CX-5 & Child Car Seats

Hi All,

When I bought my CX-5, we were planning to have one child. I figured any car seat would be fine as the passenger seat could be pushed all the forward.

I found out that we are having twins now. I'm looking for any experience with rear-facing seats with CX-5. I'm pretty short (5' 5") and my SO is even shorter.

I would have preferred to use a convertible car seat but they all seem so bulky and large. I'm thinking I would need to do an Infant car seat until they can use a forward facing seat.

Any and all experience is immensely appreciated!

First, congratulations on the twins!

While owning a CX 5 is a joy, I know the pain of trying to squeeze a baby seat in the back. I would recommend looking into Britax car seats. However, to be safe if you have a baby store near you (Like buy buy baby) they will let you try the seats out before you purchase. Just pull your car up and try squeezing them in. Good luck!

silvercx said:

Hi All,

When I bought my CX-5, we were planning to have one child. I figured any car seat would be fine as the passenger seat could be pushed all the forward.

I found out that we are having twins now. I'm looking for any experience with rear-facing seats with CX-5. I'm pretty short (5' 5") and my SO is even shorter.

I would have preferred to use a convertible car seat but they all seem so bulky and large. I'm thinking I would need to do an Infant car seat until they can use a forward facing seat.

Any and all experience is immensely appreciated!

Click to expand...

Congratulations on your twins!

My son is almost 2 years old now, but when he was an infant, we used a Britax B-Safe 35 infant car seat in the CX-5. When installed on the passenger side, the front passenger seat had to be moved forward a little. I'm 5'5" - 5'6" and I think if the car seat was installed behind the driver's seat, I would be a little, just a little cramped. It got a little worse when we moved to a rear facing convertible seat (Britax Advocate) because it needed even more space in rear facing mode. I don't think I could drive the CX-5 with a rear facing convertible seat behind the driver's seat. Well I could, but I would be cramped. I think you should look into smaller car seats. Britax car seats are almost always the biggest and heaviest out of all car seats available.

Edit: Do follow Arctic's advice of trying on car seats at Buy buy baby. That is the easiest way to see how a car seat would fit behind your preferred driving position.

grats on the twins. i have two kids of my own--4 and 2. i jumped for joy the day the seats could go forward facing lol. my wife has a highlander and we had a friends infant behind the driver seat and i still had to push the seat up more than i wanted to in order to provide safe space for car seat. as far as infant seats go, i think they're all basically the same size. it's the rear-facing seats you can find with smaller dimensions. you can technically strap infants in the car without a base using the car seat only, which helps for space since the car seat is closer to the actual back of the rear seats, and it's just as safe, but you have to deal with strapping your kids in every time you hop in the car instead of just clicking it into the base so probably not advised. i never have both of my kids in the car at the same time so I only have one seat they can both fit in, which is nice because I can drop my 40-20 side if I need the room, and when I watch my friends infant baby and I only have my cx5, I just strap her in using the belt with no base. I've gotten good at it so it only takes a minute or two, but I don't have to do this every day like you would, and you'd have to do it twice just to save some space.

Being as you are both shorter, I don't think you'll have any issues.

Congrats! My wife and I are expecting our first child, so we are in a similar boat to you.

Going to a store like buy buy baby and testing out the seats yourself is one of the best things you can do. We did this and got a better perspective of how much room these car seats really need. The most forward part of the child seat should also have about 1" of gap between it and the seat in front.

With an infant carrier and base on the passenger side, the seat had to be pushed forward to where my 5'7" wife's knees were about 1 inch away from the dash. I'd imagine it'd be the same situation for the driver seat as well. But my 5'10" self can't sit in the passenger seat with the infant carrier behind.

Since you're 5'5" and your wife is shorter, you guys shouldn't have much issue fitting 2 car seats.

Both my wife and I are 5'10" and we had the infant seat (Graco click connect) installed behind the driver's seat.

I don't know how to handle twins, but with one infant, having a carrier that simply clicks into a pre-installed base was super convenient.
Kid falls asleep in the car and you just pick up the carrier and click it into the stroller without having to unbuckle the kid.

Rear mounted convertible seats are huge. We only had ours rear mounted for a few weeks before just going forward facing.
Car rides are a lot more fun with an almost 3 year old commenting on your every move

Sad thing Babies R US is closing. My wife told me how much we bought from there for our daughter - she is 4 and got a lot of our business. They had a lot of car seats on display - you can take a tape and measure it. I keep my front facing car seat behind me. I am 5'10 and it works fine. Camry back seat is so roomy in comparison.

My wife and I are both 5'4" and we managed to fit our twins car seats in my much smaller Suzuki SX4. So you should be ok


Congrats on the twins! That first year is going to be rough but it gets a LOT easier after that and having twins is a blast as they get older (other than everyone and their dog having a 'twins' story to relate to you) (rlaugh)

Im eyeing the CX5 GT and we have this car seat. You may have alleviated my concerns.

get some seat protectors