Where to store rear facing car seats

[finchette]

We have a 2 and a 4 year old and would like to rear face for as long as possible - which means that we will be dealing with large car seats for many years to come.

We expect to mostly use the van to extend our spontaneous day trip adventures to full weekend ones, and will not always be staying at proper campgrounds. The car seat shuffle and storage when overnighting seems like a huge hassle, and we would welcome any tips from this community.

Do you store them at the foot of the downstairs bed and sleep in fetal position? On the front seats, making them unusable for lounging/dining? In a tent or under a tarp outdoors?

Any other tips on how to minimize the friction of travelling with little ones also welcome!

 

[Mehdime]

Could they be stacked up in a way to fit on the driver’s seat?

We usually use the driver’s seat as the sacrificial seat to store the child seat (but we only have one child seat so it’s easier) and any other crap (coats and whatnots) since it’s a pain to turn around.

You need to keep one of the front seats for sitting and for climbing up and down the top bed.

I can’t imagine that storing them on the bed will work. The bed isn’t exactly super comfy to start with - you don’t want to make it worse.

If stacking them up won’t work, then storing them outside is the only option but that means that wild camping is now out of the question and it sounds like that wouldn’t be great for your style of travel.

 

[Jdorling]

We put them behind the turned captains chairs, we also have two car seats and can get one of each in the footwell on its side behind the chair

 

[andyinluton]

We have a 2 and a 4 year old and would like to rear face for as long as possible - which means that we will be dealing with large car seats for many years to come.

We expect to mostly use the van to extend our spontaneous day trip adventures to full weekend ones, and will not always be staying at proper campgrounds. The car seat shuffle and storage when overnighting seems like a huge hassle, and we would welcome any tips from this community.

Do you store them at the foot of the downstairs bed and sleep in fetal position? On the front seats, making them unusable for lounging/dining? In a tent or under a tarp outdoors?

Any other tips on how to minimize the friction of travelling with little ones also welcome!

Have you thought of a box or storage bag on a bike rack?

 

[Hawthorn37]

I’m reading this with interest. Good question! We’re grandparents, and while we haven’t yet taken either grandchild away with us yet, it’s going to happen this year for sure - can’t wait truth be told!! As such this topic has come up in conversation, plus where to store the isofix base / pushchair / backpack carrier / toys and other toddler essentials.

So far we’ve thought strategies around
- pitch a drive away awning (not suitable for camping off a site, so doesn’t meet the OP’s brief)
- pitch a shower tent or pup tent for the gear… as above.
- small pushchair on drivers seat, isofix base in footwell of drivers seat, and child seat in footwell of turned passenger seat. (baby car seat no issue, but not yet tried getting the new larger child seat in - looks huge!)

Whatever we do it’ll be tight staying just in the van with 1 young ‘un never mind 2, so maybe we’d limit the non site / no awning nights to 1 for just stop overs. I think very young kids need space, and even the best tempered toddler will get grumpy quickly.

I look forward to reading more qualified responses from people who’ve been there and done it!

 

[Hawthorn37]

Have you thought of a box or storage bag on a bike rack?

A big flexible bag might work.

 

[Jdorling]

I’m reading this with interest. Good question! We’re grandparents, and while we haven’t yet taken either grandchild away with us yet, it’s going to happen this year for sure - can’t wait truth be told!! As such this topic has come up in conversation, plus where to store the isofix base / pushchair / backpack carrier / toys and other toddler essentials.

So far we’ve thought strategies around
- pitch a drive away awning (not suitable for camping off a site, so doesn’t meet the OP’s brief)
- pitch a shower tent or pup tent for the gear… as above.
- small pushchair on drivers seat, isofix base in footwell of drivers seat, and child seat in footwell of turned passenger seat. (baby car seat no issue, but not yet tried getting the new larger child seat in - looks huge!)

Whatever we do it’ll be tight staying just in the van with 1 young ‘un never mind 2, so maybe we’d limit the non site / no awning nights to 1 for just stop overs. I think very young kids need space, and even the best tempered toddler will get grumpy quickly.

I look forward to reading more qualified responses from people who’ve been there and done it!

They fit in the footwells behind the rotated captains seats fine

 

[kurienp]

Have you thought of a box or storage bag on a bike rack?

If I were in your situation, I would go with Andys suggestion. With two kids there will be other paraphernalia that you could use the box for.


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[CamperFam]

We have a 2 and a 4 year old and would like to rear face for as long as possible - which means that we will be dealing with large car seats for many years to come.

We expect to mostly use the van to extend our spontaneous day trip adventures to full weekend ones, and will not always be staying at proper campgrounds. The car seat shuffle and storage when overnighting seems like a huge hassle, and we would welcome any tips from this community.

