goldentwig
New member
My husband was recently in a car accident and totaled his 4-month-owned sedan. (Yeah, ouch.) Luckily, it worked out in our favor since insurance basically gave us everything back we had paid on it in those 4 months and now we can upgrade to a minivan since Baby #3 is on the way in July 2015.
Since our kids' two car seats were in the back, unoccupied thankfully, insurance has still agreed to replace the cost of both car seats. (yay! One of them was about to expire in Feb. '15 anyway!) So now we are expecting to buy a used 2008 Toyota Sienna minivan which seats 8. Three in the middle and three in the back. My husband checked it and found 5 sets of LATCH and tethers, three in the middle row and 2 in the back. Here's our current setup and I need help deciding which two new seats to buy right now (as in probably this weekend or early next week) and let insurance pay for them, plus a new infant car seat (on our own dime) because we just checked the other day and our Chicco KeyFit 30 expires in Dec. 2015 and baby will only be 6 months old at that time. (I tend to use infant carriers for 16-20 months with my small babies.)
My daughter is 7 years old, around 65 lbs. and maybe 47-49" tall.
My son is 2.5 years old, around 27-28 lbs. and about 23" tall.
In our 2007 Toyota RAV4, we currently have a
FF Britax Frontier 90 Booster Car Seat with ClickTight (which is a feature I LOVE!) for my daughter and a RF Britax Boulevard G4 Convertible Car Seat for my son. I recently learned that it is IMPOSSIBLE to put 3 car seats in a 2007 RAV4 because the back seat belts overlap so no 3 car seats could ever be installed in there anyway. This means that the minivan will be the ONLY car that we can ever put all three kids in at the same time, HOWEVER any two kids may need to ride in the RAV4 at a given time. (Sounds like a math class brainteaser, right?) I can move these two current car seats over to the minivan if needed and put more narrow seats in the RAV4 (which might finally allow an adult to better squeeze in the middle between the two).
So again, my question is, what two seats, a booster and a convertible I'm assuming, should I buy this week for the new minivan? And then later in the Spring/early summer, what infant seat with base would you recommend for #3? I love :2thumbsup: the ClickTight installation of my daughter's booster and think that would allow even more flexibility in the van since there are only two sets of LATCH in the back row. (Not yet sure about rear tethers though.) I don't love how HEAVY the Britax seats are and would welcome having a seat that is a little more lightweight for potential airport travel with a Brica RollNGo. However we don't have anything planned, so that's just a side-thought.
Also suggestions on how to set up the configuration of the seats in the minivan are welcome. I believe the middle row, middle seat slides forward for easier access to the RF infant seat, so I'll probably put the baby there. However both older kids' schools have carpool dropoff/pickup which wants them to have easy access to the passenger side sliding door. (Remember my son is RF and can't yet unbuckle himself.)
Thanks in advance!
- Holly
Since our kids' two car seats were in the back, unoccupied thankfully, insurance has still agreed to replace the cost of both car seats. (yay! One of them was about to expire in Feb. '15 anyway!) So now we are expecting to buy a used 2008 Toyota Sienna minivan which seats 8. Three in the middle and three in the back. My husband checked it and found 5 sets of LATCH and tethers, three in the middle row and 2 in the back. Here's our current setup and I need help deciding which two new seats to buy right now (as in probably this weekend or early next week) and let insurance pay for them, plus a new infant car seat (on our own dime) because we just checked the other day and our Chicco KeyFit 30 expires in Dec. 2015 and baby will only be 6 months old at that time. (I tend to use infant carriers for 16-20 months with my small babies.)
My daughter is 7 years old, around 65 lbs. and maybe 47-49" tall.
My son is 2.5 years old, around 27-28 lbs. and about 23" tall.
In our 2007 Toyota RAV4, we currently have a
FF Britax Frontier 90 Booster Car Seat with ClickTight (which is a feature I LOVE!) for my daughter and a RF Britax Boulevard G4 Convertible Car Seat for my son. I recently learned that it is IMPOSSIBLE to put 3 car seats in a 2007 RAV4 because the back seat belts overlap so no 3 car seats could ever be installed in there anyway. This means that the minivan will be the ONLY car that we can ever put all three kids in at the same time, HOWEVER any two kids may need to ride in the RAV4 at a given time. (Sounds like a math class brainteaser, right?) I can move these two current car seats over to the minivan if needed and put more narrow seats in the RAV4 (which might finally allow an adult to better squeeze in the middle between the two).
So again, my question is, what two seats, a booster and a convertible I'm assuming, should I buy this week for the new minivan? And then later in the Spring/early summer, what infant seat with base would you recommend for #3? I love :2thumbsup: the ClickTight installation of my daughter's booster and think that would allow even more flexibility in the van since there are only two sets of LATCH in the back row. (Not yet sure about rear tethers though.) I don't love how HEAVY the Britax seats are and would welcome having a seat that is a little more lightweight for potential airport travel with a Brica RollNGo. However we don't have anything planned, so that's just a side-thought.
Also suggestions on how to set up the configuration of the seats in the minivan are welcome. I believe the middle row, middle seat slides forward for easier access to the RF infant seat, so I'll probably put the baby there. However both older kids' schools have carpool dropoff/pickup which wants them to have easy access to the passenger side sliding door. (Remember my son is RF and can't yet unbuckle himself.)
Thanks in advance!
- Holly