Three car seats in an saab estate safe?

[Threeintheback]

Hi, we have a saab estate 95 and expecting a third baby soon. We currently have a 2 year old and 4 year old..the oldest is in a full back booster seat and the 2 year old normal car seat. With the baby car seat in the back as well they will all have to shift along so is it safe to have a car seat strapped into the middle seat. It does have a seat belt but heard a rumour that it is not counted as a real seat but as an occasional seat. It will be a squeeze but is it safe does anyone know. Saab garage did not know! Or are we destined for mpv territory?!

[MrsBadger]

best bet is the seat mfrs sites rtaher than car mfrs - Britax, Maxi Cosi etc all have 'fitfinders' on their websites where you choose the car make/model and it tells you which seat can fit where.

so long as the seats are fitted safely should be no prob

[Mcdreamy]

This time last year we took our BMW estate to Kiddicare and halfords to get a new baby seat and 2 high back boosters to fit in the back as our third baby was due in Feb. Kiddicare in particular tried every combination they possibly could and although they could get 3 across the back they said it wasn't safe and would not sell us any combination DH was gutted!

We are now driving a Ford S-max which has 3 individual seats in the back. 3 seats fit perfectly, not a knuckle graze in sight. So hate to be the bearer of bad news but I would say you probably will get 3 to fit across the back seat but along with grazed knuckles I am not sure it would be classed as safe.

Kiddicare in Peterborough is def worth a visit if you are anywhere near them.

[sazm]

so long as you have narrow-ish seats they will be fine,

i have had 2 britax hi-liners(high backed boosters) and a maxo-cosi cabrio(now a britax eclpise) in a 3 door corsa,MGZR,focus,vectra, no problems at all.

[Threeintheback]

Great thanks so much for help. Really appreciated!

[Moosy]

I have the same issue, I have a 4yo and a 2.5yo and a baby due in a few weeks . I went to Mothercare and she tried all different combinations in our Skoda Octavia estate (which I thought was quite a big car!) and no combination worked having all 3 in the back.

The only way we got it to work is to have DD2 in the big seat in the front, then a high back booster and a Britax infant carrier (it's one of the narrowest ones) in the back. This leaves just enough room for me to sit in the middle in the back if DH is in the car too. Not really ideal but it's the only way we'd all fit.

[mumandlovingit]

ive been worrying too, ive got a mondeo and my two ds's are in high back boosters and my dp doesnt drive. when there's just three of us in the car it will be fine as the new baby will go in the front but when there's 5 of us im wondering if we will fit a baby seat in the back with the other two seats.

to make it more complicated the carseat i want to go with my pram i want is the silver cross ventura which is quite wide i think compared to some. i think i will have to have a try at halfords and if the worst comes to the worst put the older boys in just boosters when all 5 of us are in the car.

im sure i fitted two boosters and a baby seat in the back of my old fiesta once

[Adventuredad]

Using the middle seat is safe but your car seat must of course be able to fit there. A high back booster is usually narrow which makes it easy to fit an additional 2 RF seats across. I can get 3 RF seats into the rear of my Volvo V70.

Problem with using middle seat is usually practical. It's more difficult to strap kids in and tighten harness properly.

I would suggest using the front seat for your little one though if you can deactivate airbag. A rear facing seat is as safe in the front seat as in the rear. This has been proven by research and real life experiences long time ago.

[Sophie2008]

There is a system out there called Multimac.
It's not cheap though. We are looking at £1800 BUT.. Will not ever have to buy another car seat for at least 10 years! We had just bought a brand new car, found out i was pregnant and then found out it was twins. So we needed to fit three children in the back. DD will be 20 months when the twins are due to arrive.

I have seen one and pulled and tugged at it, and i was so impressed that in Jan i will be ordering one for our Skoda Octavia. It's far cheaper than losing money on a perfectly good car and then spending loads more on buying a new people carrier.

[sleepwhenidie]

Hi Sophie - v excited by this (sad person emoticon) but it may mean we can have the new car we want, it looks great. Anyone had any experience of it?

[Sophie2008]

There may not be many who have had experience of it as when the guy who designed it came and showed us one he said there have only been about 100 sold so far. I imagaine that is because it's so expensive, and puts people off, but when you think about it and how may car seats over the years you will buy etc and the fact you can have this one that fits up to 4 kids in the back, it's well worth it i think.

[sleepwhenidie]

it seems worth it to me for all the reasons you say, but DH has just done a of course! do the seats have booster cushions for smaller children? where did you check it out?

[Sophie2008]

The guy actually came to my house as the compnay is based out of birmingham, and i live not to far from there.

The rear facing baby seats go up to three years old, (as that is the law in Sweden where they did all the safety tests etc.)

Forward facing in the actual system itself is from 9kgs upwards. As far as i know there are no booster seats for the main seats, but it may be worth emailing them, as it was not something i actually thought to ask.

There are infant cushions to go in the rear facing baby seats for newborns, which come with the seat, but for some reason are not shown online.

My DD will be 20 months, so not going to put her in a baby seat, she will be sitting in the main system facing forward when we get it.

Also, by not converting to a people carrier you won't be getting taxed off the road by the government!!! We factored all these costs in too as well as how many mpg we would get out of a people carrier to the car we had. So it all adds up in the long run.