Car for twins + toddler

[sugarfiend]

Hi! I'm usually more of a lurker, but since I found out I'm having twins about a fortnight ago I have a feeling I might need to post for advice more often! There's suddenly so much more to think about!

I already have a little boy, who will be 2.3 when the twins are born. One of the first things we need to sort is a new car as we currently have a teeny three door car, that we were planning on upgrading anyway.

Ideally we want to keep the toddler in the middle in his ERF Britax Dualfix - but that needs isofix and has a support leg.
For the babies we were hoping to use a maxi cosi infant carrier with an isofix base & support leg (mainly because we have one already).

We've been looking mostly at MPVs with three isofix points and the main contender seemed to be the Citroen Grand C4 Picasso (the Grand so that we have extra boot space).
But now I'm going round in circles! All the cars that seem to fit the bill with 3 x isofix also seem to have underfloor storage... The salesman at the Citroen dealership today had apparently never heard of this as an issue and hadn't heard of the filler things either.

Now I'm starting to panic because I hated the extra faff of putting DSs old seat in a car without the base (I'm short and struggled to reach over the seat to buckle it in even in a small car) and can't imagine how I'll manage without isofix bases with 2 babies plus a boistrous toddler!

Are there any cars which can do what we want?

I'd really appreciate it if some of you amazing twin mums/dads could share which car+seat combinations you have managed to fit in! Or does anyone have experience of the storage compartment fillers?

Thank you in advance!

Hi Sugar
Congratulations on your news! We have a similar set up to you: dd1 was 22 months when dts arrived, and I remember being flummoxed about how on earth we were going to get around too.

We ended up getting the grand Picasso max, it works really well for us. Dd1 is in a maxi cosi axis in the middle, and dts are in maxi cosi pebbles (I think) on either side. Dts are 1 at the end of March and we're only just now thinking about upgrading the dts car seats.

The boot is big too, I had never heard of it having underfloor storage so hasn't been an issue. I don't find cars particularly interesting, I just want one which does the job, and the Citroen grand Picasso max works for us.

We also have a c4 grand Picasso. We didn't have iso fix bases, so I'm afraid I don't know much about those, but we have 2 seat belted bases which were belted into the side and middle seats and left there. Was great just unclicking the carriers. We had dd in a todler seat at the side as we found it easier to buckle her in rather than reaching into the centre to buckle her in.

Oooh that sounds promising with the grand c4 picasso then!

Bodeccia that sounds great, did you use bases or just belt the pebbles in?

BigGlasses. Did your bases have support legs? And are there models of the picasso without those daft storage boxes?

Ultimately it looks like we'll have to talk a dealer into letting us test out the seats we already have in one. I just hate stuff like that.

We have a dd and twins. We got the s max and I used the maxi cosi car seats and bases. At various times, they were in all 3 positions with no problem.

You can buy a foam spacer from your dealer. Obviously then you can't use the storage.

Congratulations on your good news! We have the same gap between our eldest and our twins who are now 18 months. We panic bought a VW touran when pregnant. It does have the underfloor storage issue but vw do fillers and I have heard of people using hard back books or yellow pages to fill the storage compartment. In the event of a serious accident it's just to stop the supporting foot of the isofix base going through the compartment. The Touran is good size wise but ours is quite a basic model with quite high mileage so have spent the start of 2015 doing extensive research on a replacement and we have today bought a Grand Picasso!!! MPVs are never going to be the most exciting cars in the world but the Picasso gets the best reviews and is also very good value. The new shape 2014 onwards do something like 70 mpg and only £20 car tax per year!!! Good luck with your car shopping x

Congratulations!

One question - if the Dualfix is in the middle with isofix based either side, will you be able to turn it or would you use it forward facing only once the twins arrive?

We've recently upgraded to a 7 seater as we're expecting our third DC. The only way to do it was to take the seats to the dealership and fit them to try them out. Nobody minded at all.

Thanks! Does anyone know if you can definitely get fillers for the Citroen?

We're heading to a different dealership later in the week to ask as the one we went to at the weekend was useless.", but I can't find any info online, unlike some of the other cars mentioned.

Originally we thought that we'd put the dual fix in the middle - I think it looks like it would still spin above the bases but not with a seat on a base on either of the two sides. We haven't tried it yet though. However, now i'm starting to wonder (if we can get bases for the babies that the seats click onto) whether it might make more sense to have the dual fix to one side - assuming we can get suitable storage fillers.

I'll have to look a bit more at cars other than the Citroen as I haven't looked properly at those options.

Have a look at fit finder on the britax website. it say the duel fix goes on the two outside seats so maybe the leg is long enough to touch the bottom of the box.

I would go and try and fit it in the car as I had a c4 grand picasso and my friend had twins. I couldn't fit her graco seats on bases behind the diver but I could in the middle. So when we went out we but one in the middle on base and the one nearest the door with the belt. I at the time my understanding of the leg on the carseat was only a problem after 13kg. I have no idea is this is right now or not.

