Fit of car seats in car...

[OceanPrincess]

Hi all

We have finally had out car seat installed in my car. We bought a Safe n Sound Meridien, which has been installed in my Mazda 3, behind the passenger seat.

Apparently this is safer in cars that don't have side airbags and it means that only one seat has to move, not both. Also there is less chance of the seat hitting the baby seat in an accident if it is side-impact.

Problem became immediately obvious - when the seat is in its rear-facing position, as it will be until bubs is 8mths or 8kgs, there is zero room in the front passenger seat for the passenger.

We're now thinking of upgrading to a larger car, as we want to have number 2 pretty quickly and thought we'd be upgrading for number 2, so we might just bring the timeline forward a bit.

So I'd like to know what cars everyone has that comfortably fit one rear-facing car seat and a second car seat, with plenty of room in the front passenger seat.

We're thinking of upgrading to something of a similar size to a Mazda 6, Commodore or the like.

DH is 6'3, I am 5'9, so we need something that will be comfortable to us both in the front (including when DH needs to sit in the passenger seat) with a rear-facing seat in the back.

[Heaven]

Ours is going to be mighty squishy too and we're going to get a new car not long after bubs is born. Good thread.

[feeb]

we only have one seat rear facing and is also behind passanger seat, even in the commodore DH is uncomfortable in the passanger seat as cant put seat back he is 6ft 4 approx.

[OceanPrincess]

Even in a commodore?? EEEEK!

We're now thinking a Rav4 - my parents have one, it is a good car to drive and should have enough room in the back. We're going round on the weekend to fit our car seat and see what we can see...

[alioops]

I got to the point that I simply made DH drive when there was a rearfacing carseat and he complained about being uncomfortable, however I am short. I am going to put the capsule in may car sometime soon to check how much room it has, I have the middle row seats as far back as possible though.

[MantaRay]

Well, it's a fair bit bigger, but a Prado. We had DS2 rear facing until around 18 months (he is not big for his age obviously), so it was just as well we had enough leg room. We can still fit a smallish person between the two seats (one Meridian, one Maxi Rider) also.