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Multiple births

When do you start showing with twins? What is life with twins like? Join the conversation on our Multiple Births forum.

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Original poster

dont mean to be nosy, but what cars do mums with twins drive?

16 replies

redshaw01 · 31/03/2011 11:00

currently have a bootiful, shiny, brand new, white, sparkly, audi tt 2 seat convertible.... which has to go!! :(

what car do mums with twins have? i have about £10k to spend on a "family" car, so needs to be comfortable, ok to drive around town and occasional motorway miles and have a boot big enough for double buggy and the odd shopping bag! i was thinking, as they both have to be in the back from newborn, would an automatic be better, in case i have to lean back to attend to one of them? navigating a manual car as well as trying to do whatever to one of the babies in the back spells disaster to me!

have tried to look, but end up wanting to cry, only had my tt since jan!!

any ideas or can anyone impart what they have/did?

muchos gracias!

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Mandy21 · 31/03/2011 12:26

Well we managed for a long time with 2 x Renault Clios - I don't think we changed the cars until they were 3 or so and we were planning number 3! It was like a game of Tetrus slotting everything in when we went on holiday / weekends away - particularly with 2 x Moses Baskets / a double pram and all the other bits and bobs that we needed, but we just managed. On a day to day basis, we just needed the pram and a change bag and the Clios were fine.

We then switched to a people carrier because we wanted something that would fit 3 x child seats across the back (we have a Mazda).

The only thing I would say is to get Isofix bases fitted into the car (so you'll need an Isofix car - nearly all cars have it now as standard I think) and then when you're getting the car seats in and out of the car, you just need to click them in and out. We didn't have them and it was a real pain securing the car seats with seat belts every time. I also would try to get something with 4 doors if at all possible so you have easy access to the back seat and not a low car. I found it so much easier on my back when we got the people carrier (which seems to be higher off the ground) when lifting them in and out of their seats.

I don't think a manual or an automatic makes much difference - you won't (or shouldn't!) be tending to the babies in the back when you're driving ;-) !!

Original poster

redshaw01 · 31/03/2011 13:20

thanks mandy, thats a great help!

we were planning on a family car and then an adult only car, so that him and i can both get around on our own if we need to, without taking the car with all the baby stuff in, just in case! we looked a focus, which was nice and he perked up when we saw a 5 door golf, so its just deciding i guess.

so your double pram etc all fitted in the boot of a clio? some of the double prams i have seen look like small boats and at one point i thought only a people carrier/actual small single decker bus would cope with me + twins + handbag + pram + baby bag + shopping etc!!

OP posts:

Elk · 31/03/2011 13:42

My friend used to have a renault kangoo. The other person I know with twins also has 3 other children so has a 7 seater.

GoingLoopy · 31/03/2011 14:03

I would have thought that a golf would be good. And unless you are doing a lot of walking an umberella buggy like a McClaren works very well. folds up really small to stick in the back of a car. (we had 2 pushchairs one for forest walking and buggy for city/town)

JuliaGulia · 31/03/2011 21:49

We have 13mo b/g twins and just before their arrival we brought a Nissan Note. It relatively small but fits my large double buggy in the boot. I decided it was more economical to drive a medium sized car and purchase a roof box for our summer holidays rather than drive an estate or people carrier half empty most of the time.
Good things about it - the rear seat bench moves back/forward to make the boot bigger. Handy when you need a few extra inches. The rear seats have flight trays which will be handy when the kids are older.
I agree - def get Isofix - so easy to use. Can't imagine having to strap them both in every time.

BikeRunSki · 31/03/2011 21:56

My friend with twins had a Fiesta and a M&P Twin Pulse. Got this buggy as it was only double that she could use from birth and fitted her boot.

When the twins were a year old she had a third and got a Piccaso and crazy triplet pushchair.

WildSwansatCoole · 01/04/2011 10:47

We have a Volkswagon Touran,no problems so far,and fits the (huge) Mountain Buggy easily!

