Who’d’a thought persistence would pay off?

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Internets, I present you with photographic evidence that it CAN be done! We’ve installed three carseats across the backseat of our Yaris hatchback. What’s more, it looks like we’ll be able to keep 3 across even when the littlest one switches to forward facing.

Behold:

This is the view from the driver's side. Britax Roundabout forward facing, Sunshine Radian forward facing, and rear facing Graco snugride.

That’s right, we didn’t even need a second Radian – in fact, the difference in seat height and base design between the Roundabout and the Radian really helped us out. The Roundabout seat is higher and farther forward, so the sides can overlap the Radian a bit without encroaching on the Radian’s seating space. Here, have a look from the other side:

See what I mean about the overlap? You can see how the side impact cushion of the Roundabout is just slightly forward of the sides of the Radian.

The keen observers among you might have noticed that all three carseats have been installed with seatbelts rather than with the LATCH belt. The locations of the LATCH anchors wouldn’t allow us to place the carseats this way. Don’t worry, seatbelt installation is perfectly safe. And the two forward-facing seats are properly tethered at the rear. See?

For some unfathomable reason, the Yaris has 3 rear tether anchors but only 2 sets of LATCH anchors. I'm not complaining, though - this is a very good thing for our purposes.

So that’s it. Not only have we managed to fit three carseats across, we’ve done it with the three carseats we already owned – so not only do we not need to buy a new car, we don’t even need to buy new carseats! WOOT!

We’re going to drive around with this configuration for a month or so and make sure that it’s workable for us. Of course, this brings me back to an old dilemma: which double stroller that I like can fit into my tiny hatchback trunk?