Do you store them at the foot of the downstairs bed and sleep in fetal position? On the front seats, making them unusable for lounging/dining? In a tent or under a tarp outdoors?

Any other tips on how to minimize the friction of travelling with little ones also welcome!

Unfortunately no easy solution. Its infact one of the main reasons we upgraded to a Grand Cali 600. We got tired/fed up of constantly needing camp sites with a popup tent.

RE box - we had a Thule towbar rack and Thule backbox (not sold it yet - thanks for the reminder! ) , but no where near big enough for car seats.

For rear facing seats, I challenge anyone getting them behind the rotated captains seats.

The only option we ever had was to get a bicycle cover, and wrap the seats up outside - obviously not the most secure, and you'd still want somewhere like a campsite for that.

 

[ThomasHJ]

We have finally reached the time where we can leave both child seats at home. And wow, wat a difference that makes! However, I understand your pain ;-)

We used to do several things:

- store them up side down between the dashboard and the front seats.
- store 2 interlocked (one normal, 1 upside down) on the drivers seat (LHD)

And this one might be the most usefull one:

We used big thin bags to cover them and store them outside of the van. We started out with special bags from IKEA that were made to store garden furniture cushions. But in the end we just used large XL plastic trash bags. They take up no room and keep your child seat dry from rain. People won't be to intrested in them either and we just placed them behind the van.

 

[finchette]

Unfortunately no easy solution. Its infact one of the main reasons we upgraded to a Grand Cali 600. We got tired/fed up of constantly needing camp sites with a popup tent.

RE box - we had a Thule towbar rack and Thule backbox (not sold it yet - thanks for the reminder! ) , but no where near big enough for car seats.

For rear facing seats, I challenge anyone getting them behind the rotated captains seats.

The only option we ever had was to get a bicycle cover, and wrap the seats up outside - obviously not the most secure, and you'd still want somewhere like a campsite for that.

Thanks for the honest answer. Our latest ideas is to have the little ones sleep on a floor mattress in front on the back seat so that we don’t have to uninstall the car seats at all… Will report back!

 

[finchette]

We have finally reached the time where we can leave both child seats at home. And wow, wat a difference that makes! However, I understand your pain ;-)

We used to do several things:

- store them up side down between the dashboard and the front seats.
- store 2 interlocked (one normal, 1 upside down) on the drivers seat (LHD)

And this one might be the most usefull one:

We used big thin bags to cover them and store them outside of the van. We started out with special bags from IKEA that were made to store garden furniture cushions. But in the end we just used large XL plastic trash bags. They take up no room and keep your child seat dry from rain. People won't be to intrested in them either and we just placed them behind the van.

Good point about people not being interested in snatching up old car seats wrapped in garbage bags - and possibly full of cookie crumbs. We will try to interlock them as well - although they really are massive being rear facing until 10 yrs.

 

[Lambeth Cali]

We have a 2 and a 4 year old and would like to rear face for as long as possible - which means that we will be dealing with large car seats for many years to come.

We expect to mostly use the van to extend our spontaneous day trip adventures to full weekend ones, and will not always be staying at proper campgrounds. The car seat shuffle and storage when overnighting seems like a huge hassle, and we would welcome any tips from this community.

Do you store them at the foot of the downstairs bed and sleep in fetal position? On the front seats, making them unusable for lounging/dining? In a tent or under a tarp outdoors?

Any other tips on how to minimize the friction of travelling with little ones also welcome!

We bought our Cali when my wife was pregnant with our first child who is soon 15yrs. We have always camped with a small pop up tent. We put prams, car seats and usually the kids clothes (in clear plastic boxes) in this.
As soon as we arrive anywhere I open the boot, put up the small Decathlon pop up tent (3 pegs, takes seconds) and put everything that is stored in the boot above the bed in it. We’ve done this for 15 years and never had anything stolen.

 

[temporarysecretary]

Good point about people not being interested in snatching up old car seats wrapped in garbage bags - and possibly full of cookie crumbs. We will try to interlock them as well - although they really are massive being rear facing until 10 yrs.

I didn't even know you could get them rear facing that big!

We have 2 car seats but not rear facing so the problem was easier to solve. As above when possible auxiliary tent is the easiest solution. We also made sure that we can camp without taking them out of the van fully for when using an aires.

We got around this by making sure our bulkier seat for smaller child has a detachable seat/isofix base. The base goes under the bed and seat in passenger footwell. Then the larger seat is a 1 piece folding isofix, the back folds 90 degrees to allow it to go under the bed too.

This allows us to use the van fully without leaving anything outside.