Wisdom/experiences w/ 2 kids and a small car?

[Lucky Recardito]

TL/DR: We're a one-child family becoming a two-child family, and we want to avoid the typical vehicle bloat if we can. Tell me about your experiences schlepping 2 kids in a small car!

All the details:

DH & I have one young toddler and are expecting a new baby in the spring -- so we'll have a newborn & a 2-year-old.

We're currently a 1-car family, and that one car is a 2013 Honda Fit (only has about 50k miles on it; bought used 2 years ago). We're city dwellers who walk most places (including daycare + the pediatrician + groceries/pharmacy), and the Fit works well for our very limited driving (generally ~5k miles/year; half that during the current pandemic...).  Currently, our child is in the car maybe once a month. If it wasn't a pandemic, it'd maybe be twice? A typical "car trip w/ kid" takes the form of "20-60 min one-way to visit local friends/family," give or take.

In a non-pandemic year, we'd also normally take 1-2 longish road trips (1500-2000 miles round trip; 7-10 days) and 1-2 shortish road trips (600-800 miles round trip; 2-3 days).

Pre-kid, the Fit was more than enough for any road-tripping needs for the 2 of us. Last year, with one kid, we did ~1800 miles round-trip, ~9 days, and we had no problems with space. (Not carrying camping gear or any such stuff, but we did carry a Pack-n-Play & stroller & a cooler, plus clothes etc.)

Loosely, my plan is to (a) keep the Fit and assume it will continue to be fine for regular day-to-day use; (b) plan to rent a larger vehicle for any longish road trips once or twice a year; (c) TBD on how we'd handle shorter road trips; we'll see how it goes. (If we can leave the stroller at home & get the older child sleeping in a sleeping bag rather than a travel crib, that will buy us a lot of space...)

I already have friends and family asking/assuming if/when we'll get an SUV or minivan. But that just doesn't feel necessary to me. But I don't have anyone in my immediate circle of parent friends/acquaintances who hasn't upgraded w/ a second kid. I'd love some input from folks for whom this has worked fine, and/or for the opposite side of the coin. Looking for a broader range of experiences to either validate or refute my plan!

[Kmp2]

We have 3 kids, and 2 cars (now a minivan and a civic).. DH came into the relationship with a huge ACADIA SUV... it had serious issues, and we survived quite well without it for weeks at at time waiting for parts. In the middle of winter schlepping all three kids in carseats and gear around in my 2004 civic. I admit that even with the narrowest carseats it was a squeeze to fit them in and there was no extra space side to side - so we did get a minivan when we finally retired the lemon :D I know we could do our camping trips in my civic - but it would require a roof rack, and we likely wouldn't be bringing our bikes, so those are the main reasons we replaced the Acadia with a minivan.

I don't see any problem with 2 kids and a small car, we never had the big stroller though, we used ring sling wraps when they were small, and umbrella strollers when the were bigger 6+ months. We also have a really small packable travel crib meant for flying (which buying two would still be less expensive than a bigger car!). Beware the accessories you're buying (carseats etc, and keep them on the smaller size), but always remember you can add a roof top carrier if you need more storage for longer trips. As well for the amount your driving - definitely try it for as long as you can, there may come a time when a bigger vehicle is worth it, but delaying that purchase means you might get away with only buying one!

Growing up my family (of 5) had multiple multi-week cross continent trips in small cars with camping gear. First we upgraded to a roof top carrier, then a small travel trailer pulled by our car that included a bike rack so we could bring 5 bikes, and more clothes - they take up more space as your kids get bigger!   My family did eventually get a minivan, and I admit as a teenager I was grateful for the extra leg room on long trips - however looking back renting might have made more sense.

[englishteacheralex]

We have a 6 year old and a 3 year old. When 3 year old was born, we had a Toyota Corolla and a Toyota Matrix. They were both fine with two carseats. We now have a Prius and a Mazda 5 (very small mini van; no longer made in the US). The Mazda 5 was purchased because we live in Hawaii and the parking is almost always tight, so we wanted sliding doors. Also if anyone ever wants to visit, it's nice to have the two extra seats.

