Car Suggestions for 3 Carseats in a Row

A three year old should still be in a harnessed seat, definitely not in a booster only. Too young, not safe!

A., your best bet is to buy the car you like and then buy car seats that fit ;)

The best seat for 3-across situations is the convertible Sunshine Kids' Radian. It is SO narrow that it's easy to install them right next to each other safely. It rear faces to 35 pounds and forward faces to 65 or 80 depending on the model you get.

In your situation, your best bet would be to buy the three Radians, put the three year old forward facing in the center and put the 1 year old and the baby rearfacing outboard on each side.

I'm a Child Passenger Safety Technicians (ubiquitously known as 'car seat tech'). Feel free to message me if you want to meet up to work out the kinks of your installation!

EDited to add: To clarify Colleen's point above, if the child outgrows his harnessed seat at three, he needs a BIGGER harnessed seat, not a booster. At no time is a booster a safe or acceptable option for a three year old! ;)

1 mom found this helpful

Hey there - I know this is late getting to you but I'm now in your shoes! I have a VW Passat Wagon and can fit two boosters and one infant seat across. Buckling the boosters isn't easy but not unmanageable. The nice thing about the wagon is that it's got much more cargo space in the back for the strollers, portacribs and all other things baby than most mid sized suvs. Seems like a strange claim but wagons are a completely different model than the suvs - they're better on gas too. I think Ford Taurus makes a wagon, Saturn might, VW of course, and there are a few more. Good luck if you haven't gone for your new car and let me know what you chose if you did!

We test drove a CX9, I really liked it BUT my husband was right when he said it was way to small for us. We have 4 boys. At the time we had 3 car seats. We never tried it, but after thinking about what my husband said, he was right. We do alot of traveling in out minivan and need alot of space. So it was just to small for us.

be careful with the CX-9, I have a neighbor who just had their 3rd child, and just before she had him, they were struggling with exchanging new car seats because they couldn't get them to fit all in a row.

I don't know what a CX9 is, but I have a cheve tahoe. I put my 3 yr old in the middle in a booster seat and my 2 yr old behind the passenger and infant behind the driver. My 3 yr old is helpful when she drops her pacifier and he can help with the 2 when needed for longer rides, dropping juice, etc....

Hi A.,
Just wanted to clarify what the car seat tech. below said about a three-yr-old not being in a booster seat, and needing to be in a harness. It's definitely safer, BUT this only applies if your 3-yr.-old is still small enough to use a harness. The straps must be at or above her shoulders, and most seats the weight limit for the harnesses is 40 lbs., so you'd have to check the particular seat for those weight/height limits. Most of my 3-yr-olds were way too big, but some weren't. It has more to do with height and weight than with age. As far as a car that can fit three across, we had a Chevy Venture which was the 8-passenger version, with three bucket seats across the middle. You can even get them with at least one built in child seat. We fit three seats across, and the nice thing is that each bucket seat slides forward independently, so you can keep one of them more forward (probably the 1-yr-old, who would need less leg room), and then there's room for other passengers to get in to the 3rd row. Or if you do end up using the booster seat for your three-yr-old, the belt wouldn't be buckled until she was in it, so you could slide that seat back and forth. Same deal if you got one with a built in car seat. We are having a 7th child, so we had to get a 9-passenger Yukon, and the problem with the SUVs is that you have to tip the seats forward to access the 3rd row, so you have to buckle and unbuckle seats, or put one in the 3rd row. It's much more of a pain. I loved my Venture, and was bummed to get rid of it. The new ones aren't called Ventures anymore -- not sure what the new name is. But there is also a Pontiac equivalent to the Venture. Good luck.

Edited to add:
See Joanna's edit below. I obviously did not have the latest info.

I was in your situation a little over a year ago. In the beginning, it will be easier because the baby will be rear facing so the seats will fit better.

Anyway, I would definitely take a tape measure to the store and find the skinniest seats. We ended up buying three brand-new car seats when my third child was born. Once you find the skinniest ones, the store will usually let take the floor models out to your car to actually see if they will fit before you buy them. We did this at Babies R Us, and they were really great about letting my husband take all three seats out (although the employee did walk out to the car with him).

I was driving a 97 Honda Accord with three across, so it can definitely work. Of course, my oldest was moved into a booster as soon as she could, and she was almost 4 when my third child was born, so it was only a few months before we could get a booster for her.

I have a Dodge Durango and can fit 3 forward facing seats(all are different styles) accross the middle row. but that means I have to take one out so the third row passengers can get in & out(not an easy task)

I dont have a vehicle to recomend, but I do know of people being in this situation, and what they did is actually take a tape measure and measure the length of the back seat. Some of them can be really different, I would do the measurement yourself, then compare to the size of your carseats.
Best of Luck

We had a Tahoe that we did it in. When we sold the Tahoe and only had one car we had three car seats in our Subaru Legacy, it was a tight fit! We have a minivan now. I would love to get a Prius, but I don't think that the car seats would fit across. I would just take a tape measure or the actual car seats and go with them to see the cars. A pain, but the only real way to tell because when the 3yr old ages into the booster seat then you will be constantly fastening the seatbelt and having to reach behind the seats to get to the buckle. This can be tricky. My older son is 5 and in a booster, the twins are 3 and in car seats. It is hard to jam my hand behind the seats when they are lined up to get to the buckle to fasten his seat belt for the booster.