car seat - 3.5 year old
Looking for opinions on car seat usage for a 3.5 year old. From Cincinnati to Honolulu, with a layover in Salt Lake City. At this point we're leaning toward gate checking the seat, and possibly using the Cares harness. This would allow DS to hopefully use the lap tray and we'd be less worried about him kicking the seat in front of us. The downside is that we wouldn't be as comfortable for napping, and it's not as safe. We have a Britax Marathon 70, and DS is 37 lbs. This is his 10th(?) round-trip flight. All have been 2-2.5 hours, except for our last trip to Hawaii when he was 25 months old. (We had a direct flight from Chicago then, and had bulkhead seats). He's always used his car seat on fights thus far.
Just looking for people's opinions for and against using the car seat at this age. If the first leg is a failure. We figure we can always use the car seat for the flight from Salt Lake to Honolulu.
Thanks!