We don't go on road trips of more than two hours, so we don't need our cars to be roomier than they are.

[APowers]

We did long multiday road trips (including packing camping stuff and an entire case of diapers on one of them) in our '94 Civic sedan. You can certainly fit everything you need for two kids in your Fit. If it won't fit in the car, you don't need it (barring a wheelchair or such). If you want to bring bikes, it's easy enough to get a hitch-mounted carrier installed.

[lutorm]

We were fine with one rear-facing carseat in our Prius, but two would not have worked with the driver's seat in a reasonable position. This obviously depends on how tall the people driving are, but I'm 5'7 and having the car seat directly behind me would not have worked. My wife is taller than me. It was also a drag to have to pull the car seat out every time we needed to fold the rear seats down to transport something larger, but that's just us going soft.

We upgraded to a minivan and it's so much better. Fitting 4 car seats would not be an issue, the ergonomics for putting kids in and out are way better, fitting beach gear and a stroller and having the toodler stand in the rear to change clothes etc, no problem. But yeah, it's huge.

[starbuck]

Yea, I think your current plan is totally fine. We've traveled plenty with our two young kids with a regular car, and have always prioritized purchasing gear that stored and traveled well. I dislike long car trips with young kids, so we have flown a lot, and there is a ton of kid-friendly, space saving travel gear out there. Here are some travel strategies we've used:

-Vastly prefer renting apartments or houses, and specifically rent kid friendly ones with kid-amenities, so we don't have to pack a crib or our clip on high chair.
-Rented gear at our destination (we did this for a travel crib in Ireland so we didn't have to fly with it.)
-Pack scooters instead of bikes.
-Clip on high chair! Amazing!
-Purchased a really great travel stroller (Mountain Buggy Nano.) It lived in our trunk for a long time, plus it was so easy to fly with and use around cities.
-Utilize baby carriers. I'm a big fan of Tulas and keep one in the car. Our oldest was not a fan but the next kid liked them a lot more.
-Many of our trips are to visit family - one grandparent household has a full size crib at this point for visiting grandkids, the other household has borrowed a pack and play for us from friends.
-Rethink sleeping arrangements. Honestly your 2 yo will outgrow travel cribs very soon. Ours would still fit lengthwise, but in the mornings he would try and climb out on his own and tip the damn thing. So we switched to pulling a mattress onto the floor if we could, or setting him up on a sofa bed. He moves so much in his sleep that he would roll right out of a standard twin bed set up, no matter how many towels we stuffed around him under the sheets.
-Pack really light clothes-wise and do laundry wherever we are. I can't remember the last time we traveled with an actual suitcase - backpacks are so much easier, and leave your hands free for kids.

TBD:
-travel booster seats. Our oldest is almost 5, so I'm trying to figure out if a travel booster seat makes sense for us.

Baby #3 is due in a few weeks and we're keeping our midsize sedan with 3-across for the time being. I know we'll get a bigger vehicle at some point, maybe even in the spring, but for now there's no where to go anyways so what's the point?

The ONLY part of road trips I haven't figured out is camping. I took our toddler and baby on a camping trip with friends (while my husband had to work) and even relying heavily on my friend's camping equipment, I still don't know where my husband would have sat in the car if he came with us. Sure I could have brought less and different stuff and we would have made it work SOMEHOW, but with young kids that stuff can make or break a trip. So I have yet to crack that nut, and haven't tried since. We camp in the backyard these days.

[chemistk]

We have 3 kids - 5, 3, 11mos. We drive about the same amount and distance as you. We have a minivan now, but before the van (and before baby #3) we had a Mazda CX-5 (small crossover).

We upgraded to the van because the Mazda just didn't have the room for carseats. We tried the Diono Radians that everyone here raves about and our kids were horribly uncomfortable in them, so our carseats are bigger and more comfortable. We didn't want to deal with an SUV's dinky third row so a van became the ideal vehicle for us.

