Twin car seats?!

[maxandru]

Hello hive,

Expecting twins in a few months, when our daughter will be 3.5y. I was wondering how people have sold the 3 car seat conundrum? I would like all 3 in the back seats if possible (so 2 newborns and a 3 year old) of our BMW X5. Has anyone managed to do this with this car or similar? I know we have the option to put 3 year old in the back, but don’t think this will work as you have to fold passenger row down to climb in.

I should add we also have 2 (small) dogs..!

I really could do without buying a minivan 😭

Yes managed it but on seatbelts for the 2 baby seats not isofix base. Had a small SUV and now do have xc90 but did the same in both.

its a pain getting a twin into the middle over the seatbelt mind 🫣

Thanks for your reply. What car seats did you use? We have a Britax roamer for our 3 year old (which was horribly expensive so I’m loathed to change it!) and one cybex cloud baby seat in the shed (which we could change if needs be)…

thank you!

We bought an XC90 with a built in booster in the middle, middle row seat. DD was nearly 3.5 when twins arrived and tall for her age so she met the height and weight requirements. The twins are either side in Isofix seats and they all fit.

It was tricky finding a vehicle to fit all 3 in the middle row. We spent a good few weekends going round car dealerships with isofix bases!

Sorry for delayed reply! All our car seats were silver cross, I think the baby ones are relatively narrow, but the child seat would be about the same as your Britax I assume. Also planning to use the XC90 built in booster (I have slight reservations as to whether 4 is really quite old enough for this). In your situation if you can get your 3.5 year old to 4.5 / a bit older by the time the others are out of baby seats you can probably move to some sort of booster. Not having the bases to click baby seats into is really annoying though!

You might struggle for 3 across, we had to change our car. Also in the boot seats you sometimes aren't supposed to use a car seat so need to consider that. Also the size of a double pram going in the boot too. We have a very sensible and cheap Citroen spacetourer which I hate but cannot fault. If we could have got a new one at the time we would have got a touran or a Peugeot 5008 but brand new cars were slim pickings at the time so had to make do with what we could get at the time!

We have 2x cybex cloud z's and a britax reomer in a ford smax. Not many cars out there with 3 full seats and 3 isofix points in the middle row. I was set on havng the 3 isofix for simplicity as our older child was under 2 when the twins were born. With a 3 year old you might have more options for a narrower seat in the middle, belted if you don't have isofix there. Would prob be a lot easier than having to change your car if so!

You will probably need to consider boot space for a double buggy too.

Thanks for your reply- this makes me hopeful! We actually already have a double buggy (we did a nanny share with our older child) so I know it fits in the boot no probs. Will maybe take car to John Lewis and get them to try different seats with the britax belted in middle!

I have a skoda karoq (which I think is smaller??) I had twins when my eldest was 3. I got 2 x maxi cosi car seats for the twins (cabriofix and pebble) on isofix bases. Then 3 year old in between in the middle seat on a Halford own car seat. It took a lot of trial and error and several hours trying different options. We now have the twins maxicosi Mica Pro Eco i-Size (this is actually suitable from newborn so also an option). This car seat is actually narrower and fits easier. It's technically a 360 spin seat, but I can spin them due to the car seat in the middle. But I can have them fixed as either rear or forward facing.