Prius C with a little one?

Depends on what is acceptable to you. Millions of European mothers are happy using a Yaris (similar size to the C) as a daily car with kids, yet in America most would insist of some big SUV.

What are your requirements? Where will you use the vehicle most? Is parking and fuel economy the issue as the C would make sense then. But if you feel you must take ALL the bits and bobs that go with motherhood around with you everytime you head out then the C might be too small.

 

Then it sounds like it will be fine. You have a bigger car should you need it and the C will be fine with the kids on other occasions.

(I assumed you were the mother as you said YOU had one on the way )

 

I think y'all are minimizing her concerns needlessly.

A baby would be fine in nearly anything, the problems come as they age if the back seat is too tight. It's not so much the size of the CHILD, it's the size of the various car seat designs. Some of them can even be problematic in full size cars.

My DS was in Italy last winter just having turned 3, in an Italian Yaris and he was sitting in the center of the rear. His feet were projecting a bit into the center between the front seats, perhaps because he could kick them up higher but also just because there wasn't a lot of space. The observation of my wife was in the outboard seat his feet would have fit but it'd have been cramped. This was in Britax Boulevard CS which is not a small car seat.

Unfortunately we don't have pictures.

Perhaps someone could take pictures of their back seat with a child-seat and child for illustration.

 

Or, the OP should bring/borrow a/the car seat in question and install it in the c and/or other prospective cars.

 

I personally think you need to check it out for yourself. It all depends on the person. What some ppl say is fine might be different for you. I don't have any kids, but I did carry my one yr old neice in her baby seat the first day I bought my C. It was fine for me, as I had no issues fitting her in there. It was a tight fit, but not like I had to move the front seat forward or anything. Very reasonable considering the size of the car IMO.

 

Better to do research to find a car seat that will fit. We know from posts on this site that there are high quality narrow car seats that allow you to fit 3 in the back of a Prius. Here it's more about depth. So many people don't realize they have a choice and as a result can be spending $10,000 or more on a car and gas instead of $200 dollars on a different car seat.

 

You could go regular Prius for more room. The price difference and the mileage difference are not that great.

Definitely take the kids and the cars seats and try it out. When I got my Prius, I was going around with skis to make sure they fit. Another person had their bike to make sure it fit.

 

We have a 10 month old and a 7 and 11 yr old.

All three fit comfortable in the back seat.
The infant seat is in the middle. I have to figure out if this is the best set up.
The manual says not to put anyone in the middle if infant seat is behind the passenger seat,
so I put it in the middle, where it was in my Scion.
Everything is a nice fit, and I dont have to worry about the side airbags.
I just have to train the two older kids to not rest on the door, or fall asleep on the doors.

 

I know two toddler seats and a baby rear-facing seat fit in a 2010 Prius, as I tested that. Surprised you can squeeze all that into a c, though!

 

For small cars, putting a rear-facing seat in the center is often the only way to get it to fit correctly and still leave some legroom up front.

As a side note, side curtain airbags are generally considered to pose no risk to properly restrained passengers. There is little risk even to those who are out of position or not properly restrained. A technical working group of automotive manufacturers developed voluntary testing with a myriad of adult and child occupant tests, including passengers sleeping against doors, windows, etc.

Vehicles that have passed this testing are listed in the NHTSA crash test results (not yet available for Prius C). There is a tab in the results page called "Safety Features". Within the Airbags section is a notation if the vehicle passed the "Side Air Bag Out-of-Position Testing". Almost all newer vehicles pass. Still a good idea not to rest on the doors, of course, but more due to the proximity to a side impact, rather than any risk from side curtain airbags.

As for rear-facing carseats, there are models that take up less space front to back for smaller cars. The Cosco Scenera is one of these, often on sale for $40 at Walmart. The Combi Coccoro is another smaller convertible that fits better in small cars. The new Britax convertibles also take up somewhat less room than some other models. The problem is that the trend is toward convertible seats that go to increased height and weight limits, so many of the most popular models are taller and don't fit as well rear-facing in smaller vehicles.

For kids age 4 and up who are mature enough to be seated in a booster, the BubbleBum booster seat is a very narrow model that tends to work better than wider boosters when you need to get 3 kids across.

 

Darren, good info there.

We have made some trips as a full 5 piece family, and it is a bit tight for the
lady, in the passenger seat. This is the only time it comes into play.
But all is well for short trips.
We only have a year to go with the rear facing, and also we are adding a Prius 3 gen
to the situation, and I know that will allow even more space for extended family trips.

Yes, car seat size will play the role on if/how the space is.

But for our situation and infant seat...it does us good, and it will get better.

 

I've only had my Prius c Four for a week now, but our Sunshine Kids Radian carseat fits great. It's the one we take on airplanes since it's more slender & I wanted to be able to fold down the 60 split while still having our daughter in the back. Our larger evenflo carseat would have fit as well, just with less room on the backseat for a 4th (or very slender 4th & 5th) passenger.

 

I have my daughter in a rear facing infant seat now which fits pretty well behind the passenger seat. She is getting big for it and I was looking to get a seat very similar to the sunshine kids now called diono. Sogalinsocal, I am curious if that seat fits in the rear facing position and also if you are able to use the LATCH system. I can not get to the LATCH bars because they are almost more underneath the seat than straight in. Has anyone else had problems accessing them? It is currently my biggest complaint about my Prius C as I feel I could get a safer installation with LATCH than just using the seatbelt.

 

The Radian models are identical in size from Sunshine Kids to Diono, having only a few feature changes when the company changed names. Unfortunately, the Radian models take up a lot of room rear-facing. If they fit at all on the outboard seat, you will likely use up all your legroom up front to accomodate one. There's a better chance in the center seat, as the back of the carseat might puzzle between the two front seats. Unfortunately, the Radian can be difficult to install in some narrow seating locations due to it's very low base and you must use the seatbelt for installation in the center of the Prius models. This is not a safety concern, but tends to be more difficult to install. It might work, but I would definitely suggest a good return policy. I mentioned some models that work well in small vehicles above, should the Radian not work for you.

 

I regularly road trip with 4 full sized adults in the car One is 5' 9" two of us are 5'10" and one is 6'3". Plus our gear, have never had any complaints - but it is tight. Should not have issues with a kid.

 

The issue is not kids who are forward-facing or in a booster, where there is less of a legroom concern. On the other hand, a tall rear-facing seat like the Radian is an issue behind the driver or passenger seat, even in our standard Prius. Not as much in the Prius V I just had, provided you move the rear seat all the way back. If the Prius C has more legroom than the regular Prius, then perhaps it might work better as long as you don't have a tall adult in front of it.

 

Thanks for you response! I was wondering if Toyota has done anything to address the difficulty in getting to the LATCH bars. I think they are almost impossible to hook onto with certain LATCH hook styles. Are they addressing the problem?