We did travel enough with the younger two in the Mazda, and I can tell you right now that the best way to make everything work requires a two-pronged approach:

1) Question everything you're packing. Does the kiddo really need all those clothes and toys?
2) Try and purchase (if you haven't already) things that are meant to be compact. Bring an umbrella stroller instead of the jogger. Get a bouncy chair that folds flat. Same with a high chair. Use space-saving luggage.

We got really good at trunk-jenga but it eventually got to the point where the kids were old enough to kick the seat (front facing oldest) and to reach each other and bicker/fight. If one of the kids needed help with something on a long drive, we had to stop the car and get out to help. There also wasn't any room for other people to fit in the car. Plus, we couldn't ever pack anything more than the basics.

[mm1970]

Two kids.  We have a Civic and a Matrix.  For longer car trips, we bought a Thule box to carry stuff on top of the car.

For longer car trips now that the kids are bigger (14 and 8), which we've done exactly once, we rented an SUV.  It was great - bucket seats and they couldn't touch each other.

[economista]

Baby #2 is on the way and we had a prius but we just sold it and bought a mitsubishi outlander (small SUV). My husband is 6'1" and we couldn't fit a carseat behind his seat. Maybe there are teeny tiny car seats that we don't know about but we tried with the two seats we have and it wouldn't work as long as the older one is still rear facing. We drive a few times per week but not long distances and I tried to talk him into just putting up with his knees smashed into the dash for the <15 minute drives we normally do, but we also realized we couldn't fit a double stroller in the trunk without putting down the backseats, so that plan was nixed.

[Lucky Recardito]

Thank you for the experiences and input, all. Very helpful!

I'm feeling more confident that we will be fine for now. I'm hoping I can make the carseats we currently have work (toddler is in a rear-facing convertible, but he started life in an infant seat so we already have that...), but I'm open to exploring the world of smaller seats if we need to. Older kid will have just turned 2 when new baby arrives, and he's on the bigger side size-wise, so we may be able to safely turn him front-facing just in the nick of time, which will help.

We're naturally pretty light packers (lots of "1 month abroad in a backpack"-style travel in our pre-child past), so that also helps. And I hadn't thought of a roof pack, which seems like an obvious option to keep in mind.

And this is also all a good reminder to stay flexible -- we can trade up size-wise later if we want to, but we don't have to know All The Things in advance, and can wait and see how it pans out.

[yachi]

We made lots of overnight trips with 2 kids (4 and 1) in a Nissan Versa.  Definitely switch the travel crib to something smaller for the 2 year old.  The only difficult trips were to visit family during Christmas when we came home with much more than we left with.  We were a family with two small cars.  Only when it came time to replace the older car did we buy a minivan.  It ended up being good timing with baby 3 born later that year.  I think you have a solid plan!

[Pigeon]

We raised two kids through college and mostly had a Toyota Corolla or two and a Nissan Altima during that time.  We didn't have any real problems.  We now have a Fit for one of the college kids, and in many ways it's roomier than the Corolla.

You will certainly be in the minority among the kids' friends, in our experience 99% of whom will be two mini-van families.  You might have a problem if you want to participate in car-pools but that wasn't an issue for us.

The only slight difficulties we had was in transporting my older dd and her friend to orchestra performances as the friend played the cello.  We were able to get it in the car, but it was tricky and I wouldn't have wanted to do it on a daily basis.  We also normally take a week's vacation at a lake house and fitting all the stuff, a dog, a cat, groceries, etc. in the Altima was pretty cramped.  We could have rented something bigger for a week if needed.

[Captain FIRE]

Also consider if most of the trips you are taking are to repeat family destinations.  In that case, it's cheaper to buy some items to keep at their place than it is to buy a whole new car.  My BIL bought a carseat and a few other items (like travel crib?) for my MIL to keep at her house for when they visited.

