Car Help

Hi S.,
Do you have bench seats in the middle and back rows of the van? Otherwise you could look into club vans, but those get terrible gas milage. I would think you could squeeze three on the back bench and two in the middle. I'm the oldest of seven children and we were able to make it without getting a club van. :)

Love my Honda Pilot. We have had it for five years, including 3 of them toting around a large teenage boy and friends. Has a 3rd row seat, and gets great gas milage.
Good luck!!!

Maybe look at the GMC Acadia or similar (Saturn Outlook, Buick Enclave)??? They have the two front seats, 2 captain seats in the second row and a bench in the third row.

We have a used van - seats 8, runs good and we fit everyone in this car for 10 years. We have 2 bench seats - the longer bench seat is in the back and both bench seats fit 3 adults. It is the Chevy Astro Van. Not as big as the Suburban, and it has a 4.3 V6 - better mileage than the Suburban. Only problem is they stopped making the astrovan in 2005. We are looking for someone to buy it. Try out the car first - measure or bring the car seats and boosters with to the dealer. In the car books they have the dimensions of the interior.

Most mini vans seat at least 7. If yours does then just look into new car seats instead. The Sunshine Radian is a skinny carseat, especially if you will be using it rear facing. http://www.amazon.com/Sunshine-Kids-Radian-Seat-Granite/d...
It is extremely heavy, but a nice tight install and super super safe and narrow. It fits infants up to 40 lbs harnassed, then 65 lbs as a booster. So, it may even work getting a few of them. and just having the rear seat be Radians. If you are installing the Radians with latch or rear facing they need to be centered in the seat space, but with them used as a booster they can scootch to the sides of the seat and be great giving you TONS of extra room.

Another cheaper option is Cosco Scenera. Again, a skinny seat that may work for 3 across in the rear of the car. You could buy 3 of them and ask if you can return them if they don't work out, what requirements are needed, just in case.

I think with the right carseats you will be able to work it out.

N.

I love my Honda Pilot. It seats 8. The very back seat is kind of small, but it could fit two booster seats. Getting them in and out might be a little tricky, but we haul kids around all the time and it works well for us! Mine has 100,000+ miles on it, and it runs like brand new. I probably won't ever buy anything else but Honda in the future. Good luck in your search!

We have a tahoe with no third row, but we have the bench for the back seat and it fits all three of our kids. We originally had two car seats and a baby carrier with the base, then three car seats, and now a booster and two car seats. It's a tight fit, but it works. I also love the vehicle. If you got one with the third row, I would think you could fit five.

There are some hybrid big suv's on the market. They are less gass guzzling and have 3rd rows so you should be able to fit all seats. I have a Navigator but am considering a switch to a hybrid Tahoe.

We fit 5 seats in our minivan. (I'm a home day care provider so we do field trips with 5 children in the van sometimes.) Works so long as at least 2 of the 5 can go in a backless booster. It's a Honda Oddysey. For the back with 3 seats across, there needs to be a backless booster on each side and a convertible carseat between them. This allows them to fit, and allows your hand to squeeze in there to buckle the backless booster kids in. Of course we fasten in the convertible carseat and then slide in the backless boosters when installing. I'm sure an infant seat with the base would fit in the middle there as well, though haven't yet tried it. So that works in our minivan for what it's worth!

My husband and I bought a conversion van. It has a bench seat in the back, two bucket seats in the middle and then the two seats in the front. If you can put one in a booster then you still have room for four car seats if necessary. I love it because we travel quite a bit pretty long distances and I can get up and go in the back to distribute juice, snacks and so forth. It really is a great vehicle. It gets about 17 on the road I think as well...maybe a little more but I didn't want to exaggerate. We love it. It has leather seats, a tv in the roof, front warmers in the seats, stereo in the back, tinted windows and so forth. Cost us 33k

What type of minivan do you have? I might take all five seats out shopping and install them before buying. I know the Toyota Sienna seats up to 8. The middle seat in the 2nd row is removable and also approved for carseat safety. I would also look at a Nissan Quest. I have been a passenger in one a few times and it seats 7 adults very comfortable. I am pretty sure you could fit 3 seats across the 3rd row bench.

