Hi All,

We are not ready to move up yet but my curiosity is peaked as I see all the posts about different mini vans vs. Suburbans and not much mention of full size (12 passenger and up) vans.

We have one child large enough to sit in seat belt alone and the triplets have 6 more years of car seats/boosters. We are probably going to have at least one more baby in a little while. Not sure when, but at least after the girls are over 2.5 years, so we might have to upgrade to a bigger Runabout if the trips are still using a stroller too. We just bought a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan with the fold and go seating in Feb. of last year. I think that we could squeeze an infant car seat in between the two convertable car seats in the rear bench row. But, we would be at the max. I just got a triple runabout yesterday (yay!) and have not tried to fit it into the van yet, so we will see if I can jam that into the rear cargo area without taking it apart. =)

DH and I were talking about it last night and wondering if the folks who post about loving their Suburban are smaller families and if they own Runabout strollers? We watched a TV special about sextuplets and saw for the first time that there are full size van models out there with rear doors on the driver side too, a feature that we have just loved in our Caravans. I know that there have been posts about other mini vans (Honda Oddesy??? not sure if I am remembering correctly) that others prefer.

Our biggest beef with mini vans has been trying to squeeze under the seat belts when the car seats or bases are buckled in place. That was a pain when all had was our 99 Caravan. In the 2005, we now fold up Katherine's seat to get at the back row and leave Emma's car seat in place behind the driver. I crawl in to buckle the two in the back and get them in/out. Then Katherines' seat is folded back into place and she can climb in and buckle up. Ugh. It makes me tired just typing about it.

Any thoughts? I'll try for some info here and then post to the main forum.


Rebecca in Western NY
DD 3/96
GGG 32w6d - 10/1/04
Emma 4# 6oz
Hannah 5#
Megan 4# 4oz