[LiveLean]

You'll be out of car seats, cribs, etc, quickly. In fact, most parents if they're being honest bag the car seats when traveling via plane and renting cars. (Gasp! Yes, the horror. How the heck did anyone under 40 make it to grade school without car seats? Hell most of us over 45 remember when seat belts were optional. My parents didn't wear - or make us wear - them consistently until the early '80s and never in the backseat for years after that.)

We had minivans for 15 years with our two boys but we traveled a lot -- three-week, 5,000-mile summer trips, many other shorter trips. I slept in the thing on occasion when traveling to mud runs and the like when they were popular. They're also perfect for stand-up paddleboards, though my RAV4 carries them well, too.

Bottom line: for your minimal travel, what you have is fine.

[kanga1622]

We have a 10 year old and a 7 year old. Our one car is a Nissan Altima. Not a tiny car but not huge either. The only issue we have is when we try to fit both adults, both kids, and the 80 lb dog in the car at the same time. :) As that happens maybe 2 times a year for a 30 mile drive, we deal with it being a bit uncomfortable.

[MayDay]

Also consider if most of the trips you are taking are to repeat family destinations.  In that case, it's cheaper to buy some items to keep at their place than it is to buy a whole new car.  My BIL bought a carseat and a few other items (like travel crib?) for my MIL to keep at her house for when they visited.

This is what we did. My mom kept a high chair, baby monitor, bed rail, etc at her house. It also made it so much easier to pack up and go! Highly recommend. It was probably 100$ of stuff total.

[Luz]

We're in a 2-door Toyota Echo. Our kids are 3 months and 2 years. The 2 year-old is in the Graco Contender 65 convertible car seat (rear facing) behind the passenger seat. The baby is in an infant seat in the middle.

Our toddler gets in first (only through the driver's side) and climbs over the infant seat to get to her seat. My husband or I climb in with the baby and strap both kids in. We just adjusted the 2 year-old's head rest because she's tall, so whoever sits in the passenger seat has to be short (me). We'll turn her forward-facing soon, since she's almost 10 pounds above the minimum weight to do so (though I've heard to wait as long as possible; I'm going to ask her pediatrician at the 2.5 year appointment).

Once the baby grows out of his seat, we'll get the Graco Tranzitions 3-in-1 booster for the toddler and he'll use hers. If they don't fit side-by-side, we'll put the forward facing booster behind the driver's seat and the rear facing convertible behind the passenger's and I guess just climb past the booster.

We're hoping to have another baby in a few years, but I doubt we could fit three car seats in the Echo (though I've heard you can in the Honda Fit). Even if we could, I don't know how we'd access them, haha! Although I suppose the toddler would climb past the booster over the infant seat. One of us would strap the toddler and baby in while propping ourselves up on the booster seat. Then the preschooler would climb in last. We're moving to a place we won't need a car when our kids are 3 and 5 and I want to make it work until then. But I'm preparing myself to just upgrade already if we have a third. I always park where we can fling the door open, because there's so much involved with climbing in and out :).

Sometimes I wonder if being stubborn about not upgrading our apartment or car despite having a family will just be silly in hindsight. But for now, it's an adventure! And every little bit counts towards getting to a better financial position by the time they start school.

[SimpleCycle]

We have a Honda Fit and two kids - 3 and 5.  We just turned DS forward facing last week, and turned DD around the same age, so did a solid year and a half with two rear facing in a 2003 Toyota Corolla.  We got the Fit shortly after that and it felt like a spacious luxury vehicle by comparison. :)

The only time we run into slight issues is when my mom comes to town.  Until recently we would do a tricky side by side install of Cosco Sceneras and shoehorn DW into the back seat with them so mom could ride places with us, or occasionally split up and do car plus Uber.  Now DD can do a booster (although it's not our preferred configuration) so we put her in a Bubble Bum in the middle and DW fits next to her much more comfortably.

We've also done long road trips and camping trips in the Fit.  We have a roof bag for camping, and we're light packers, so it works just fine.

