Definitely good advice on the four door car though - trying to continually get a baby into a two door is a nightmare!
Actually I find it significantly easier, with a two door car & especially a mini I can tip the front seat forward and sit with one knee on the car floor and the other foot outside the car (sort of half in & half out of the car). I can then pick little 'un up from outside the car and quickly negotiate them around the B post and then sit them directly into the car seat in the rear. Doing their harness seat belts up is very easy because I am directly in front of them to do so.
In a four door car this all this has to be done from the side and involves me standing outside the car and leaning in to the car to lift the kids in and then do the seat belts up at an angle. I also have a long standing back injury and this sort of posture really isn't helpful, where as in the mini I can do everything kneeling down good posture and my back straight. The worst thing about the mini is the non retracting/inertia seatbelts in the rear, this makes using rear facing child seats (for babies under 9 months) difficult to use, I got round this by putting the rear facing seat in the front & my missus in the back for the first 9 months, but you could convert to the later retracting/inertia rear belts fairly easily instead.
Plus, if worried about safety then fit in a small roll cage?
Don't do this, it's a very bad idea!! Roll cages are intended for autosport use, where the occupants are wearing crash helmets & restrained with full harnesses, they are not intended for road use which is why fitting one to a road car often significantly increases your insurance premium. An exposed bare metal cage inside a car greatly increases the risk of serious head injury to the occupants in the event of a collision. In the case of young children where the cranial bones of the skull are not fully fused then this is potentially even more lethal.
Edited by AVV IT, 19 January 2011 - 12:12 PM.
