Reforming Motherhood

Aug. 19, 2006 - Another question for the wise

As I anticipate the arrival of our fourth child in January, I’m beginning to wonder how long our seven-passenger van will work for us. It works well for us now and I love having space to change diapers, change clothes, discipline, --oh and seat our family. I also have enjoyed having an extra seat to bring a grandma on a ride here or there. I do sometimes wish we had a little more room so that I could bring other kids (and friends) with us here or there. But with kids needing to be in a car/booster seat for so long this is not possible in our current van.

So what do you families of four or more kids drive? What do you hope to drive when you are a larger family (if you are not currently)? If the Lord blesses us with more children what should we drive? What are our options? What do you like or not like about your or a friends vehicle? I am interested in ease of seating, space for strollers and junk, and how it is to actually drive (can you park it in a normal parking lot?). So leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Thanks, and happy Saturday, Amy

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Aug. 19, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Tiany

We too are expecting our 4th in January and we are currently driving a Honda Odyssey, I love my mini van!!!!! Once the baby comes we will be maxed as far as car seats and booster seats go, as all 4 of mine will be in a car seat or booster LOL
We still have room for 3 adults with the 4 boosters though. The "trunk" part of the van is huge! We keep a double stroller and a single stroller in the back at all times along with an emergency bag and we can still fit umpteen bags of groceries with no problem. I have plenty of room to change diapers on the floor in the back of the two front seats, the middle tray in front flops down so I can very easily walk throughout the van. (I guess it sounds like we might have the same or similar vans now :-)The new Odyssey has one extra seat in the middle section that can be removed if not needed so when baby # 5 comes if baby # 5 comes we might trade ours in for the newer version. (Seats 8 comfortably) If we have more then 5 I will be coming back to this post to find out what the next option will be LOL

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Aug. 19, 2006 - 15 passenger, here we come. :)

Posted by Mystie

My Mom's #5 pregnancy was twins, so our family graduated from a stationwagon to a 15-passenger van when I was 12. You could take out benches, and my mom preferred to keep the frontmost bench out, which made getting babies in much easier. I learned to drive on it, so it's not too bad! :) I don't know of any other options past 8-seaters, though. You can still park in regular parking spots, it's just best to park farther out. :)

http://www.pelennorfields.com/mystie

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Aug. 20, 2006 - Car Seats and Cars

Posted by Anonymous

We are expecting #5 in January! A lot of pregnant mama's out there right now! BTW, I can't believe how big I am already!

Back to the cars. We drive a Dodge Grand Caravan. It's okay - we got it cheap, I would prefer to drive something more like a Honda or Toyota because we've always had great experiences with them mechanically, but so far we haven't had any trouble with this dodge (it's a 2000 with low miles.) It has the front two seats, two captain seats in the middle and a bench across the back. For awhile we assumed that when we had #5 we'd have to move up to a suburban type car, but we found really slim car seats/ boosters at Target. We can jam three of them on the back bench. We actually measured the width of that back area and then took the measuring tape with us to the stores until we found one we could triple up back there perfectly. It will be a challenge to click the little one (age 2) in back there but I think my four year old will be able to help (he's my oldest; when the baby comes he'll be nearly five and is a real helper). We'll keep the one year old and new baby in the captains seats for ease of helping them in and out. The others can all climb in on their own. We figured that buying three new car seats for the back was a lot cheaper than buying another car!

I've loved your posts of late! I just started a blog the other day, www.lightsurprises.blogspot.com
Come check it out!

Anna

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Aug. 21, 2006 - What to drive

Posted by SeekingJESUSnTeachingKIDS

We just recently had to get a bigger vehicle. We had tried the 15 passenger when we had 5 kids and for me it was just too big. I hated driving it and the drivers around me were terrible. We went to a mini van and figured we would drive seperately when my stepkids were around. Well in March we had our 7th and the van would just not work. We were very excited to find a chevy suburban that seated 9. It has 3 benches so 3 sit in the front (my stepkids are older) and has 2 more in the back. It also has enough room to fit 2 strollers and more. I LOVE it!! I can park in most spots unless it's between to trucks as big as me. We went through carmax and ours came from Vegas. I had them count seatbelts to be sure
Well I hope you find something that works for your family
:>

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Aug. 21, 2006 - From minivan to suburban to ?????

Posted by GenesisFamily

When we had two kids we had a regular car. Then for kids three and four we had a minivan, then we got a suburban for kids five and six. Currently we are at six kids and we are maxed out for seating in the suburban. Ours is new and there is less room in the newer ones than the older models. My son (10) sits between a car seat and booster seat in the 3rd row and he doesn't have a lot of space. If I were to do it all over again I would have skipped the suburban and gone straight to a 15 passenger van. You can take the last row out so you have more storage and the kids don' t have to be squished together. The gas mileage stinks, but it does in the suburban too. We have done some research on bigger vans and everything we have read has said to go with a 15 passenger because it was better built. I can't remember why, my husband I am sure would remember.
Hope that helps.
Toni

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Aug. 23, 2006 - thank you for the input

Posted by reformingmama

I think your comments were really helpful. This is exactly what I was hoping to get from posting this question. Thank you one and all. I will be looking into options in the future and maybe there will even be more choices by then!
~Amy

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