There were three in the back…

If the Camry is a life-long car, then do a one-year lease (or whatever length makes sense) of a car that accommodates all the seats, and park the Camry. If the Camry is not a life-long car, face reality. Stop clinging and sell it. Get a car that fits the commitments you have made, or get a really big stroller and leave car trips to the adults.

Harry, you don’t have to jump all the way from a Camry up to a minivan with three kids. In many ways it might be wise to make the jump, especially if your family tends to pile in the car and take long drives for your vacations, but there are other options. We had a Ford Escort Wagon that lasted us from baby #1 through baby #3. By the time Alison had joined Megan and Caitlyn in the backseat, it was no longer possible–at least not without subjecting our children to serious psychological harm–to do the really long drives; when we went from Arkansas to Ontario to visit friends, for example, we rented a minivan. But for the around-town and, at most, 1-4 hour drives, the Escort worked fine as a family-of-five car. You might want to consider leasing or at least test-driving one, and see what you think.

Now, with four children and happy to stop there, we drive a Toyota Sienna, and hope it’ll last us a good 15 years or so. Maybe, once the family starts to shrink a bit, we’ll go back to an Escort. Man, we loved that car–probably put a 150,000 miles or more on it.

The Camry has a nice sized trunk, doesn’t it? It can’t be much less comfortable or safe to ride back there than it was in the very back of the huge station wagons my family used to trail around in.

OK, to answer question #1 on its own terms: Are you sure you can’t put the seats on the outside and the booster in the middle? Just yesterday, in my Passat wagon (which I think has to be within an inch or two of the Camry), I fit a visitor’s booster beside my toddler’s seat in the center. There would have been room for another booster on the other side. I don’t know, but it seems plausible, that you could flip that A-B-A arrangement.

Are you using one of those throne-like boosters? Can’t you just use the ones that are, essentially, phone books, with no back? That can’t take up too much room.

If that really doesn’t work, then what about a larger auto? It’s not as if the Camry is the biggest thing out there. To stay in the Toyota family, there’s the Avalon. I’m pretty sure the old Dodge Intrepid, et al, were significantly bigger inside. Chevy Caprice (out of production, but used), Ford Crown Vic…. I suspect that you wouldn’t consider a big American car, but it may be more desirable than a van. And if you buy used and keep it for a couple years until the kids are less encumbered, you can then upgrade to a new Camry or Accord, getting yourself a family car until the eldest goes away to college (which your current Camry will never make).

Oh, and I think you’re right to eschew a van if all your miles are city – they’re just not very good in urban conditions, IMHO.

Speaking as the eldest of three kids, who had parents who didn’t want to part with their car for a while after we all existed…. please upgrade. You don’t have to get a minivan – look into one of the newer SUVs with good gas mileage, or a hybrid. Anything with more leg and general room, to avoid the squishies with the sibs. Trust me, your kids will thank you for it. And like their sibs a lot better in the process, too.

(I can’t comment on the rest – I’m not a parent, and I’m still mildly surprised at all the things that are deemed necessary for child safety, because as already noted, it’s not stuff we had when I was growing up, and we all ended up fine as can be judged on that particular scale of making it to adulthood safely.)

We’re a Camry family, too. There’s not a whole lot of room between those two carseats. I sometimes take the neighborhood kid and my two kids to CCD. I strap neighbor boy in without the seatbelt. The church is only a couple of blocks away, but he’s complains a lot that he’s smashed in.

The carseat is single handedly responsible for global warming and our reliance on oil from the mideast.

We cried when we gave up the Accord, but our Oddessey actually has a smaller turning radius and gets almost the same gas mileage as the Accord did. No more bumped heads (theirs or mine) getting in and out of the car either. Plus those automatic sliding doors are a lifesaver if you are trying to simultaneously move infant and groceries, and grocery cart. I believe Honda has a hybrid minivan for model year 2007. The Hondas and Toyotas drive great too. Just keep the DVD player secret until the first long car trip.

I might suggest that, apart from noble and indisputable (for fear of being regarded in all kinds of unpleasant light) considerations of child safety, Harry’s familiar predicament begs questions as to the wisdom of Wisconsin’s latest relevant legislation in our current energy situation.

