Review: Britax Willow Grove SC

Everyone tells you how tired you’ll be with a newborn, but take it from someone with a 3-month-old: It’s more than you can anticipate before having kids, unless you were previously an ultramarathoner and/or offshore oil rig worker.

When you’re putting your freshly baked human into a car seat, stroller, or generally taking it anywhere with you (which you have to do, apparently), you don’t just want the process to be easy; you need the process to be easy. That’s why I’ve fallen in love with the Britax Willow Grove SC travel system.

This car seat base, car seat, stroller, and stroller base all come in a package together, and everything just works. There are no tricks for installation or daily use. Anyone can easily figure out how to use every part of these things, even when you haven’t slept in days. Just click your little one into either the stroller or car seat attachment, fold up the wheeled base with one hand, and you’re off to wherever you need to go. The price you pay for this system is about $100 higher than you might pay for another all-in-one option from Chicco, but the build quality and ease of use is well worth the extra cost.

Getting Loaded

The most important thing for any newborn is a quality car seat and base; the hospital literally checked that we had ours installed before they allowed us to leave. There aren't any official safety ratings for this system, but the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration recommends rear-facing seats like this for infants. I grew up (and later babysat) in a time when you had to take your car to the fire department to install your car seat base permanently in the back seat until a child was old enough to not need it, so color me excited when I realized how easy the Britax base was going to be to install.

Photograph: Parker Hall

Simply click the two hooks around the now-standard child seat restraint area on your car’s seats (two hooks that often hide behind the cushions), put the seat belt through the company’s proprietary ClickTight Installation system, and press down. It all tightens in place easily, taking about 30 seconds to install. Once you’ve done it one time, swapping between cars is a breeze. No need to own two bases for different cars/friends/family.

Clicking the actual car seat into the base is also a breeze; it just clicks right in, with a handle on the forward side of the carrier (where your baby’s back faces) that easily allows you to detach it with one hand as your other grabs the handle of the carrier. Apart from the weight of your baby (we have a lunker!), it’s extremely wieldy and convenient.

I like that there are little plastic tabs on the left and right sides of the car seat you can use to hold the straps while you place your baby's butt in the seat. This makes it super easy to then click your baby in place with the three-piece click harness and to cinch them in with the strap between their legs.

On a Stroll

The best part of the car seat is that it easily clicks in and attaches to the foldable stroller base, which means you don’t have to transfer a sleeping kid to a stroller seat when you want to roll them somewhere fresh out of the car. This is awesome, especially because the foldable stroller section can easily be deployed one-handed, thanks to a simple hook-to-hold mechanism on the outside of the right rear wheel pole. You just unhook the plastic piece that’s holding the stroller folded, and gravity does the rest.

Photograph: Parker Hall

I will say that when I was stressed trying to make sure everything was set up before my kid was born, I broke the plastic tabs that click my car seat in place. Initially, I thought the whole system was ruined, but I found that attaching the car seat to the stroller base is largely achieved by gravity, rather than that specific locking mechanism. The locking mechanism for the car seat base, which you install in the car and leave there, uses strong metal bars that would be impossible to break except in a brutal crash. For the stroller base with the car seat attachment on top, I have found that even without the security of plastic locking tabs, the car seat hasn't ever shown any indication it's not firmly on top of the stroller attachment. They're clearly more for peace of mind than anything.

To fold the stroller section down, just remove the car seat or stroller top using two quick-release buttons on the right and left side (unless you've broken them), and hold the thumb and fist switches on the back of the handle, which causes the whole thing to collapse instantly and the aforementioned hook to hold it all closed. It’s really easy to do one-handed, and the hook holds it closed very well.

Photograph: Parker Hall

The design is very clever all around. I love that the bottom of the stroller, which folds out with nice-sized sides and allows you to store a shocking amount of stuff, can still hold most of said stuff when folded. We tended to throw our daughter’s diaper bag and an extra blanket/water bottle down below, and it still easily folds with those things inside, so we don’t need to carry another bag.

The wheels are shockingly smooth and robust. They’re not inflatable, but we have walked our daughter miles and miles over sidewalks and through yards, dog parks, trails, and virtually every surface imaginable, and the wheels are still as smooth as ever after months of hard use.

One thing I'm not stoked about, particularly on the car seat portion, is the sunshade. The stretchy material that Britax uses is nice, and I like the fact I can flip up the magnetic vent so my daughter isn't getting blasted with wind, but it's too elastic to stay in the lowest positions I need to keep the sun out of her eyes. The stroller attachment is better, but it still could go a bit lower for the times when I'm walking my daughter around sunrise and sunset in the northern United States.

Photograph: Parker Hall

Over Time

I like that the Willow SC came with padded inserts for newborns in each set. It was very easy to size them to fit my baby when she was just born, and to resize the straps (and remove the extra padding) as she's gotten bigger and bigger. We'll probably get at least six months out of this stroller and car seat, maybe more depending on how tall my freakishly long daughter grows in the coming days.

There are very few tools that I have been completely satisfied with in child-rearing. Most baby-focused products tend to work for certain people and not for others. This is one of the few foolproof pieces of gear that I have found for parents, and one that I have been recommending to every pregnant couple soliciting advice.

I can't help you get more sleep; figure out what the hell that crying blob wants at 3 in the morning on your own. I can help you get to and from doctor appointments, to relatives, and to the bar (the blessed bar) with ease: Grab the Britax Willow SC. This system will help you take your baby anywhere.