Just a though unless you are getting a pushchair that takes 2 maxi cosy is it worth getting a seat that stays in the car for one twin. It is difficult to carry 2 seats at the same time although you can get each baby ready and put them in the seat ready to go. My friend ended up leaving hers seats in the car most of the time.

Your 2 year old may be able to climb into the car by then. One idea might be for one twin to have ds seat in the middle twisting it over the top of maxi-cosy base to get twin in lifting him or her over the top of diono radian V which is coming out in the uk soon. I am not in the uk but lots of people have radians here it may not fit with out the wedge thing that sits it up more so would not be any good for a newborn but it is low to the car so easy to climb in doesn't have a leg and can tether if you want to but you don't have to. I am hoping they come out before our visit to the uk as I would like one but don't like them here as they have a chest clip. In the uk they wont have a clip

Congrats on your twins! I am expecting fraternal twin boys in May, and have a dd who will be 2.3 when they arrive. We caved and bought a 2011 Toyota Sienna. I was totally against getting a minivan but now I love it. For one thing, it's way easier to get in and out of it with my enormous bump!

We have dd in a RF Britax Marathon, will keep her RF as long as possible. She's going to be in the back row centre seat which has the built in clips (isofix?). The twins will be in Britax B-Safe infant seats in the middle row chairs, RF. Those seats snap into my Britax B-Ready stroller.

I'm in the States and I realise a minivan might be too big to handle in the UK, but we are really happy with it. Oh and it has fab boot space.

Dh has just reminded me we didn't actually have the c4 when the boys were little we had a fiat useless Ulysses (do not get one!) . We only got the c4 when the fiat broke down and the boys were out of their cradle seats by then. But in answer to your question sugar the bases did have legs but the fiat didn't have hollow floors so it didn't matter.

I asked dh about the underfloor storage on the c4 (I had no idea it was there) and he says one side is stuffed with a compressor and he reckons that is pretty solid. The other side he's not sure. A stack of books sounds ok to me.
We bought a spare wheel for the c4 as it doesn't have one, just a compressor ( most MPVs don't have spares). It fits nicely in behind one of the seats in the boot.
Good luck with the car buying, and congratulations on your twin pregnancy

We've finally had a chance to go to another dealership and tried the easyfix base in the the C4. I'm happy to say that the support leg easily reaches the bottom, giving us the choice of doing that or finding a suitable filler. The base seemed pretty solid to me.

The salesman hadn't heard of using fillers either (but then he hadn't seen an isofix childseat base before either...), so we didn't push him to look into it as we didn't particularly rate the condition of the cars/the overall deals they had (we're looking at used/nearly new ones).

We were also surprised how big the boot in the C4 was, so now we're unsure whether to get a slightly older grand C4, or just the regular C4 picasso.
I haven't come across the Toyota Sienna before, but will have a look into it. So far we're leaning towards the Citroen, as the best balance of budget/features/fitting the mini monsters in. But

Thanks for the suggestion of the diono radian V seat - I hadn't heard of that one before. Although I'm pretty sure that even if we upgrade to e.g. the dualfix again later (which is suitable from birth), I'd still prefer to have the infant seats - they were a lifesaver for putting on the pram and running while he napped nipping into shops when my toddler was tiny. We've ruled out some double prams already because they don't have that feature, especially because we already have one maxi cosi seat + base.

It also seems like it would be easier to carry two of them out already in seats, especially as we'll have a slightly uncooperative toddler to get in the car too. He'd definitely run off while I was strapping one twin in if given the chance

My children are the other way around to yours; preschool twins and a baby, but I have studied and studied and studied cars and car seats over the last 4 years!

In your situation, I would buy a MPV like a VW Touran or similar. Nice big boot and three across the back seat.

Car seat wise, since you already have a Dualfix and a Maxi Cosi, I would buy a Britax Two Way Elite for your oldest child. Then you can belt the TWE in the middle of the back seat (don't take it out so no worries with repeated belting) and use the ISO fix points for your Dualfix and Infant Carrier on either side. The TWE will last your leader for a good while as they stay rear facing until 25kg ( though an turn forward facing if you want to).

I currently have a set up similar to this. We have a VW Touran, with a Two Way Elite belt fitted rear facing in the middle, with a BeSafe IZI Combi (not dissimilar to the Dialfix in size) isofixed on one side and an infant carrier on an isofix base on the other side. I manage to lean over either side seat to do the harness if the middle seat, though I remove the infant carrier from the base if I want to make life easier for myself.

The only disadvantage of this set up would be that you have one twin in a permenantly fixed car seat. Whether that's an issue depends on whether you think you need to be able to carry both babies in their car seats. Personally, I didn't have a pram that cod take my car seats, so I always transferred them to the carrycot/pushchair seat anyway, and I didn't take the two seats into the house as they filled up my floor space in the house! If you do want to use the carriers as a travel system, I'd still put the eldest in a TWE in the middle and buy another infant carrier for the side seat.

Congratulations! And welcome to the plan-ahead-and-research-everything club!

We have a ford galaxy, it's perfect for twins and 3 year old, you can have second row of seats up and still a big boot too.