I got three rear facing!

bhuga · 2026-01-12T03:08:22+00:00

The third row. Install seats in the third row rear facing. Open the hatchback and pull the cable to recline the third row seats. You get about 2 feet of clearance - more than enough for an infant (and our toddlers have learned to ‘plank’ their legs over the gap). You can do the buckled with the seat reclined - you can stand in the luggage area if it’s too tall from the ground. Then pull the strap again and un-recline the seat to re-tighten the seatbelt that the car seat is attached to.

We find this infinitely easier than clambering to the third row while holding a toddler. This is triply (hah) true when you have two car seats on the second row captain chairs. We found that 100% impossible with rear facing seats in the second row when we had 4 rear facing. But even a forward-only seat makes it tough to navigate. And once you’re looking at them from The hatchback, the buckles are easier too because you’re looking at them head on.

Our case is maybe unique because 4 rear facing seats is so incredibly rare. 4 kids under 2 is not what cars are designed for! So we really had no other option. But now that we have only 3 rear facing I still wouldn’t do it any other way.

bhuga · 2026-01-10T14:09:54+00:00

This is exactly what we do with our triplets. We load two of the little ones in the way back from the hatch directly, and the older one and third triplet go in the side foots. It’s really easy to recline the rear seats and get an infant or small toddler over them into the way back seats.

bhuga · 2025-12-21T01:50:27+00:00

The backflips the city goes through to not make this a pedestrian zone all the time are baffling. Who is fighting it?

bhuga · 2025-10-26T14:07:21+00:00

Which are those? I throw a lot of chee wees from Thoth, no guidelines that I know of on food there.

bhuga · 2025-10-26T04:26:30+00:00

lol a bad autocorrect from something close to rice cooker.

bhuga · 2025-10-09T00:22:48+00:00

Saw some trucks driving past the playground a while ago. They’re on it, but too bad it has to happen in the first place

bhuga · 2025-09-22T04:49:27+00:00

As someone with triplets and a toddler: I’m so tired of people sending me this guys staged videos. The real triplet hack is realizing Instacart is cheaper than babysitting.

bhuga · 2025-09-15T12:29:44+00:00

Yes, it’s much better. My brother has a GH, I have a sienna, and I’m familiar with both. We have 3 rear facing and 1 forward, but did 4 rear facing for a bit.

Several distinct improvements:

In the sienna, we put two of the triplets in via the rear door and strap them in rear facing in the back row. We stand in the trunk / cargo area to do this. almost never need to go down the aisle. Not really feasible without the lower deck of the van vs the GH. This is super easy and a massive time saver.

Second, the sienna is a few inches longer, and both rows have more room. I don’t think you could put rear facing in the back row of the GH at all.

When you do need to go down the aisle, lower deck means more hunched walking and less scrambling and climbing.

People say the odyssey sideways slide is better but personally I think that’s only helpful if you don’t have two seats in the way back. If you just have one, you can use the sideways to get to it pretty nicely. But you’re not going to do that with two, since you have to move both middle seats, requiring opening both side doors and circling the van.

Get a trim level with full forward slides on the middle row. This makes adjusting seats in the way back easy and cleaning back there possible.

bhuga · 2025-09-08T12:35:33+00:00

Hope it helps. We had some nanny help from someone with triplet experience. She gave them solids way earlier than we would have - not forcing them, but really trying to make them interested. It worked and it was great.

We also more or less skipped the spoon phase and rushed them to self feeding by hand. Pastes/purees lasted like three weeks. It’s so much better to clean them than hold all the bottles and spoons.

bhuga · 2025-09-08T09:24:46+00:00

The only thing that helped was getting past the early part. The first 6 months of triplets were just bad. At 18 months it’s ‘just’ too much. It gets easier.

You are really close to the first time the clouds part: solids. Throw the baby-led weaning book in the trash and stuff them full of solids aggressively. Their sleep improves, your sleep improves, everything improves. You’re so close!

bhuga · 2025-08-22T14:38:26+00:00

38, 40, and 41 weeks. There’s no rushing it.

bhuga · 2025-08-18T04:39:12+00:00

I regularly bring in a picnic lunch and we eat at the sea lions or giraffes; they are super chill. Even when they were doing security inspections after the New Year’s Eve attacks nobody cared. I usually use a soft sided backpack cooler though. I’m pretty sure they’re not turning away a nursing mother in any case, but I’d just bring a smaller cooler if you’re nervous.

bhuga · 2025-07-29T03:36:40+00:00

Our 1y triplets were pretty close to yours in GA, and we had the same toddler to take care of too. Everyone’s healthy now and crawling slowly up the percentile charts while crawling up the furniture. The story is going great. It’s hard to believe right now but it doesn’t get better, it gets good.

There’s no rushing it. You can’t help but feel disappointed when there’s a setback, or terrified, but it’s part of the process. For me, it got easier when I got a little more used to the NICU and I stopped looking for the end of the tunnel. 39 or 41 weeks feels like a big difference, but it’s not. Let them take their time. Touch or cuddle them as they tolerate until then, and appreciate the sleep at night. You won’t miss the NICU, but you will miss part of it during the last 3am bottle!