I feel like if you are willing to be flexible you can definitely do two with a compact car, at least for a while, especially if you have access to decent public transit.  We went into it saying we'd rent a car if we needed to and we've gone 3.75 years without ever doing it since DS was born.

[Cassie]

We had 3 boys and never had a car bigger than a ford escort. We traveled yearly 1200 miles each way to visit grandparents. We had no A/C and vinyl seats.  Summer was hot but we all survived:))

[Lucky Recardito]

This all continues to be very helpful!

[Goldielocks]

Thinking back:

1)  Two kids are harder to move around to day to day activities than one kid.   At first you used a stroller, right?  What do you do to your long walks if the baby is in the stroller and the older one does not walk fast and refuses to stand on the stroller / other?    I got a backpack for the older kid and swapped between front pack and stroller for the younger one.   A bit later on and we got a push scooter for a kid to keep up to adult walking pace.

So - you will end up in the car more often after you have 2 kids.  Once you need to take them to two different places, in opposite directions (daycare and school, for example, or soccer and preschool swim) it gets a lot more hectic.  And the grocery purchasing volume gets a bit bigger, too at one go, because you have less time to go more often.

2)  When the little one is young, as long as you can fit the stroller and pack n play and 2 kids, you are good to go. No upgrade needed.

3)  We upgraded  to a minivan because the 2 year old was big and kept pushing feet (hard!) on the back of the adult seat.  Some smaller cars actually have more room for this leg room than some mini vans.   So it was not a minivan-specific solution.

4)  Mini vans became awesome by the time the youngest was 5 or 6 because of so much more stuff, friends, larger family holidays for camping, etc.  We also started to renovate our home by then because we could think straight now that the kids were a bit more independent of us and we had time.  Minivans are awesome for renovations.

So - don't get a minivan yet, until you truly run out of room in some way.

[Jacks]

We have a Honda Fit just like you. 2 Kids, (1) 9 m/o, (1) 3 y/o. We get along just fine! The trunk space on the fits is a life saver.

[spaghetti1awk]

I think you'll be fine with your car plans. I have three kids (one adult) ages 14, 12, 5, and we've been in a Mazda 3 since forever (upgraded from 2008 to 2013 hatchback a couple years ago). The hatchback for storage has helped immensely, but we're a one backpack/duffle apiece family (more room taken up by road trip snacks/cooler than our clothes!). We drive about 1000 mile round trip 2x/year to see family and another 1-2K roadtrip vacation every other year/summer. One thing that you might consider is borrowing a friend's larger vehicle for camping - we can't ever seem to get tent + accoutrements packed in the compact sedan, and have been splurging by renting yurts/cabins instead of camping spaces.

[EricEng]

We upgraded to the minivan at 2 kids and it has made life so much easier.  Key was we couldn't fit a rear facing car seat behind the driver while I was there (too tall).  So either wife had to do all driving or I had a steering wheel in my chest.  Also so nice for fitting those bigger double strollers.  You can save yourself a lot of headaches by biting the minivan bullet.  You will use it hard for 20 years.  Eventually your kids will have friends that need rides too.

The new Toyota minivan is amazing, all are hyrbrid with 35 mpg (unheard of in a minivan) with really well designed storage.  There are so many random things you need with small kids in the car.

[kimmarg]

Thank you for the experiences and input, all. Very helpful!

I'm feeling more confident that we will be fine for now. I'm hoping I can make the carseats we currently have work (toddler is in a rear-facing convertible, but he started life in an infant seat so we already have that...), but I'm open to exploring the world of smaller seats if we need to. Older kid will have just turned 2 when new baby arrives, and he's on the bigger side size-wise, so we may be able to safely turn him front-facing just in the nick of time, which will help.

We're naturally pretty light packers (lots of "1 month abroad in a backpack"-style travel in our pre-child past), so that also helps. And I hadn't thought of a roof pack, which seems like an obvious option to keep in mind.

And this is also all a good reminder to stay flexible -- we can trade up size-wise later if we want to, but we don't have to know All The Things in advance, and can wait and see how it pans out.

