2 seats in a civic?

[emschwar]

#2's due in 5 weeks, so I figure I'd better get the infant seat installed soon.

My car, not a problem - Toyota Sienna. Noah will go in his marathon (FF) in the center, and baby will go in the (old model - 04) graco snugride on the passenger's side. I have no doubts it'll fit.

But this weekend I was driving DH's car - a 98 civic - around, and I'm not so sure if the seats will fit there. Noah has a roundabout in that car. We only have a tether in the center position, so I'd like to put him there. But will the snugride fit next to the RA in the civic? My other fear is that the snugride will only fit in the center (while still leaving a little leg room for driver and passenger). I know the snugride will fit there, because that's where Noah rode when he was in the snugride, but then will the RA fit on the passenger side? And there's no tether there, so that's a bit of a concern for me as well.

I'd just go out and start trying to cram the seats in there, but it's hotter than you-know-what, and I'm 35 weeks pregnant! (And DH cannot install car seats. He just doesn't know how.) If they're not going to fit, I can deal - whoever has the kids can just drive the van - but I don't really want to go out in the heat and mess with seats if it's not going to work.

Any ideas? Advice?

[beemah]

We are facing a similar problem when our second child arrives in January. We have a 1996 4-door Civic with no tethers. Currently our daughter is in the center, rear-facing, with her Roundabout tethered to the passenger seat. Our DD is getting too tall to rear-face, so we either need to install tethers or purchase a taller seat. Also, when the baby comes, I would like to move our DD to the passenger seat and put the baby in the center, as it seems safer in the event of a side-impact crash. I posted a question last month. Among the things I learned was that it is very easy to install a tether in the Civic. Here is what Ilana, a CPS tech, wrote in post #62666:

"It is also very safe (and should be inexpensive) to have a tether anchor added to your car. For the Honda Civic, there should be (3) 8 mm weld nuts in the rear filler panel. Ask your dealer for part # 82410-SE3-C01, which is called a "plate assembly" (your owner's manual will refer to it as an "anchor plate and mounting hardware" and should have detailed installation instructions. According to my LATCH manual, retail price is approximately $13".

Another mom wrote that she did the installation herself and it was very easy. We are planning to explore the options next month.

Good luck with your installation. I too am the "car-seat installer" in our house.

Best-
Jennifer

[belovedgandp]

I have a 97 4-door Civic. It did fine with the Snugride rear facing in the middle when our first was an infant - and then later rear facing seats after it.

But the second carseat made the Civic a three person car. Our older son is forward facing behind the driver. With a SafeSeat behind the passenger seat the seat had to be moved forward. Now, I can technically ride in it, but my knees are in the glove box and there's no way DH would make the fit.

With the previous rear facing seats in the center, we could both ride in the passenger seat. I didn't try putting the safeseat in the middle to see if that allowed the passenger seat to sit back farther. It just looks so narrow and the seats were on top of each other. I'm never going to try to put a third person/carseat in the back of the car so I just went with installing both seats outboard.