Fitting 3 child seats in the back of an estate car!

[Evie]

We are expecting our third child in May and currently have a 3yr 6m old and a 17m old. We have been to Mothercare and Halfords for seat fitting sessions and cannot seem to get any combination to fit (even including one booster). we have a Skoda Octavia estate which we think is a standard width. Any suggestions welcome as we can't afford to change the car!

Is the 3 year old on a light weight seat?

the baby is in a rock a tot like one amd the biggy on one of these here or even just a booster seat

the baby seat and booster seat both need proper 5 point belts so need to go at the sides. You can get a couple of makes for middle size kids which go in the middle. Maxi Cosi and Britax do them. We have the maxi cosi priori and even our 5yr old fits in it but it reclines well so is suitable for younger ones too. Quite chunky but they do all fit in our golf. The baby seat is fine because it faces backwards but my biggest struggle was finding a booster seat to fit. Although they all go in width wise its really hard getting your hand in to fasten the belt. I used to have a great little seat from mothercare with straps which would have still fitted my older child but we make do with an old booster seat which has really low sticking out bits so they don't get in the way. Now he's getting bigger we often let him sit on the normal seat with one of those things that holds the belt in the right position too. Its hard though. I remeber starting several threads on this subject myself but never really got a good answer. I think britax also do a booster seat with adjustable width now.

I have a Skoda estate. 6yr old sits on booster with no back, 4yr old on booster with back (he had the 9mth - 4yr seat previously), 19mth old has 9mth - 4yr seat in middle that is secured with lap belt only (although has a lap and diagonal fitting option to).

When third was little, his baby seat went in the back on one side (mind you it was an older style seat and quite narrow - newer ones tend to be wider), 2nd son was in middle on the child seat and 3rd was in back on other side with booster seat.

The child seat is a few years old now but was purchased in Mothercare. We were looking around last year for similar fitting seat for hubby's car and I do remember seeing a few (albeit we just stuck with a lap and diagonal one and put it to the side seat).

butterfly

Does your car have a middle lap belt (as Katherine has assumed) or lap and shoulder belt? Most new cars have 3 shoulder belts - even my Fiesta and there is no way you could get 3 car seats across the back!

Evie
I'm not going to be much help, as I'm going to have the same problem. Fortunately, I'm able to trade my current car for a people carrier without any extra cost. I'm just going to lose a bit of street cred!
Good Luck

Thanks all for your messages.We are still looking for any solution after another depressing trip to a store without success. We have realised that the skoda is slightly narrower than other estates but it seems ridiculous that we cannot find some safe combination. The middle seat is a shoulder strap not lap so any more suggestions would be much appreciated. Also our 4 year old is quite light so not sure if she is quite heavy enough for just a booster? I live in hope!

A message to butterflymum...we were excited to find you had managed 3 in the Skoda...do you have the make of your booster with the back as this seems to be our sticking point for our 2 year old. Our baby seat is a Silver Cross from 4 years ago so is also quite narrow...the difficulty will be when babe 3 goes into a bigger seat. Our Maxi Cosi Priori is really too big so any narrow but comfortable suggestions of make for a 9 month old plus would be great!

we had this problem & I eventually gave up & changed to a people carrier.

However, we did manage to get 3 in the back of a ford fiesta which can't be wider than your car!
The combination was
largest child in middle on a booster seat (no back)
Middle child in Britax cruiser
baby in Britax dunno the name rear facer

It was a major hassle to do up the belts, and long term I wouldn't have been happy with it at all, hassle & safety-wise, but we were on holiday & didn't have much choice, but it was possible, just not easy (understatement)

Good luck.
(No way at all of finding an affordable solution to car change?)