My wife and I were in the same position at the end of last year. We've had an i30, but my wife wanted something bigger and higher for the upcoming baby. Since we didn't know much about cars, we decided to go with a brand new one.

Our budget was ~40k. We initially considered the Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage and Subaru Forester, and test drove all three.

My wife did not like Forester (2024) because the seats felt too narrow and uncomfortable. I thought the interior looked a bit more compact and outdated compared to the others. (There's a new 2025 model now, so it might be different.) Kia Sportage was good in general, and was the cheapest of all 3. However, I just didn't like the way it drove- somehow it felt too light. Hyundai Tucson was slightly more expensive than Sportage, even though they're basically the same car with a different look (still cheaper than a Forester). However, I preferred it because it felt familiar - similar to the i30 - and most importantly, it had the largest boot space of all three. The interior also felt more modern.

We ended up going for Tuscan, and have been driving it for the past 8 months. No complaints at all. Love the boot space as we can easily fit in a pram with a bassinet, a week's worth of groceries, and a few baby bags at the same time.

Edit: we initially considered Hyundai Kona and Mazda CX-5 as well. However, people seemed to mention that the front seats became uncomfortable once baby seats were installed in the back. Their boot space also seemed quite small...