Help! We've been trying to fit our twins' Snugride infant seats and son's Radian 80 convertible seat in my hubby's mid-size SUV (Lexus 400) with no luck. The snugrides are just too wide.
Can anyone recommend a good narrow infant car seat that will fit three across?
We ended up getting two "Baby Trend Flex Loc" infant seats in "Sonic" (grey/ black w/ yellow stripe), at Babies R Us. We installed them using latch on either side of a Radian 80 (installed forwardfacing with a seat belt) and they all fit perfectly - like a puzzle. We were surprised at the great quality of the Baby Trend car seat, it's more compact and had nicer fabrics than the more expensive Snugride; the pattern goes well with the Radian's color to boot. Plus they were only $80 each, after using 20% coupons from BRU.
http://www.babytrend.com/car_seats_flex-loc/CS31095.html
Thank you for the suggestion!
I know the Baby Trend bases are more narrow than the snugriders. So you could try that. If you have a Babies R US, the would certainly let you try the bases in your car before you purchase them to be sure it would work.
oh, I know this challenge well.
I have 1 1/2 yr old twins and an almost 3yr old..... I have visited every store that has an isle of carseats to choose from ... stood there taking measurements, to find the skinniest ones,, to solve the same problem. infant seats just didn't vary in width much.... but toddler seats did!!
Maybe for your toddler:... The 1st Years (model B530/B540)is a booster with a high back/head support....
My son was not big enough for a booster when I still had infant seats for the twins....
boosters don't have a 5point harness, but it might be the skinny seat you need to fit with the infant seats...I bought one online from Costco for $49...
Also last year, I also bought the Graco Nautilous 3 in 1 carseat (20-65lbs) ...just because I was able to use it with my toddler at that time, and it was the skinniest carseat I could find with all the bells and whistles in safety. (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011URFRE/?tag=googhydr-20&...)
However, it did not solve my problem about fitting 3 seats.. but I got very very close.....I just couldnt quite close the car-door....probably just needed another 2 inches... I had peg perego infant seats at that time so maybe if you measure everything out , your snugrides might work with this seat. Or maybe Lexus has that extra inch across to get it to work.
In my case, my oldest was still not old enough for a booster, so rather than continue dealing with a child in the third row.... I upgraded to a Infiniti QX56... all three fit across the 2nd row, no matter how bulky the seat....
that turned out to be the best thing ever,,, but if I would've fit in my prior SUV, I'd probably be happy that way too.
Unfortunately I cannot say 3 infant seats to fit. You will never find that. However, is your older son big enough for booster seat (the one that is for 40 lbs+)? If so, you may be able to squeeze that booster between the 2 infant seats. Will be terribly tight fit. We had 3 seats to go across when we had our third child, and our only way to do that was to put our two oldest in boosters and have the infant seat in middle. We now have an 8 seater suburban, but can only fit 7 because of the bulky carseats. We have tried for years to figure out a way to fit 3 carseats in a row, but couldn't.
Keep your son in his Radian for as long as the weight/hight limits allows, don't move him to a booster for conveniance. Maybe if you were to move the twins to convertable seats that are rear facing instead of the infant seats it would fit better? I know that Radian makes the narrowest seats so you could just get 2 more of those now. I hope that you find something that works well for your family.
