Playing carseats with my car, however, is like the holy grail of carseat prowess. (Yes, I know how nerdy that sounds, and I do not care! Ha!) It's a compact car with not much room front to back OR side to side. Can one really get a 3-across combination of seats in there? Most people would say no. Most people who own a car like mine buy an SUV about the time they decide to have a second baby, and the remainder when they decide to have a 3rd, because there's no way 3 carseats could ever fit back there, right? WRONG!
It's tricky, a bit of a workout, and NOT for the faint or the inexperienced, and I wouldn't try it on a day when you're already pissed off either. Barring that stuff, in the legendary words of the weird guy from The Waterboy, "You can do eet!!" Here's one way that I did it:
This is a rear-facing 2010 Radian XTSL, driver's side outboard; a 2007 Peg Perego Primo Viaggio, inboard; and a 2006 Evenflo Big Kid booster, passenger's side outboard. OK, those who know me know this is NOT Erin's usual booster. This brings me to the #1 rule of the 3-across. Thou shalt use whatever seats fit, and thou shalt not be a prima donna about it. There was no other seat we have in our massive stable of carseats that would puzzle in this configuration aside from the old Evenflo that we keep on hand for bonus kids whose parents don't put them in boosters anymore. So be it. A Graco Turbobooster would probably fit in this configuration as well since it's shaped similarly. I don't have a Turbo on hand to test that, though, so don't quote me.
Otherwise, things to know about this set-up are that you MUST do all seatbelt installs. If I kept the Radian with LATCH, as it had been, I'd have lost nearly 6" of space, and that would have rendered this completely impossible. When installing the Radian, you must twist the belt stalks a couple times to get them low enough so as not to interfere with the belt path. Oh, and make sure that you pull the seatbelt all the way out and then let it go back in to its proper position so that it locks. OK, another thing to know is that the base of the Primo Viaggio installs like a dream with LATCH, but with seatbelt, it's AWFUL to install. Awful. I got it done, but it took more time than any of the other seats, as hard as that may be to believe. Also, we will not be using this seat as a carrier for baby #3, because it's too hard to get in and out from between the other two seats. It would be possible, but not practical. Oh, but on a very positive note, the booster is actually really easy to buckle. I had this booster alongside that infant seat in that exact configuration (minus the Radian) when Orren was born, so I'm not sure why I'm surprised, but I can definitely say, that part of the setup works like a charm. I also like that the two rear-facers have their seatbelts together, and not against the booster, so there's no risk of Erin unbuckling the middle seatbelt while getting out at school or anything. This is more incentive to put your booster passenger's side outboard, and keep your harnessed kids middle and driver's side outboard.
This is the second configuration I did. It's, once again, a rear-facing 2010 Radian XTSL, followed by a rear-facing 2009 Britax Diplomat, and the 2006 Evenflo Big Kid. This set-up was actually a lot easier than the other, minus the fact that Britax's belt path is STUPIDLY narrow, and no adult on this planet could possibly get their hand through there. Basically, anyone who attempts to install a Britax with the seatbelt (I'd only ever used LATCH until this point) save yourself the busted knuckles I got, and just take the cover off the lower part of the seat, expose the belt path, and do it that way. It took me way too long to figure that out, so learn from my mistakes, please. Anyhow, the Britax, being a seat that sits higher than the others, actually puzzles very well against the Radian, and the Evenflo. The booster is not as easy to buckle in this configuration as the other, but it's still very feasible.
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