The Genial Hearth

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Car Seats

April 12, 2008 at 10:45 pm · Filed under Bilby, Cygnet, Domestic Life, Family, Organisation

So, I have a Toyota Corolla Seca (1992/1993). Interior width (between armrests) in the back seat, 126 cms. On average, car seats are 50 cms (we measured… it’s pretty consistent!) Currently we have two car seats. Obviously a third is not going to fit.

We looked at cars, we measured their rear seats. None (well, one exception) that we were looking at were 1.5m wide. After checking the first three dealers, we ducked in to a baby shop to check the availability of narrower seats. It turns out there are two. There is a Newborn to 18 kg seat (the Compaq/Compaq Deluxe, 45* cms), and one booster seat (the Hi-Liner, 40* cms). We were planning to move Bilby into a MaxiRider (50 cms) so that Cygnet could use the newborn seat we currently have (although, if we have to get a new newborn seat, she could probably stay in her current one (50 cms) ). Either way, that would get us to 135 cms. The widest of the options was 134 cms. We figure that some of those measurements were generous enough to give us the extra centimetre, but probably not to get us to 131 cms (the most common width). Of course later, we realised that we could get that by putting both Cygnet and Bilby in Compaqs–that would get us down to 130 cms!

(*I went back to check on the precise measurements, and also, how high above their base the widest measurement was… The Compaq is 43 cms at 19 cms above the base, the Hi-Liner is goes to 44 cms at 23 cms above the base. Sadly, the armrests at the back in my car are 22 cms above the seat, so it’s still not going to work for my car.)

Who knew it would be so hard to fit three children in a car!

(The exception? Toyota Tarago. Which seats 8, we could have three in car seats requiring attachment points, plus two in boosters, plus another. But yes, we could fit our current two carseats, plus a new carseat of average size, side-by-side in the second row.)

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7 Comments »

Fee wrote @ April 15th, 2008 at 6:55 am

We’ve got a Holden Apollo (same as a Toyota Camry) and have 3 seats in the back. We have an old-style Maxi-Rider, a Compac, and a Safe’n'Sound booster … I think the Pegasus. (I can check if you need me to). With the booster we use the “H” harness that you can purchase seperately. Makes the straps look more like a conventional 5 point harness.

When Laura was a baby we used a capsule (hired from the Red Cross) instead of the Compac. First time I’ve used a capsule and I highly recommend it.

When we were looking for carseats I phoned Kidsafe and spoke to them. Found them really helpful.

Originally we had the capsule on the left, maxirider in the middle and booster on the right. We had problems with Robert (second born) pinching Laura and stealing her dummy. We have now swapped the maxirider and booster so that the booster is in the middle. Have found that the booster is easier to do up now it is in the middle.

It is generally hard to do up the booster as it involves doing up the sash belt with one hand and being unable to see what you are doing (as the clasp is between the carseats and out of sight).

Anyway, I’m happy to discuss in more detail if you need and you are happy to poke and prod at the car too if you want.

Fee

Fee wrote @ April 15th, 2008 at 8:30 am

We also worked out that a Commodore has slightly more width in the back than our car.

HTH
Fee

Fe wrote @ April 15th, 2008 at 8:32 am

I’ve seen someone (in the US) talk about using a seatbelt extender (as in, for larger passengers) to bring the buckle to a more convenient place. When we work out what we’re getting car wise (she got it through the dealer, to match their seatbelts), I thought we’d look at that possibility to try and avoid the vague reaching around to do the seatbelt up.

I was mostly surprised that having shortlisted some cars it seems as though we’ll have to replace the carseats we have in any case (it’s still not going to get us down to fit in the seca…)!

Craig wrote @ April 17th, 2008 at 3:02 am

There are clues here filling me in on things that I’m not currently aware aren’t there?

Fe wrote @ April 17th, 2008 at 9:05 am

Well, I did think I’d dropped a number of fairly clear hints, that didn’t leave any doubt. But in any case… I updated ‘About’ nearly two months ago:-)

Things are different the third time around… I generally have no idea ‘when’ I am, and actually forget about it not infrequently—and I think we’ve been less ‘thorough’ in news telling…

Craig wrote @ April 18th, 2008 at 6:39 am

Sorry to shatter your illusions about the way people (well me anyway) use the site, but I don’t visit the “About” section every time I read your blog. I just look to see if the top article has changed and then move onto the next blog.

Fe wrote @ May 4th, 2008 at 11:30 pm

*grin*

I wasn’t thinking that you _would_ have looked at it… but I updated the ‘About’ entry at the time that I thought I’d posted sufficiently that it would be clear… which was two months before my last comment.