We have a 2013 Fit and 2 kids, age 5 and almost 2. From the sounds of it you'll be fine with the Fit. We are a two car family and the Fit was the larger of our two cars so we ended up getting a Honda CR-V. The Fit is fine around town, and regularly does the daycare pickup run but we do a lot of canoeing, skiing and camping and were regularly folding down the backseat of the Fit with 1 kid. Once second kid blocked the fold-down it got dicey even with a roof rack. If you don't fold down the seat much now you'll be fine.

[joemandadman189]

we had a mazda cx-5 for the first kid, worked great, after second, i didnt fit with the rear facing car seat, too tall i guess, so we got a honda odyessy minivan

not mustachian and we are okay with it, the sliding doors with kids are great, and plenty of space, 10 out of 10, would recommend to anyone,

but if you arent driving often, arent too tall or have forward facing car seats, in my opinion, any car could work. a van is just nice

please dont roast me for the van (it doesnt add to the conversation or help), just giving my experiences with two different cars and small kids

[SisterX]

We have a small Subaru Outback Sport (or whatever it is--not the full outback, shorter) and we love it, even with two kids. Drive about the same amount as you. (We finally doubled the mileage that we bought it with in 2013!)

Before our first kid I searched for the narrowest convertible car seat I could find. A Combi Coccoro was what we ended up choosing and it was great. They say you can even fit 3 across the back of a small car as long as at least one is forward-facing. And it goes from infant up to max of age 4. (No baby bucket, but I passionately hate those things anyway.)

We were able to fit both that seat and the much larger/wider booster thing for our older kid in the back as well as a small adult human or the large-ish dog in between. There are likely other narrow car seats to choose from if you search "narrow car seat", but this one worked well for us and still gave us space in the middle seat.

That car seat got ruined, the foam on the sides started breaking. (I think it actually started the last time we flew but we didn't notice for a while.) Thankfully the older one, at age 7, is finally tall enough and heavy enough for a booster. So she's in a booster, little sister is in the giant car seat-to-booster convertible seat, and it's a tight fit but we can still fit a small adult human or large-ish dog in the middle between. Which we actually do a lot.

I asked my spouse a while ago and we are still agreed that we love our small car, especially being in the city, and we wouldn't want anything larger. It's our only car and we have zero regrets. We've got trailer hitch bike rack on the back so we can still get our bikes around wherever we want to go.

We are both smaller humans, though. I'm 5'2" and my spouse is about 5'10" or 11". YMMV, naturally.

[Lucky Recardito]

Thanks, all, for the continued input and experience-sharing! We're sticking with the Honda Fit for sure for the foreseeable future, and we'll see what happens from there. (Cellos, hockey gear, carpools, whatever -- none of that is on the horizon anytime soon.) Moved the toddler's car seat out of the middle and confirmed that it fits behind the driver's seat rear-facing a-okay; haven't installed the infant car seat yet. (We have ~12-16 weeks left before new kiddo likely arrives.) Not concerned about car seat width, fortunately, as we don't have pets and I can't remember the last time I transported another adult in the car (city living has its perks, after all), so it's highly unlikely we'll need to squeeze another living being back there.

Current project is figuring out which, if any, double stroller might fit in the trunk. If anyone knows the answer, please tell me... I know I just need to do some Googling and measuring but it's low on my priority list. :-)

[20957]

Last I checked the Mountain Buggy Duo (Duet?) was the narrowest side by side double stroller on the market. It's great for narrow old-building doors. But actually thinking about it that doesn't necessarily mean folds the smallest for the trunk, sorry.

[chouchouu]

I have 8 year old twins, never had a car. I rent a small car when we do road trips, usually something like a corolla.

[SimpleCycle]

We have a City Mini double (side by side) and it fits in the trunk of the Fit and also through any ADA accessible doorway.  Actually, you’re welcome to it if you want it, the foot brake is sticky and probably just needs some WD-40.  PM me if you’re interested.