Kiddopotamus Duo Mat

I have used our Duo mat now for five months. The good features are: The good quality fabric and rubber edging Adequate size to cover most of the seat back and base. It has a dycem backing to help grip so it doesnt move or slide. It is weighted lightly in the hem, to also help keep it in place and keep the fabric from rolling up. Finally it has a piece of fabric which adjoins the back and base that you tuck into the seat. All making it secure, so that with the movement of kids climbing in and out of their seat it doesnt eventually move or twist in the seat. The negatives are minor. The pockets are small and even in front facing I find not useful. You cannot fit in a book and crayons are hard to extract out of the pockets once in. The back does slide down occassionally when trying to fit in the car seat at times, and this can be frustrating but not a serious problem. Overall this does what it was designed to do. Protect the seat. More from food and beverage spills and dirt, than pressure to the actual car seat facric. It stays in place and looks tidy. I havent tried to clean it yet aside from shaking it out and a light vacuum and this seems to be sufficient for the moment. If you have a car seat cover over all your car seats I dont see that this would be of any advantage, but if like me you only have covers for the two front seats then these are valuable and when you transfer the car seat to someone elses car, it is easy to take along too. Its a nice added touch to look after their car too. I will be buying a second one for my eldest' booster seat.

I bought the Duo Mat to use in my Honda van with a rear facing Britax Boulevard. The mat is thick enough that I'm not getting car seat "lines" on my leather, yet it's not so rigid that I can't cinch the car seat down tightly. Obviously, having a car seat tightly anchored still dents the leather but at least I don't have the deeply grooved lines. The section of the mat that goes on the upright part of the seat comes up high enough that it will protect the seat from the bottoms of baby's shoes when he gets a little taller, although I'm not sure it will completely protect the seat from "lines" once the car seat is turned forward. The mesh pockets are basically useless in the rear facing position -- too hard to get into and too small for items like a sippy, diaper or wipes. In spite of the few things I'd tweak a bit (slightly taller; bigger, more easily accessible pockets), I'd still rank this mat higher than the ones I bought at Target.