Saturday, December 01, 2012

Our 2012 Honda Pilot Twins Plus Newborn Car Seat Challenge

With our third child about a month away it was time to prepare for three kids under 2 in our new 2012 Honda Pilot. We specifically bought the Pilot because it could hold four car seats, 3 in the back seat and one in the way back. We used Chicco's Keyfit 30 carseat and base for Otto and Zachary, but recently they graduated up to a pair of the forward facing Britax Decathlon. When I went to try configuring the back seat with the two Britax and the Chicco there simply wasn't enough room.

The configuration we were shooting for was Passenger Side - [Britax] [Britax] [Chicco] - Driver's Side.  The base of the Britax was too high and too wide for the Chicco to securely fit. If you loosened up the anchors maybe they'd fit but we all know that's not acceptable from a safety perspective.

After doing some online research we found the Diono RadianR100 Convertible Car Seat who's base was lower to the seat which should make getting the twins in easier as well as it is about 17 inches wide vs the 19 inch wide base on the Britax.  I just installed all three seats today and thankfully there was plenty of room.