Minivans and carseats

persephonerose · September 2014

DH and I are trying to figure out what is the most practical way to set up all of the car seats in the mini van. Any BTDT moms who have advice?

Here is what we have. Honda Odyssey. Two keyfit30's and one nextfit that we have our 21m RF. I think the infant seats would be easier to get in and out if they are in the 2nd row. But putting my 21m old into his RF nextfit in the 3rd row is going to suck. But I don't think it would be any easier to get the two infant seats out of the 3rd row.

I had thought of turning my DS1 FF but I'd like to keep him RF as long as possible.

Thoughts? Am I over thinking this?

JAck5209 · September 2014

My twins are 7 months and my oldest is 2. We have all three kids in the middle row. Our oldest was rear facing until about a month ago and this was the easiest configuration. It's not really a problem to have one of the baby seats in the middle. When the twins transition to their convertable seats, we'll put one captain's seat behind the driver and the other in the middle and then our oldest will be front facing in the 3rd row.

bumpuser924057 · September 2014

I had the exact same setup - Odyssey, a RFing two year old, and two Keyfit 30s. I took one captain's chair out of the second row and kept the little middle seat in but folded down. Kept the toddler RFing in the second row and put one infant seat on each side of the third row. It wasn't that hard to get the infant seats in and out, though they did get bumped around a little in the process. Once the twins needed to move to convertibles, I put DS1 (who was 2yrs8m by then) forward facing in the third row and put the twins next to each other in the second row, one in the captain's chair and one in the middle seat. I left the other captain's chair out so everyone can get in and out easily.

rcnavywife · September 2014

We have an Odyssey as well. In our van there are three seats in the second row and the captain seats can be removed. We have three infant seats and my older DS FF. We removed one of the captain's seats (passenger side) from the second row and have two RF infant seats in the middle and drivers side. The third row has the third RF infant seat on the drivers side and the FF seat on the passenger side. The removed captains seat allows easier access to the third row. It's not the easiest getting the infant seat in/out from the third row, but not terrible.

rachelkongsore@hotmail.com · September 2014

We have the sienna mini van and will put our 23 month old twins FF in the third row and the 2 newborns in the captain seats in the second row. I'm hopeful (fx) the toddler twins will follow directions a little better by my due date and I can just tell them to get in their seats and then I'll go back and buckle them in :-)

1+tripsmom · September 2014

We have an older odyssey 09 or 08 we can slide the captains chairs over so we took middle seat out put captains chairs together and have 2 RF in them 1 FF behind passenger where the row is and then 1 RF behind driver in 3rd row.

bumpuser924057 · September 2014

rachelkongsore@hotmail.com said:

We have the sienna mini van and will put our 23 month old twins FF in the third row and the 2 newborns in the captain seats in the second row. I'm hopeful (fx) the toddler twins will follow directions a little better by my due date and I can just tell them to get in their seats and then I'll go back and buckle them in :-)

You may want to check the third row of the Sienna - when we were car shopping, I only saw one top tether anchor in the center of the third row, and you need one for each forward-facing seat.

persephonerose · September 2014

Thanks ladies! Some of you mentioned configurations I did not even think about. Looks like next weekend we will be going out and trying out a few to see which we like best.

lynnyrd80 · September 2014

We have a odyssey and have a RF britax pavilion and two chicco keyfits all in the middle row.

HeavenBlessedMom · September 2014

We have 2 infant seats in the 3rd seat of the Odyssey and its fine. 1 infant seat in the middle seat,middle row, & 1 FF convertible car seat for 22 mo old behind front passenger seat. Took 2nd row seat behind driver out for a walkway. So..3 infant seats and 1 toddler. Can still fit 1 person in 3rd row.

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