The law requires that children be in a booster until they are (1.) 8yrs old, (2.) 80 pounds in weight, and (3.) 4ft 9in in height.

Harry, you’ll have to buy the larger, likely less fuel efficient vehicle!!

See: http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/safety/vehicle/child/laws.htm

Ahh, the good old days, when “pile in the kids” had some meaning, and I could sit on Pop’s lap and practice steering!
Then crawl oven the front seat, then on the back seat I could hang out the window just like Spot! Get home just in time to do some cool experiments with my Gilbert Chemistry Set, like pouring zinc over the flame to create some cool fireworks!

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Quest mini-van,
Throw in some car seats, I know that You can.
Too many kids, we did not family-plan.
So Lord, won’t you buy me a Quest mini-van?

Speaking as a member of a family which once had 3 kids, I really do have to recommend upgrading car size.

To make up for it, I also recommend purchasing a motorcycle for commuting. No particular reason, except that motorcycles are cool.

“Ahh, the good old days, when ‘pile in the kids’ had some meaning, and I could sit on Pop’s lap and practice steering!”

So true, Bro. Bartleby. In our family, it was a huge, old, white and orange GM Suburban. We turned down the seats, played Monopoly, had food fights, stuck our feet out the window, took naps, whatever. We eventually stopped taking long trips in the Suburban, and rented a big RV instead, but for years, when there were five or six or seven of us kids, we’d just rough it in the back and middle seats (I especially liked climbing into the rear tire well, and letting the vibrations send me into a deep sleep), occasionally yelling out a question to mom and dad, who drove us across deserts and forests, completely oblivious to our cries, sitting as they were way up there in the front seat.

Sure, we all would have died horribly in an accident, all mashed up together against the windows. I admit I wouldn’t go without carseats for our kids today. But I also can’t say I don’t miss those days.

Ditto for long trips across Canada in an old Suburban. I feel pity for my kid who is in a car seat.

I think the anti-SUV folks just don’t realize what it is like to travel with a dog, two kids and luggage long distances. I’d love to have an SUV that had the milage and green impact of a Civic but thus far none have the size I need. And I don’t consider a minivan due to issues of driving through Montana and Alberta in the snow and then the fact we camp a lot.

How do all you east coast people do it? Just not have more than one kid?

My honda odyssey gets a quite respectable 28 miles to the gallon highway, 20 in the city – not too bad (compared to SUVs, which also are smaller). Undoubtedly honda vans will also soon be hybrids, perhaps some even four-wheel drive – thus meeting all your requirements.

Sorry, I don’t think there’s no way to get a booster, car seat, and bucket into the back of a Camry. We could jam them into a 2003 Camry, but the doors wouldn’t close properly and the belts wouldn’t latch so we never did it. They simply won’t fit if they’re installed properly.

If you are willing, you can remove the airbags from the passenger side and put the booster up front if the booster has a clip that will keep the seat belt low enough on your kid. Then you can put two seats and a passenger in back. No way I would do it, but at least then the airbags won’t kill him/her or cause massive damage. Theoretically, w/ the booster that’s not much less safe than the rear seat. People do that w/ two-passenger cars and 911-type coupes that won’t accomodate seats in the rear.

That’s most likely illegal, though.

Our Prius has room for three minor-seating-devices in the back, provided they are not of the widest profile available. (A child seat that’s narrow enough for airplane seats is what I’m thinking here — Century made the one we had, when we had kids that age.)

Resist those minivan suggestions! Provided the posteriors of the children allow, it should be possible to find narrow enough seats and boosters to work out the backseat topology.

When I was a kid, we had a Colt Vista wagon. It had three rows of seats but (I think) got better milage than a Camry. Do they make anything like that anymore? Great little car.

That said, I’ll chime in with the rethink-the-van camp. Not only can you carry all the kids easily, you can add an extra person or two as well.

Or you could get one of these:
http://www.bikefriday.com/bikeMMI.cfm?bf=15&cat=16

Add a Burley trailer and/or one of those kid seats on the back and you could take the whole family. Hell of a lot cheaper than the Odyssey.