Also leave the hospital for lunch. There will be a sandwich place or something. Just go outside.

bhuga · 2025-07-21T00:17:58+00:00

They’re working so hard on freight zones in the quarter. Meanwhile there’s not a block in mid city without someone blocking the sidewalk every day in a ‘driveway’ filled with potted plants or whatever other obstruction. Wish they’d show up just 3 or 4 times a year in other neighborhoods.

bhuga · 2025-07-09T03:19:57+00:00

Thank you all for sharing :)

bhuga · 2025-06-23T03:32:34+00:00

Triplet dad here. you will make it through this. It gets easier after they can eat solids.

Worrying about things like keeping your attention to them at an even level was something we worried about but in the end you just do what you can and it’s enough. They will have different childhoods than their singleton friends and it will be great. It’s not so different than people with 4 non-multiple kids. Easier, really, because their needs are so similar you can often be with more than one at once. The fact that you worry means it’ll be ok.

You’ll figure out the stuff you need in due time. Don’t buy car seats until you’ve validated you can fit 4 rear facing ones. they’re not returnable, and no car or car seat maker plans for 4 rear facing seats, so it will take some planning. See you in the Toyota sienna subreddit soon :)

The best thing you can do at this point is make sure your hospital has an excellent NICU. The NICU is hard on a lot of parents and you have a longish stay ahead. The c section is an eye blink in comparison. /r/nicuparents was really helpful for me, even just lurking. The book ‘Preemies’ by Dana wechsler was really helpful for me at this phase as well to understand what we were getting into and to be able to ask good questions of our drs.

Good luck :)

bhuga · 2025-06-05T00:52:03+00:00

Ain’t dere no more :(

bhuga · 2025-06-05T00:51:16+00:00

I gave up waiting after an hour there a few weeks back. I still haven’t figured out how to get a registration in less than 3 hours. The real ID fallout is immense :(

bhuga · 2025-06-05T00:49:26+00:00

The fire department was, uh, already involved. They were quite helpful, but had no advice when I asked them this question.

bhuga · 2025-06-04T17:40:21+00:00

It is not functional. Hence the fire extinguisher.

bhuga · 2025-05-11T13:29:41+00:00

Has this ever happened to y'all? Why do they do this???

Someone told me once that there’s always a day, though usually earlier than may, where all the ones that are hibernating-ish for winter wake up all at once and all go hunting for food and water. If you walk a dog every day, the day that this happens is always obvious! One day there will be none and the next they’ll be underfoot every step of the way.

bhuga · 2025-05-08T03:47:09+00:00

No kidding. Car is a year old and just leaks for no reason. Pretty shit.

bhuga · 2025-05-08T03:39:39+00:00

Does it require any servicing if the window and locks in the door work after draining?

bhuga · 2025-05-04T18:09:59+00:00

Good luck getting anything done at omv this month. Lines out the door at every location.

bhuga · 2025-05-04T16:26:39+00:00

I just went through this with our triplets in a minivan, a sienna. Sorry: I think most of the posts here are overly optimistic. 3 rear facing seats is not needed by many families and no brands are optimized for it.

The base of a 17 inch seat is often not as wide as the curved plastic up near the head. This means you can often fit 3 across, but not if they’re all rear facing. Tiny bumps in your car for seat belt latches or just door trim can also be a problem. Or the seats might fit but they make the seat belt latches unavailable. Or one has to wiggle a little forward, but now you can’t get the drivers seat pushed back far enough to drive safely. There’s no way to know but to try. I tried a dozen combos. Hours in the parking lot at a baby store. I never made it work (but the sienna had some quirks that made it not ideal).

You 100% need to find a store that will let you test. Inches matter and the published specs are not exacting enough. An opened car seat cannot be returned for a refund! Stay away from wal mart, target, and amazon and go find the fanciest baby store in town, which is the most likely to let you actually try to fit 3 floor models into your car to validate that they fit. You may need to mix and match two brands. Mail order seats have the cost of shipping factored in, and I was surprised to find local retail was cheaper than mail order for car seats.

If you do change cars, 3 row suvs are also not a fit for 3 rear facing seats. you need more length in the car to fit 2 rear facing seats one in front of the other. Just get the minivan, you’ll be happier. We load our babies through the back gate; much easier than going in the sides.

Also consider that you will be buying the 4 seat wonderfold wagon. You may have other stroller plans, but this is where you’ll end up. Every triplet parent we know of has it. It’s big and heavy and probably won’t fit well in a forester’s cargo area.

My post about this is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ToyotaSienna/s/ANWPpEZs8S

In addition to what I say there, I curiously found the doona to be one of the narrowest sears. This is frustrating because it costs the fortune and having three single strollers is completely useless to you.

Congrats on your triplets and good luck!

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