Mandy21 · 01/04/2011 12:06

We had to remove the parcel shelf in the boot to get the buggy in (a Nipper which fold flat but is still quite big) but otherwise it as fine.

The only thing I would say about having one "family" car and one "adult" car is that you might, on occasion, need to put the babies in the 2nd car. As things turned out when I went back to work, my husband had to do the nursery run in the morning and I had to do it in the evenings so we needed to be able to have seats in both cars. Even if you're planning to do all of the shuttling round with the babies, imagine there will be times when you need your husband and his car to help out?

Sinkingfeeling · 01/04/2011 12:09

We had a Clio when our twins were born - double Nipper fitted in the boot quite easily! We changed to a Scenic and now that we have three children, we have a Verso. No buggies needed any more, thankfully!

PrincessScrumpy · 01/04/2011 22:39

We have dd1 and are expecting twins - we have a VW Touran and love it. It has the space we need but is comfy and nice inside. Bit dull on the outside but I don't have time to stand and look at it anyway so the inside matters more to us. It's nice to drive too.

AtLongLast · 02/04/2011 22:25

We had only just bought a Ford focus when we found out I was pg with the boys. It did the job ok but we have a dog and it proved impossible to fit us all in for longer trips. We traded it in for a fiat multipla. New style so not quite as ugly as the older bug-eye model. I'm not convinced by it as it just seems a bit excessive.

My car is a suzuki alto. Tiny but does the job fine day-to-day for me and boys. I have an obaby double buggy that fits into the front passenger area (tho I do need to choose my parking space carefully) and I can fit shopping in the boot. If I need more space or seats I make do take my car - he hates it LOL

fourunderfour · 04/04/2011 23:48

As a runabout, we have a Mk1 Fiat Punto, which seats 6 (we have two sets of twins) with a multimac in the back. Boot is big enough for a double buggy.

For longer journeys/holidays, we have a Fiat Doblo (big van like thing, popular as a wheelchair taxi) which has an enormous boot for buggies, travelcots, general crap.

I don't get most 7-seaters, which don't seem to have any boot space at all. You need a really large one (e.g. VW Caravelle) before there's much point in them.

varyingdegreesofdeafness · 04/04/2011 23:52

we have two dc with 1yr age gap, and have a focus and a peugot 307, it fits prams, car seats and us in well!

Def what mandy21 said, i wouldn't bother getting an automatic unless you usually drive one because you should be focusing on driving, not ending o your dcs in the car, if they need you and its urgent you pull over and deal! If its whining, you drive on and ignore it!

1stMrsF · 19/04/2011 21:41

We had a golf when they were born and managed quite nicely with infant seats and pram for the first year (had to take one wheel off the Nipper, but quite easy to do.) However, with next stage car seats and other paraphenalia we have gone the 4x4 route and bought a Volvo XC90 which I love because it has MASSIVE boot space with the rear seats down for pram plus other stuff but when they are older it basically turns into a people carrier as it can have 7 full size seats. We are viewing it as a car to keep for 10 years and we have kept the Golf which we use for running around locally, for DH to go to Gym etc. plus we can physically fit the car seats and pram in it if we need to e.g. the Volvo has a service. (Also a consideration for us was that with the snow in the last couple of years, a 4wd is actually a necessity for getting out of our street.)

PanicOnTheStreetsOfLondon · 19/04/2011 21:49

I had to get rid of my lovely Clio as I couldn't get the pram in .
You could probably have got the car in the pram! We got an hearse estate car instead.

loueytb3 · 21/04/2011 17:20

We've got a Ford S-Max (I had a ford ka when I got pg) and DH had a golf which he only changed last year.

If you plan on having any more children, it would be worth thinking about cars which have three proper seats across the back. Otherwise you will end up changing your car again (obviously if you had twins again then you would have to anyway). We decided on the buggy first and then worked out which cars we could fit the buggy in the boot (not many). However, there is a much better selection of buggies now then there were then (DTs are now 4).

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