My extraordinarily hip friends got a minivan when they hit 2 kids, and have been thrilled ever since at having a car that could carry them, the kids, a couple of friends, and instruments including, at a minimum, an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, and a banjo.

“I think the anti-SUV folks just don’t realize what it is like to travel with a dog, two kids and luggage long distances.”

Perhaps not, but I do know that no-one is forcing you to travel with a dog, two kids and luggage long distances.

“The church is only a couple of blocks away, but he’s complains a lot that he’s smashed in.”

A couple of blocks? Why the hell didn’t you save yourself the trouble and walk?

I can’t believe I’m reading this in a post on CT. I know I’m fighting a losing battle getting people to give up their cars completely (although I manage just fine without one, thank you), but there’s reasonable justification and then there’s simple laziness.

Back when I was single I had a mini-van and traipsed (Plymouth Voyager). I traipsed all over the Navajo reservation’s dirt roads for two years through mud and snow and never got stuck. It was front wheel drive and with the engine being over the front wheels, it handled beautifully. I never understood the “I won’t drive a mini-van” backlash. Those cars will go anywhere and are super-flexible. And I always feel manly in a “look I have procreated and proved my genetic manliness” sort of way when I drive one.

HK – we are a one car family. I suspect many people on this list are the same. I’m wondering: how do you get a week’s worth of groceries home for four people without a car?

You could always go with a classic–an early 80’s Chevy Impala (or Caprice–pretty much the same car.) You can fit 6 adults in, easily; any mechanic can work on it, and any junkyard has parts; and with a 350 and a 4-barrel carb, it will fly (these were common street drag cars in my old neighborhood).

If you want something newer, I’ll second the “don’t rule out the mini-van” group–my Toyota pickup gets better gas mileage than a Camry, and I think the minivans are built on the same frame and engine.

“HK – we are a one car family. I suspect many people on this list are the same. I’m wondering: how do you get a week’s worth of groceries home for four people without a car?”

Two people, backpack each, bag in each hand if necessary. I did this for a year for a house of six adults. Very rarely we would get home delivery for items too large to carry.

Maybe the saddest thing here would be the kids, imprinted like ducklings with automobile travel, but doomed to watch the private car disappear like the dinosaurs in their lifetimes.

Well, at least the decision-making process of buying a car (and believe me, I understand that your requirements are entirely unique) will serve as a handy guide in later life.

Car Talk had a question on this subject a couple months back. Click and Clack told the woman to buy a minivan.

My mom often bemoans the fact that, though our minivan is useful lots of the time, it gets bad gas mileage when she’s driving (by herself) to work. My suggestion is that you and yours grab the first hybrid minivan that comes down the road and don’t look back.

I’m shocked at the level of support for the idea that a mini-van is required once you have children you want to drive around. My family used to do long road trips, including lots of camping, with 2 adults and 3 children in a sedan. It wasn’t that long ago, but maybe people think they need more space now than they used to? After all, a sedan still has a boot/trunk and if pressed the floor of the car before your children’s legs are long enough to touch the floor.

But I think one car seat and one booster was the most we had at one time, so can’t help you there Harry.

Western Dave: “I’m wondering: how do you get a week’s worth of groceries home for four people without a car?

Like HK, we usually walk the half-mile or so to the local grocer (often with both kids: one in a stroller or wagon, the other in his backback). We pack the groceries in a big backback for one of us to carry, and the rest get packed in the bottom of the stroller or the other side of the wagon (depending which we brought).

Loren,
Thanks for the bit of advice. (HK your system doesn’t allow for someone transporting kids). I have a pretty sturdy intermal frame pack that I took on week-long backpacks. It can probably hold a decent percentage of groceries. But not everything. We do walk to a local fruit and vegetable stand in the summer. Our biggest problem is the closest non-disgusting supermarket is three miles away and the local mass transit agency doesn’t take kindly to wagons on the bus. Indeed, they don’t even like strollers on the bus, which is super-annoying. To be carless with a family in my city unless you live in one of the few ritzy neighborhoods, is to be condemned to eating near-rotten, over-priced, and overprocessed food. There are some very good organizations working on food equity issues but they have a long row to hoe.