I’ve found the answer to fitting five car seats in a minivan – the Diono RadianR100 Convertible Car Seat. From everything I can tell, it is the narrowest car seat on the market. I’ve also read that the Radian is the best bet for fitting three car seats across in a regular car (i.e. non-minivan), but I can’t attest to that. At the writing of this post, the list price is $259, but you can find it at several stores for $207.99.
Preparing for five children under 6 years old, we suddenly realized that we couldn’t fit three of our current car seats across in the back seat, which was essential for making everyone fit. Upon this discovery, I purchased the skinny jumpseat for the center row on Craigslist. We have a 2005 Honda Odyssey minivan, but just the 7-seater. After spending an hour trying to get the seat to attach to the floor anchors, I decided to look up instructions online. Nice. At this point I discovered that only the 8-seater has anchors for the jumpseat. If you have the 7-seater, you can’t just add the middle seat. So, if for some reason you need that skinny little seat, I have one you can purchase. 🙂
In the end, I think having 3 in the backseat is going to work better than 3 in the middle row anyway. Since everyone is in car seats, we would have to unbuckle one in the middle row to move the seat enough to allow the kiddos to get to the back.
Moral of the story: You can fit 5 car seats in a minivan, but you may have to spend some money. However, buying three new car seats is still cheaper than buying one new car. 🙂
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You think you can do that on the Town & Country? We only have 5 seats too – well, kind of. Putting 3 in the back is pretty tight. So we really only have 4 seats. But I'd rather buy a middle thingy than a new van.
Hey, Missy! So, when you say "middle thingy", I'm thinking you mean the skinny middle seat for the middle row. Is that correct? I'm not sure if it would work, but I bet if you post on Facebook, someone with an 8 seater Odyssey could let you try it. If you're local, you can try mine.
If you are talking about the 3 Radians across the back, they should fit. I
Love the new blog and the updates! And I bet your kids love sitting in the back row, mine are always begging to sit in the back! Can't wait to see you driving around with a car full of kiddoes! I also can't wait to see the looks you get when you unload!!!! 🙂
We did this. Two boosters, 2 forward facing, and an infant rear-facing. It was funny to see, but my reality. We locked a forward facing seat in the back middle with the boosters on the sides of it. My kids grew accustom to buckling in tight spacing.
We did this. Two boosters, 2 forward facing, and an infant rear-facing. It was funny to see, but my reality. We locked a forward facing seat in the back middle with the boosters on the sides of it. My kids grew accustom to buckling in tight spacing.