A few 2011 sienna questions

brelza

Member
Currently we have 4 kids at home with 1 on the way. We have 2 in college right now. One drives so I don't really need to consider carting him around. However, there may be times over breaks when I need to take 6 of them somewhere with my husband. They are 18,17,almost 15, 9, and 3 with 1 on the way in January. We currently have 2 evenflo sureride seats and 2 evenflo big kid boosters. The 8y/o is in the BK booster in my vehicle and the other gets moved to other vehicles he rides in. The 2 sureride seats are used FF for the 3y/o as he's so close to 40" I was stressing about his being "too tall" for it. My kids generally are tall (last son was 22.5" at birth and 26" by 2 mo.) My husband is 6'5" so we need leg room in the front. What seat would you recommend for the new LO and how would you configure seating when typically they'll be 5 (newborn, almost 4y/o, 9y/o, 17 and 15y/o) on a daily basis in the car? I was going to just use the 2 sureride seats for the 2 youngest and put them 2nd row middle and driver side BUT..it doesn't fit. I recently moved the sureride from RFing middle second row to driver side FF and thought I could do them both but there isn't enough room even with 1 being ff and 1 RFing. I know the 8th seat is a royal PITB to deal with but I was thinking of pushing up the 2nd row passenger to allow access in the back for the 2 teens and the booster and using the 2nd row middle and capt chair for the baby. My older kids really are not the happiest having to climb in the back through the middle especially, but I guess at 5'6" and 6'2" it's not exactly fun to do that regularly. I'm driving myself crazy here. I am only thinking about this now because target is soon having the trade in sale and I was going to use that to get a seat for the baby.
 
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brelza

Member
When you had the two Surerides next to each other, was the one on the driver’s side installed with LATCH or a seat belt?


Both would be seatbelt installs. There is no latch on the 8th seat and I didn't know exactly the weight limits on latch for my van so I just stopped using it when we went FF even though he's only 32lb.

I tried middle row middle seat and driver side middle row and they won't go side by side--the seats don't puzzle well enough to have the bases fitting on the van seats. There isn't enough room. I was trying the sureride rear facing in the 8th seat since it fits better there than FF (FF really kind of encroaches on the other 2 seats with no elbow space, etc) and it gave plenty of leg room in the front. FF in the driver side 2nd row.

EDITED: I think I had my seats confused. I actually have the driver side 2nd row done by latch since it says to not use over 55lb. I re-installed it back in May and forgot what I had done.
 

jjordan

Moderator
Okay, so if you have RF middle / FF driver's side with LATCH, I'd also try RF middle / FF driver's side with seat belt and see if you can slide it over a bit toward the door when using the seat belt to install.

If it still doesn't work then I would probably try to do booster + sureride (in a position with a tether anchor) + smallest older kid in the third row and then baby and the other two older kids in the second row.

If you can't get that three across the third row you could try a narrower booster for the 8-9 year old (Incognito would be my first choice if he is over 60# but unfortunately they have been discontinued), then I'd try FF Sureride in 2nd row and see if you can find an infant seat that will fit in the center of the 2nd row and still allow the unused 2nd row seat to move forward for 3rd row access. Buy Buy Baby lets you take car seats out to your car to try them out.
 

aporthole

Active member
Man this is a tough one. I’m honestly not sure fitting everyone is possible. The 2nd row center seat is incompatible with the vast majority of seats since it sits lower than the captain’s chairs. The side seats often prevent a car seat from making contact with the seating surface of the lower center seat.

Is taking 2 cars an option when everyone is home over school breaks?
 

brelza

Member
I'll try the seat belt install and see if it works. I tried uploading a pic of the seats and it shows it ALMOST fits but not quite--but photobucket isn't being friendly with me. I thought the BK booster was one of the narrowest seats but I'll take a look at it again. Maybe it was a couple years ago when we got it but isn't now. He's currently 61lb so it would be a close cut off for the incognito since he tends to lose a little weight when soccer begins despite his constant eating. LOL I might have to try to find a buy buy baby. I knew it would be tough which is why I'm thinking of it NOW instead of last minute and then I'm hugely pregnant thinking OMG how am I going to manage this?!?!
.
 

brelza

Member
Man this is a tough one. I’m honestly not sure fitting everyone is possible. The 2nd row center seat is incompatible with the vast majority of seats since it sits lower than the captain’s chairs. The side seats often prevent a car seat from making contact with the seating surface of the lower center seat.

Is taking 2 cars an option when everyone is home over school breaks?

Yeah it was rough trying to find a seat to fit there when our last son was born. We tried a lot of different ones. I'm not sure if I can find one but I'll be trying. It's hard since BRU was our "go to" for trying different seats and now they are closed so we are left with target and walmart or online which, pardon my language, sucks :(

We will be taking 2 cars to begin with most likely however, I didn't want to make it that if the oldest decides to leave, a sibling had to leave with him. It might be a last resort option though. I was trying to see if there was a way to make it work so that if the oldest decides (at age 20) "hey, I'm bored here at so n so-s house, I'm leaving and going to my friend's house) that we weren't doing a battle at that point.
 

aporthole

Active member
The new Graco RightGuide is a good alternative to the Incognito. It is super slim and has a 50 minimum. It is only available from Graco’s website currently.
 

brelza

Member
Ok so upon talking to my husband we decided to just try to find a way to just get who we can fit in the van....even if it means not using both the surerides. I actually realized I'm not 100% sure where I put the infant inserts for either one anyway. I'd really love to keep the 3y/o in one but if we can get an infant seat for the newbie at an affordable price then that's what we'll do. suggestions for the infant seat?

Edited..I generally have long and lean babies. All have been 8lb+ and 21.5"-22.5". I think I'd prefer an infant seat...but it likely will stay in the car often...however, I can still easily uninstall/reinstall to let kids in the back row.
 
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