Posted 27 July 2013 - 12:26 PM
A mini is a family car!!
You will often see classic minis for sale with the line "baby forces sale", this has always annoyed me as it really doesn't have to be that way. My kids are now 5 & 3, but I kept my mini as a daily drive throughout them both being babies. It wasn't our only car, but as my wife uses her car for work and we share childcare between us, the kids have always been in my car, as much as they've been in hers. When my daughter was born I had to contend with both a newborn and a toddler in a classic mini at the same time, so if I can manage that, then I'm sure you can manage a baby in one!
Admittedly in a mini you have to be a bit more organised than in a larger car, but if you only carry necessities there is actually plenty of space. Women usually insist on carting a huge amount of unnecessary crap around with them when they have a baby in tow. So the first trick is to thin all this down and stop them carrying a months worth of supplies when they're only leaving the house for a couple of hours. Rearward facing car seats don't work very well, particularly if you have static rear belts, so for the first few months it's better to have the baby on the front passenger seat, that way you can also keep an eye on little 'un from both the drivers seat and if you're sitting in the back. When they get bigger and move on to forward facing seats, you can put them in the back. If you tip the front seats forward and kneel on the floor of the car facing the rear seat, with one leg in the car and one leg out, you can lift little 'un in and out of the car/ car seat really easily. It also means that you are directly in front of them when putting their seat belts on, which is much easier than trying to it from the side as you do in a larger 4 door car. Buggy wise a "Quinny Zap" folds down small enough to fit in the classic mini boot. They're only suitable from 6 months though, so before that I always used a carrier instead.
Safety is the other consideration, some people won't put children in classic minis because of the classic minis poor crash protection. If that bothers you greatly, then you probably shouldn't be driving a classic mini in the first place, but you should also be thinking about buying something with a high N-Cap rating too like a Renault or a Volvo, not just any old modern car.
Practicalities aside though, I'm of the opinion that parenthood changes your life so much that you really need something from your former life to cling onto in order to stop your identity from bring eroded completely. Also with a baby in the house you desperately need a distraction to get you away from all things baby. So if anything you'll need your mini now more than ever before! Plus kids love mini's, so if you sell then ultimately they'll be missing out too.
) so only had to endure boring family cars when I moved on to Zafiras. Thankfully, my children are now 18 and 16, so I can rid of boring family cars and go back to Minis, oh and Maestros and Montegos of course! 
