Best convertable for babies and 2009 Caravan

[colsxjack]

Hello.
I was wondering if anyone here had some insight to help us shop around for our next carseats.
We have twins 4.5 month old sons and an almost 4 yr old daughter.
Currently our sons are in Graco Snugride 30's in the third row of 2009 Grand Caravan with stow and go and middle row captain chairs.
Our daughter is in a Safety First Complete Air. Her seat is fine and will last her for a couple of more years still.

We want to replace our sons seats to convertibles. For now they are fine, fit well, nowhere near weight limit, etc. And the bucket seats work well for us in getting the babies into the car, as we can get them into the seat in the house and then take them out. But we do think we would like to put them into convertibles in the next few months. They will soon to too heavy and awkward to carry in the seats. And getting them in and out of the seats while the seat is in the car is a hassle and awkward. Plus, they may like the comfort of a convertible more, as they do like to sit up now and not really enjoy being craddled like buckets seem to do.

We need to have them in the third row, as our DD cannot get her own carseat straps buckled and unbuckled herself. And it is not something we are interested in teaching her. So we need good access to her. And with two carseats RF in middle row captain chairs, we would not be able to get to the third row to buckle her up.

But we find that getting a baby into a RF carseat in a third row to be a bit of a challenge. It's the angle of coming from behind rather than from the side.

We are looking for:
extended RF possibilities
( our children tend to be on the heavy side and boys are 98% for "height" but that may slow down)
a chair that is easy to buckle and adjust tightness
the straps do not easily twist (hate that about the snugrides)
comfortable and "cushy"
Good for sleeping, as the boys fall asleep in the car often.

We like the Safety 1st our DD is in, except it is somewhat difficult to tighten the straps when RF.

Thank you.

 

[MommyShannon]

Where do you have top tethers in the 3rd row? It might be more convenient to remove or stow one on the 2nd row seats and keep your daughter and one baby in the 3rd row and one baby in the 2nd row. That would depend on where you can top tether her seat though. You might look at the NextFit for a tall, easy to use seat. Its $$$ though. If you like the CA, you could pass it down once one of the baby's is tall enough to reach the lowest position and buy her a combination seat.

 

[Pixelated]

The OP is in Canada, so no NextFit here just yet.

Are you intending to load the babies through the hatch (trunk)? Are you at all interested in stowing one of the captain's chairs and having one baby in the 2nd row, and one in the 3rd row, along with your daughter? You only have a top tether in the middle of the 3rd row but if you use UAS there it's offset onto the '60' part of the 60/40 split, so not right jammed up against the seat on the '40' part of the split. Are you interested in possibly passing the Complete Air down to one of the babies and getting your daughter a child/booster seat?

Can you confirm the weight on the boys? Are they long in the torso, or is more of their height in their legs (are they in onesie sizes that match their age, for example)?

 

[canadiangie]

Hello

I have a good friend with twin 1 year olds, a 3 year old, and a Grand Caravan.

She has tried every possible configuration, and what works the best is to stow one captains chair, have her forward facing child in the 3rd row off-set UAS position with top tether, a rear facing baby 3rd row passenger, and the other rear facing baby in the remaining captains chair.

She has a forward facing Radian, rear facing TrueFit, and rear facing MyRide 65. Having a seat with a seatbelt lock-off makes life easier for her with regards to the 3rd row rear facing baby, so the TrueFit is in that seating position.

The Complete Air you have for your daughter will last a good long time because of the high top harness slots. It's also semi narrow, and installs nicely in your 3rd row. Your boys are on the long side and a Complete Air only rear faces to 36 inches in length. I would likely keep using it for your daughter.

Nice thing about the TrueFit is it has a no re-thread harness similar to the Complete Air. Rear faces up to 35 pounds (around age 3 for most kids) and forward facing up to 65 pounds with nice tall top slots. Tend to be budget friendly too.

I put a vote in for a TrueFit or two.

 

[colsxjack]

Thanks so much.
Yeah, I never thought of putting DD in 3rd row. But that makes sense. I think 3rd row RF may be tricky, as there isn't much room between 3rd and second row seats.

