Fourth (!) seat in a Mazda 5... help!!

Unregistered · Mar 11, 2015

Our fourth is dues to arrive in late April.

We have two big boys in the back row, both FF in Graco Nautilus seats.

The middle row right now has our third boy, FF, in a Britax Marathon that expires this year but has been owned by us the duration and has never been in an accident.

I'm on the fence about putting our fourth child in an infant versus convertible seat, so I can't use that to easily focus my research. My main concern is that many infant seats may not be likely to work and still accommodate a passenger in the front seat.

It seems like the Graco Snugride 35 is of a smaller profile. What else?

I'm intrigued by the Coccoro, too.

But so far that's all I've sort of looked at, because it's OVERWHELMING!!!!

help?

Dillipop · Mar 11, 2015

We are also adding a fourth to our mazda5 soon. Ours is the commuter car, if that makes a difference, but all the kids ride in it semi-regularly.

Our setup- middle row, our 11 and 8 year olds in clek Ollis. Third row, 4 yo in britax frontier 85 with harness and newborn in Chicco nextfit rearfacing. I love having my rearfacer in the third row. It is so easy to load and unload them through the hatch.

lgenne · Mar 11, 2015

Infant seats in the 3rd row are awful. Infant seats in the 2nd row take up too much front to back space. I have a KF30 in the 2nd row passenger side. DH and I are tall. The passenger seat is barely usable unless the baby is not in the car. With 4, I'd strongly consider a convertible in the 3rd row. I'm planning to make the switch to a CCO pretty much as soon as it's consistently warm (and I manage to actually move car seats around.)

teekadog · Mar 11, 2015

We've never not had a rfing seat in the 2nd row. I find it easier than the 3rd row because if a RFer falls asleep in the 3rd row no way can I transfer them to the house. However I have never had an infant seat. My newborns in this car were all 9lbs plus.

We had two rfing marathons there and the preschooler crawled under them to get to the 3rd row. When we switched to a radian the big kids could step over it to the 3rd row. I've had a coccoro there too, and the kids couldn't get over or under it and had to use another access point.

The coccoro took up the least front to back room, the radian with angle adjuster coming in second- of course you can't use the angle adjuster with a young baby. It does fit without the angle adjustor but you lose front seat space.

katymyers · Mar 11, 2015

I used a Britax B Safe infant seat in my Mazda5 comfortably in the second row. My husband and I are average height and we fit perfectly fine in the front seats. I also used an older Graco Snugride 35 briefly that also worked. I can testify to Britax convertibles, which fit most newborns well, fitting beautifully in the third row, and loading through the hatch in that vehicle is a breeze. I never had issues having four car seats in mine, I really liked it.

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lgenne · Mar 12, 2015

A RF Radian with angle adjuster fits easily in the second row, and my driver's seat can go all the way back, if that's useful information for down the road.

joolsplus3 · Mar 12, 2015

The newest Britax B-Safe 35/35 Elite claim to be among the shortest front-to-back at 26.5 inches, at least in the retailer training video I had to watch, maybe that would work? Key Fit is also pretty short front-to-back. So much depends on how long legged the front seat people are are, I find.

Dillipop · Mar 12, 2015

joolsplus3 said:
The newest Britax B-Safe 35/35 Elite claim to be among the shortest front-to-back at 26.5 inches, at least in the retailer training video I had to watch, maybe that would work? Key Fit is also pretty short front-to-back. So much depends on how long legged the front seat people are are, I find.

And how strict on following the manual you are in regards to moving that second row seat to give the third row enough legroom.

I have my booster riders in the second row for 2 reasons- the fact that the belt fits perfectly on the captains chairs and fits in front of them in the third row and the fact that with boosters on the captains chairs, I am comfortable moving them up to make room for the third row. If you take the car manual at face value, if you install a car seat in the second row, the seats are supposed to be all the way back and it leaves no room for legs in the third row.

I've read that using latch negates needing the second row in the furthest back position but my harnessed rider is past latch limits, so she's in the third row.

Unregistered · Mar 13, 2015

Thanks, everyone.

I am leaning towards the CCO, especially now that I learned that it fits on a Baby Trend Snap N' Go-- baby and I have to travel by air when she is two months old. Is it difficult to install and uninstall in the car?

I am also intrigued by the Cybex Aton, which seems to have a very slim profile. Any knee-jerk reactions there?

javafreak81 · Mar 17, 2015

Has anyone had any experience with the new Peg Perego 4-35? I'm wondering if there's a specific setup (i.e. seatback angle, etc) that worked out.

I put it in place in the store (but did not do a proper install) and the front passenger seat had to be moved up quite close. I'm 5'6 and I'm just within what's considered safe (i.e. knees clearing the dash by at least and inch and airbag at least 25cm from the airbag). However, my 6'2 husband would never fit, so he'd have to ride in the back...which poses a problem if/when we have baby#2.

Nedra · Mar 17, 2015

Unregistered said:
I am also intrigued by the Cybex Aton, which seems to have a very slim profile. Any knee-jerk reactions there?

I have a Cybex Aton, but not in a Mazda 5. However, we have it in our Subaru Impreza -- in which no other infant seat fit comfortably and the only RF convertible** that fit comfortably is a Nextfit on Recline 2 (so not fully reclined for a newborn). We have not had the pleasure of trying a Coccoro -- which I assume would also fit, if we tried it. The Aton fits comfortably behind the driver without needing to move the seat from the usual driving position. If you are able to try an Aton and it does not work, I would venture a guess that you can rule out other infant seats.

** truthfully, we didn't try a ton of convertibles the way we did with the infant seats. But we knew we'd need something for our small car and with a high RF height limit and so we tried the Nextfit and it BARELY fit in Recline 2, so we pretty much stopped our search there. Our Britax Roundabout G4 doesn't even fit well, and that's considered pretty small front-to-back.

Fourth (!) seat in a Mazda 5... help!!

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