did you switch cars with DC #3?

[rose angel]

I have a 5 yr old, in a belt positioning booster, a 3 yo in a harness booster, and am expecting. I don't think I can fit 3 across the backseat of my little (loved and fuel efficient!) mazda protege5. We have a 95 mazda MPV minivan, but the transmission is shot, and it has non locking seatbelts, which I don't love. We can't really afford another car payment, so do we sell the 1 yr old car to get something bigger and older or what? I'm sure there are other options. Thanks!

[TiredX2]

Does your car have three seatbelts in the back? If so, you can probably fit three carseats, it just might be a bit of a pain (Britax seats, for example--- their toddler seats sit up higher than most, their booster is adjustable across the width so you can make it skinnier than others). You'll have to decide if it is worth it to you, though.

[TiredX2]

Oh, I don't have three kids but often have two boosters (Graco TurboBooster) & a toddler seat (Britax Roundabout) in the back seat of my Ford Escort. It's snug, but doable. I don't know the size of your 5 year old, but one way to make it easier is actually to put the 5 year old in a harnessed seat (like the Britax Marathon that goes to 65 lbs)---- because then you don't have to buckle & unbuckle the booster which is really stuffed in there!

[shelbean91]

We have a 98 mazda protege and are unable to fit 3 carseats in the back, no matter how we try. Ours has a bit of a 'hump' in the middle and that may be part of it. Actually, we can fit 3 seats, but they are all crooked and definitely not safe. We traded in our older, 91 mercury sable (that the carseats fit in, b/c there was no a/c and $$$$ worth of work it needed) and got a 04 kia sedona for 15900. Well worth it, IMO.

I was sure I would be able to get the seats in the mazda, but wasn't able to try until after ds2 was born. It just didn't work. If you want to try, definitely do it now before baby comes b/c waiting until after was a pain for me.

[NoHiddenFees]

We went to a minivan -- a Mazda MPV, the smallest we could find, and we love it -- with the second child because with DD1 in a Husky and DD2 moving into a Marathon after she outgrows her infant seat there would be no room for a passenger. Not practical for us because we often have visitors from afar we need to cart around. I'll wager 3 Tourivas/variants (which I believe is the narrowest seat on the market) could fit in the back of most cars if the seatbelt arrangement was favorable, but we *really* hated DD1's Touriva and abandoned it as soon as she was forward facing. The straps twisted if you so much as looked at them the wrong way and it just didn't seem comfy to us, though DD was too young to definitively let us know.