We already do stow one 2nd row seat. So that doesn't make our use of our van different than now. We would not be loading them in through the hatch. I do not know how I would even do that. We would put them into the seat and I guess reach over to tighten the straps.

All of our children are longer in the torso than legs. They are in onesies a size or two older than their ages. But if they are anything like their sister, they will slow in height by 3 ish. She has gone from 99% to about 70% for height.

I do want to keep my DD in her complete air. She will fit it likely until she is ready for a booster. She likes it and it is "hers". We are not ready, and she is not ready for a booster yet.

I will look into the true fits. Having one that has a no re-thread harness is a bonus. I love that! And that will make it easier to change which boy sits in the 2nd row seat depending on temperament of the day. They are the same height now, but might not always be. We likely will not change seats until they are able to sit up unassisted. as loading three kids in the car when two are completely immobile is tricky. Having the buckets and loading them in the seats in the house has been good. We live in a city, and park on the street.

 

[BarbieWD]

We own a 2007 Grand Caravan and I can telling you a bit about the where to put car seats....as for which car seats I think everything I could suggest has been suggested. And as for spacing (eg: a rf car seat in the 3rd row right behind a ff car seat in the 2nd row, the capt chairs do slide forward) you have lots of room. It's hasn't been an issue for us with a rf car seat in any position affecting any other car seat or passenger ahead.

In our van, we have 3 children and regularly transport one other child and sometimes another adult as well (so we do regularly need use of all the seat belts)!

We currently use this setup as our default.

Driver's 2nd row captain chair; ff, uas install, with preschool aged kids (less than 40lbs)
Pass's 2nd row captain chair: rf, uas install, with larger (of the 2) toddlers (seat is slid forward a bit to leave room for rf bucket seat in 3rd row)
Driver's 3rd row bench: empty, use for the extra adult
Center 3rd row bench: ff, seat belt install, with oldest kid (over 40lbs)
Pass's 3rd row bench: rf infant bucket, seat belt install (no uas in that position), with smallest toddler

Now I know you don't have 4 kids, and that your twins are about the same size right now. I wanted to share the above as an example of what older kid combinations are like, because the caravans only have 3 tether anchors for ff car seats which GREATLY limits where you can put your kids, which did effect what convertibles we bought/buy. Such as spending more money on high weight/height rf car seats for example. Also ff car seats are a HUGE PITA to install with seat belts (easy with UAS, though) in the 2nd row capt chairs b/c of the stiff buckle stalks, ours don't bend at all, and the angle in which the stick out of the side of the seat bight is almost straight forward towards the front of our van rather than pointing upright which makes the seat belt webbing bunch up in the cinching latch plate and not pull tight nicely. It's almost impossible in some cases. And all of this we didn't even realize until our kids got older (usually after we purchased a seat) and when our oldest started exceeding the uas weight limit and we were forced to use the selt belt install. However in saying all this I know the '09 caravans have the new body, so maybe the seat belts are different.

When my 2nd was still rear facing (so when we had 2 kids rf) we liked this combination:

Both rf kids in the 2nd row captain chairs, made for super easy kid in and out. And our oldest ff on the 60 side of the 3rd row bench using uas (when she was still under 40lbs) and we stowed the 40 side of the bench and she climbed in from the rear hatch and it was super easy to buckle her by sitting on the folded seat. And left tons of room for our stroller. It was also possible for our oldest to crawl under either rf seat in the 2nd row and for us to lean over one of the 2nd row captain chairs to buckle her. Not the most intuitive way, but not that difficult either.

I would say whatever convertibles you do buy make sure you try them ff (trying both seat belt and uas installs) as well in each of the locations with tether anchors as we have had to try different seats b/c the same seat rear facing (rf) doesn't always fit once you turn it around ff. And in the case of our oldest, b/c she exceeds the UAS weight limit so we have to install with a seat belt, and b/c of the buckle stalk angle in the second row capt chairs, we now only have ONE place we can install her car seat which is the center seat belt 3rd row. Which then limits our options for where the rest of the car seats can go!

Ok so this got a little wordy....but I hope it helps and saves you some of the headaches we have had with our caravan.

-Barbie -CRST