Minivan. Hands down.
DW was an "over my dead body" anti-minivan person. Until we rented one in Hawaii. And we only had one child then. After that, she was sold.
Being a parent tends to make you a lot more practical. And the minivan is just so far superior over the other types of cars that you can see why minivans are still around even though they're not "cool".
Depending on the vehicle, you can actually get good Radian installs in sedans and SUVs. However, if you go 3 kids, for sure you're gonna want a minivan. You can survive with the others, but you're just surviving and will be pining for a minivan the whole time.
Frankly, unless you get a tiny 4 cyl SUV that gets better gas mileage than a minivan, there's only a couple of reasons to get a SUV over a minivan. If you tow heavy objects or need high ground clearance all the time and 4WD. That's pretty rare unless you live in real rural areas (the Sienna has AWD but doesn't have high ground clearance). Unless those things apply, a SUV is so much crappier than a minivan that it's not even funny. Costs more (compare size to size), generally gets worse gas mileage, about 1/10th the cargo space, etc. With strollers and Costco runs, the cargo space is what kills me. At DS' preschool the other day, someone had the hatch up to their Toyota Sequoia. Monster SUV that dwarfs even the biggest minivans. I literally laughed when I saw this tiny umbrella stroller that filled up the WHOLE trunk area of that monster. With a minivan, you wouldn't even notice that stroller in there. And those big SUVs starting prices are about where minivans top out.
It's really no comparison. That's not to say you have to be absolutely practical all the time. I love sports cars and they're totally not practical. That said, practicality tends to be a big factor when making parental decisions.