We have a Lincoln Aviator with the 3rd row. It is so comfy. We can fit 5 adults (or car seats) in it no problem. It is very usefull as well for those trips to walmart when you end up with 10 bags instead of the one thing you went in for. LOL. The 3rd row and second fold down for hauling all kinds of things. It also has an attached hitch for a boat or trailer, and luggage rack for trips.It is a little pricy to fill the gas tank (usually costs $90 to fill up). Hope this helps, we love our suv.

I would say maybe a full size van is probably the next biggest. Also the Ford Excursion is pretty huge, I had a friend and they had 4 kids that fit in there, I think it would fit 5.

We just purchased a Chevy Suburban. It's a huge car. It has 3 rows of seats. We purchased it with bucket seats for the middle aisle but they can come with two bench seats, which would accomodate more people. Right now we can fit 7 people (2 in the front, 2 in the middle, and 3 in the third row) I'm assuming if your purchased one with 2 bench seats that you would be able to accomodate 8 people. The back is also still quite roomy to carry stuff, like strollers. We love our Suburban. Good luck.

I would look into a different mini-van or a Suburban. The only problem is the Suburban might be a gas-guzzler. Good luck to you!

As long as your current vehicle is in good working order, I'd vote for new carseats. You could easily replace all your seats with the cost of just one or 2 car payments. I have a minivan too and 4 kids and I understand about the seats not fitting thing. We have a Nissan Quest and the back bench is so narrow that we can't fit the same 3 seats across it that we can fit across our Focus - a Fisher Price booster, a Scenera, and a Radian. And the buckle stalks on the captains chairs are set so far forward that buckling seats securely is hard. So we can't have 5 in seats either. Pathetic. A pp mentioned the Radian. It is the skinniest convertible seat on the market. It does not convert to a booster but it does rf to 33/35lb and can be used ff up to 65 lbs. And while other forward facing seats are outgrown when the shoulders go past the top useable slots, the Radian allows you to go past the top slots until the ears hit the top of the shell due to its steel frame. My tall ds outgrew ours at age 6. It can be a bit tricky to install but you can get the hang of it. You probably aren't going to be moving it around much. The Scenera is skinny too but most kids will get too tall for it by age 3-3.5 and ideally you don't want a kid in a booster until at least age 4 and 40lbs. It is also a lot easier to not have to dig for buckles and be able to use a 5 point harness too. As far as skinny boosters go, the Fisher Price booster (only online anymore due to being discontinued) adjusts down the skinniest and can be made wider as the child grows. Only $30 with $5 shipping at www.albeebaby.com. Since it has been discontinued, the bossters are already going to be 1-2 years old. Since they (like most seats) expire after 6 years, you won't get the full lifetime out of it but at $30 no big deal. I would highly suggest checking out http://www.car-seat.org/ or babycenter's carseat message boards http://community.babycenter.com/groups/a7645/car_seat_que... as they have helped me many times and can also give you good carseat friendly vehicle suggestions. Wish I would have asked about our van before we bought it. Congrats on number 5!

ETA: I have noticed several people recommending moving more kids to a backless booster. Boosters with the back on offer A LOT more side impact protection. Seeing the crash tests comparing the 2 is pretty convincing. IDEALLY you don't want to take the back off the booster until you have to - either the child gets too tall or the vehicle has non-removable headrests that get in the way of using the booster properly. If the vehicle has no headrests, it is even more important to use one with a back as that back acts as the headrest and helps prevent whiplash and sleeping support. There are a small number of boosters/combo seats that do not have reinforced backs and require that a headrest be behind them (it would say this in the manual). I think those models are made by COSCO, EDDIE BAUER, and SAFETY FIRST.

We just purchased a Nissan pathfinder....it has three rows and the LOC system on the middle seats for car seats and LOC systems in the back row for boosters! We love it!

My neighbor has 6 kids, all in boosters or car seats. She has a Chevy Suburban. I'm pretty sure that's the only vehicle with enough seats for everyone.

I would take another look at your seats before you go spending a bunch of money on a new car. You might be able to find skinnier car seats and move another kid into a no back booster.