[fps]

The average slim carseat is 17" wide. Not just any car seat, but a slim one. It's a whole category of seats. That means 3 side-by-side car seats require 51" of rear hip and rear shoulder room, which is really very doable. In modern cars, your choices include a Subaru Impreza, a Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sentra, Ford Focus, BMW 3 series, Audi a4.. I could go on, but basically every manufacturer's smallest car.

Yes, you can't fit 3 of Graco's convertable car seat/stroller/play place/activity centers into a typical sedan, but if you plan ahead you can do it easily.

[pwinnski]

Okay, this is a new category of product that didn't exist when I first shopped for carseats.

I suppose now the primary issue is that one might have to plan ahead and buy slim carseats from the beginning, since as I recall it, the process was: buy a baby seat, turn it around, then buy a bigger seat passing the baby seat down for the next one, turn that one around, then buy a second bigger seat, and... that's the point of issue unless one planned ahead--or plans to buy all-new seats.

[D13Fd]

I’ve heard that car seats expire anyway if you are following the rules.

It is true that you will probably need to plan ahead and buy slim car seats. But even if you don’t, three car seats is still far less expensive than many other child things. Three car seats is less than half as expensive as daycare for a single child for a single month, in my area at least.

[D13Fd]

Exactly this. It may be that it’s like this in the US but these are harder to find in other countries.