convertible Car Seat to try out from the Stellar Product Testing Panel. After several weeks of use, I can attest that it is a great, slim car seat on a budget. It fits three across in my small suv with a booster and another not-quite-as-slim slim car seat. My five year old rides in it as a forward facing car seat quite happily. The seat came fully assembled in the box so set up and install were quick and easy. That said, it's not a seat I'd want to have to move around often as it lacks some features like the push to release latch system. The latch system must be manually unhooked which is markedly more difficult with three seats right up against each other. A few other features make it a bit fiddly. The chest clip is a bit difficult to release requiring two hands to undo. The shoulder strap cushions are bulky and twist around often rather than staying in place requiring frequent fixing. The car seat cover seems to shift easily as well which may make it easy to remove, but also means I am frequently reattaching parts of it to the seat. Despite these little inconveniences, the seat is comfortable and the price point makes a three across set up far more accessible than other seats on the market. It really is quite slim!! I'd highly recommend to anyone needing a slim fit seat on a budget!

We have been using the Safety First TriMate for a little over a week now and my son loves it. He seems comfortable and the extra padding protecting his mid-section, head, and shoulders is appreciated. As a parent with a smaller house and car, I like the car seat's versatility. I won't have to buy a new car seat soon since this one grows with my child. The website states that it can be used for babies from 5 lbs to children up to 100 lbs. It has several positions and when my 4 year old grows out of the current placement of headrest, it raises higher. For the bigger kids, it can be used as a booster seat with a back in which the car's seatbelt would be used. It was fairly easy to install and has a latch safety system, which gives me peace of mind when driving around town. We have two kids in car seats, and though it's not the most comfortable, I can now sit between the two seats in the back if need be. One downfall is that the cup holders are too high to sit my son in the car seat from the door. He has to climb in independently from inside the car from a front angle. Thank you to stellar panel for sending me the car seat.

I was so excited to hear that the Stellar Product Testing Panel was offering for me to try a car seat, right before our cross country vacation! We were prepared to bring our current car seats but traveling with 2 kids under 5 and 6 adults can make for a tight squeeze when switching vehicles between stops. This Safety 1st Tri-mate seat was incredibly easy to adjust and install. It came with everything needed for newborn +, but we were able to modify it easily for our 2 year old to sit in. I absolutely love the adjustable headrest with the handle and that it moves the shoulder straps up without having to re-thread them whenever my child grows or changes seat direction (rear facing to forward facing, etc). Of course the lower buckle could still need adjusting to the appropriate belt path but this makes things so much easier. My daughter didn't seem to mention any discomfort in this seat. She has mentioned lower back discomfort in other brand seats that we already own. This made me happy especially traveling from NY to CA for vacation. There was plenty of room between her seat and my sons in the second row for a petite adult and probably would've been more room if we moved her to seat to the middle. My only "downside" would be the easily removable cup holders. I was so excited about these when it came to ease of cleaning but a little less excited when my newly two year old was throwing them all over my car! Love the idea but maybe they need a pin to secure them along the bottom to ensure they stay put. All in all, so far, so good! We appreciate Stellar Panel giving us the opportunity to test out this seat! I'm excited to see how my kids like it as they grow and change even more.

We have a Prius c. It's tiny in all directions. I received this as part of a Stellar Product Testing Panel. The Trimate is narrower than our other compact carseats at the hips by about half an inch which is helpful, but still not enough to get even my skinny tween in the middle seat. Our van fit 3 across easily. The main thing companies seem to forget is that compact cars also struggle with front to back space between the rows when we are considering rear facing. We have not found any RF seat that would let a passenger sit comfortably. But this one does ok behind the driver at recline 2 (6+mo), especially if the driver is willing to sit up straighter. My main complaints with this seat are with the latches & the cup holders. The latches are the basic hard to pinch ones & I struggled the most to detach them. Some people have reviewed that installing tight was impossible , but the manual states to pull the strap back through the belt path to tighten, and once I did that, it was plenty secure. As for the cupholder, my toddler has done nothing but repeatedly take it off & throw it around the car while I'm driving. I gave up & detach them completely when he's in the seat. Both of my carseat kids liked the padding a lot (crotch buckle padding for boys ??) & it was easy to adjust the latches between RF/FF/booster + sizing the straps was thankfully quick. We had a safety first alpha omega for my now teenager & not only is this a vast improvement by the company for comfort/ease of use, it's also a much better fit particularly in booster mode. This Trimate actually gets a proper booster belt fit for my tiny 6 year old. Very exciting! This seat won't get most kids RFing past 3 years & they'll probably max out the FFing/booster height a few years after that, but it's a great 1 & done seat for compact cars that doesn't break the bank.

Overall, both myself and my child loved the car seat! It's slim design left more room in our back seat, which is great to have more space when needing to put a third car seat or even an adult in the back. Installation and making any adjustments were quick and easy. One downfall was that after installation I could feel the seat belt path through the cushion. However, it didn't seem to bother my daughter and she said it was comfortable! Thank you to the Stellar Product Testing Panel for allowing us to test out this great seat! Can't wait to watch my child grow into the booster!

The car seat wasn't as sturdy or stable as I thought it would be. I thought it would be more suitable for a newborn. It is suitable for a three to four month old and older.