3 car seats in the back of a car ...

[rachel4]

I'm about to have my third child with my older ones being 3.4 yrs and 14 mths. Struggling with how to fit 3 car seats in the back. Does anyone have any recommendations for which seats may fit?

thanks

[alieh]

We have the Maxi Cosi Rodi, Graco Nautilus, and Maxi Cosi Cabriofix across the back of a Ford Focus. Not ideal as the 5 year old has to climb in under the seatbelt as there isn't space to buckle and unbuckle it. But it works! We only use the car a couple of times a week though. Would be quite annoying if we were using it several times a day.

Your 3 year old may be too small for the Rodi but if not it is very narrow.

[katgod]

This is why there are so many Citroen Picasso/VW Touran/Citroen C4, Renault Espace type cars around ED- because theY have 3 separate seats in the back instead of the usual 2 and a hump. No suggestions - we changed cars when the third was due.

[BellendenBear]

Ford S max. This is a 7 sweater with tiny boot or 5 seater with massive boot. All 3 seats in middle row have isofix I think. We chose the s max because it looks and drives more like a car than a people carrier than some of the ones mentioned above.

[etta166]

Which? magazine did a review of ths a few years ago, and you can stil find it here:

http://www.which.co.uk/baby-and-child/baby-transport/reviews-ns/child-car-seat-fitting-problems-explored/

The short answer is that if you want to follow the manufacturer's guidelines for fitting car seats safely, you probaby need a new car unless you have a Touran, S-max, Citroen Picasso etc. as mantioned above. When we had our third, there was no 5 seat car that I could find that had been safety tested with two group 1 seats and a group 0+ seat. That was over a year ago, so it might have changed.

[LalKJ]

Agreed with all the above that it's likely to mean a new car! We are shortly about to have a third child, with the older two being 3.5 and 1.5. We previously had a Honda CRV, which is a big 4 x 4 but even in that we couldn't get three car seats safely. After months of googling whether it was possible and which were the best cars for three car seats across the middle, we went with the VW Sharan. So far, pleased with it. It has three isofixes across the middle row of seats, and we've had two 6ft tall grandparents in the back seats pretty comfortably. Also, it has sliding doors for the back, which are a god send for getting the kids in and out quickly. Good luck

[simonethebeaver]

We also have an S-Max and I can fix a Maxi-Cosi stage 1, Maxi-Cosi stage 1 and a Gracco stage 2 across the back. We don't use Isofix as we stupidly believed it when we were told they didn't exist in the S-Max, despite we now know the existence of little Isofix tags on the seats! Like Bellenden Bear says, it drives pretty much the same as our Focus did, although parking it can be a pain.

[Mellors]

Tedious Vauxhall Zafira for us.

Maxi Cosi x 2 isofix, plus oldest in a slim booster (Tesco's is the slimmest I found) in the middle. Its 7 seater igf you do have other kids in as well (although 5 kids in the back of the car is completely madness inducing!).

[etta166]

The other thing worth bearing in mind is what combination of seats you'll need to use. I've gone through various combinations depending on age/size of our children and found that 3 forwards facing group 1 seats was the hardest to accommodate. I ended up taking the car seats with me to Cargiant and trying them in loads of different cars to see how hard it was to access the seatbelts, harnesses etc. We got a Touran in the end, but access to the seatbelt in the middle seat of the middle row when using a group 2/3 high-back booster isn't great.

[rachel4]

Hi there

Thanks for the responses. I'm resurrecting this thread as not yet changed our car despite spending hours on line researching and visiting Cargiant twice.

I'm resigned to the fact we need to buy a new car but which one is the question. Currently need a Stage 0+, a Stage 1 and a Stage 2 car seat (and soon to be two Stage 1 and a Stage 2). The Citroen C4 Picasso despite having 2 Isofix seats across the 2nd row will not fit 3 car seats in this combination, we tried at Cargiant tonight. It also didn't look like an S-Max would either ...

Would be very interested to know what cars those of you who have three children under 4 have please?

Many thanks

Rachel

[Pickle]

We managed to fit 3 under 5 in our car (Jaguar XF), but I think from memory my middle child went into a booster seat just before #3 arrived so a different seat configuration. We didn't use isofix bases as they took up too much room, and it's a bit of a squash, but they fit!

You may have to get a 7 seater, put your eldest right at the back?

[etta166]

You can fit that combination into a 2008 WV Touran. A cheaper option might be to get 3 new car seats though. If you speak to Margaret Bold from Rearfacing Toddlers, she will be able to advise and come to your place to try a variety of seats in the back of your current car first.

http://www.rearfacingtoddlers.com/

I'll try to post a photo of my car so you can see the set up, but I can't get it to work at the moment.

[Mrs TP]

I always ended up in the back between two car seats and the third in the front passenger seat - saves a lot of bickering having them all split up. Now we are down to just one booster seat and I still end up in the back as our 13yr old has longer legs than me and claims the extra leg room in the front.

[etta166]

This is a picture of how I fit my three into the back of our car. They were side-by side when the littlest one was in the Maxi-Cosi CabrioFix too.

In the past, I have had two Maxi-Cosi Priori (Group 1 seats) and a Britax Evolva 123 in the middle row too. I've also had two Maxi-Cosi Priori and 1 Cabriofix in that row on a different occasion. I changed to the car seats in the picture after reading more about the safety benefits of rear facing. An added bonus is that they often fit better 3 across in a regular car than forwards facing seats do.

[Gooders79]

We can get 3 across the middle seat of our touran, currently have a maxi cosi Tobi, priori xp and isofix pearl, it's tight but just works

[gm99]

If you don't want something too big, have a look at the Honda FRV, which has 6 seats in 2 rows of 3. I believe you can get 3 isofix seats across the back.

[ClareC]

We have a Touareg which fits 3 across back.