Car Seats - 3 in a row?

[chloechloe]

For those of you with 3 (or more!) small children, do you have any advice for getting 3 car seats in a row?

We will have a nearly 4yo and a nearly 2yo when the baby arrives. Our car has 3 full seats in the back (X5) so it should be doable surely?

When we were researching car seats I saw and randomly bookmarked this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/cars/2551401-BMW-x5-3-car-seats

Hi, when I was panicking about fitting 3 car seats in my car I came across the following on Gov.uk

Hope that helps

Slim seats are key! You also want to alternate directions, so have two rear facing each side and a forward facing on the middle, or the baby rear facing in the middle with the bigger two forward facing at the sides.

Think also about the order and ease with how you'll strap them all in. It's going to be hard to deal with seatbelts on the middle one unless you strap in the baby seat last on the side.

Then it's a case of trial and error trying our different combinations. Usually Halfords, Mothercare or John Lewis let you try various seats in your car. JL have the best car seat training of the three. Halfords often shockingly poor.

What seats do you already have? It should be doable but you might need to change to narrow ones, not use the infant carrier on a base etc. Apparently the Diono Radian 5 works well.

Alternatively, if it's often just you and the 3 kids in the car, the baby can go on the front seat if the airbag is switched off if it makes things a bit more flexible.

Somewhere like the In Car Safety Centre or a specialist car seat retailer would be the best place to try to puzzle it together.

Multimac is your friend

If you have an in car safety centre near you they will certainly be happy to help you test lots of different seats until you find something that works

Other than people carriers which I wasn’t keen on, I only found the (new model) Audi Q7 would fit my 3 car seats across. Bought it without even test driving on account of this, but luckily love it!

Thanks for all the replies, lots of useful information to start thinking things through!

We're not in the U.K. so don't have any of those retailers unfortunately but I think we'll have to go and test some out.

At the moment we have a MaxiCosi Pearl on an Isofix base for the 3yo (with a Pebble in the cellar). The 1.5yo is in a Cybex Sirona with inbuilt Isofix. I love that seat so much as it has the swivel function and feels really solid and safe. There's no way we'll be able to keep those 2 seats though as the Sirona is massive. Unless we can put the 3yo in the middle in some kind of slim booster seat.

I really want to find something that works as my DH loves this car so much!

I would seriously consider the Diono Radian 5s then, either for the 2yo and baby with the Pearl or for the older two and try to puzzle it with the Pebble. It might not work, you might need 3 Radian 5s which definitely fits in the X5.

The advice from the car seat experts on that Facebook group is not to use a booster until at least 4.5. They explain why on the group if you have a read through.

I have the sirona in an a6 avante and my child is a right moan because of leg room

Can't even get two adults in the back with him
But it's so safe

Multimac are all isofix and global

Are you Eu?

They custom buildZ

This is what I mean so they make one seat that could have like 4 places in and caters for new borns and adapts as they age but it is an isofix
So you could in theory have 4 kids in the back of the car even in a 5 seater

Thanks for the tip, the Diono looks really good. I like that it's extended rear facing and also goes from birth to 7yo. Looks like it could be a good option. I reckon I could get away with two at first if I use the Pebble without the Isofix.

Still, even buying 3 new car seats is cheaper than changing cars!

I'll check out the FB group thanks re car seats. Whilst DD1 is really good in her car seat and sits still if prefer to avoid using a booster as long as possible.

Thanks sausage, looks like we were posting at the same time!

Yes we're in the EU. Multi Mac looks interesting, what a great product! I'll check them out too!

Only problem with the Multimac is it only rear faces to 13kg so the same as an infant carrier.

That's good to know. I'm keen to keep them rear facing as long as possible in view of the new iSize guidance.

We have a Joie 360 with 2 recaro sports seats. We have a Citroen c4

Britax advansafix also fitted 3 next to each other we were recommended to get seat belt extenders however didn't need them

My son is 98th centile age 2 and weighs 12.8 kg
He is enormous. He could still rear face but faces forwards in the sirona now with the cushion thing.
I had to because of his legs.
Contact multi Mac and see if they can help as cost wise it's about the same as 3 sironasn🙊

Life ain't cheap!!

We had 3 DC aged 5 and under in an Audi Q3. Did it with two cosco seats which are super light and a booster.

The other options that worked were 3 clerks, 3 diono radians and a mix of graco infant car seat with a base and boosters.