New baby, new dog, new car…little help

Morning all,

So good news out of the way first, just found out the Mrs is expecting our first child, a bit of a shock but hey ho, we’re all happy and healthy 🙂

After shopping around we’ve come to realise that an Old English Sheepdog and a newborn with all its gear just isn’t going to cut it in a Fiesta…So we need a new car!

I was looking at the new shape Civic as that boot is just huge, double the space of our current Fiesta but the Mrs tells me she also wants another dog, so potentially, 2xdogs, 1x baby, many times the gear.

Without looking at MPV’s or massive cars, I do quite like something the same size of the civic with all the tech etc. Our Fiesta is a top spec model with all the mod cons so I kinda want to keep it at the same tech level.

I’ve looked at some estate cars but really don’t fancy them at all. Skoda Superb, Peugeot 308Sw etc

Budget, probably 8K, might be able to push to 10k.

Are estates really the way forward?

If you liked the Fiesta why not look at a top spec Mondeo? It will have all the mod cons you want and the boot is massive. We had 3 dogs and 4 adults in it quite comfortably. Should easy pic up a good one in your price range. Mine is the Titanium X Business edition which gets sat nav parking sensors etc and only £30 a year road tax for 163BHP diesel.

Do you have any friends with babies/small children?

IF you do, ask if you can borrow their push chair and travel cot. Those 2 items will probably fill the boot of a civic, don’t know where you’d put the dogs.

I’ve got a Toyota Avensis estate and it’s full to the brim when we go away with 2 kids, even for a weekend trip. The amount of stuff is just staggering.

Divorce, Dog’s Trust, adoption, Porsche. 😉

Skoda Yeti?

Estate. Tailgate provides cover. Low back makes nappy changing easy. When little’un is bigger then they can sit and have their wellies changed without too much grief.
Rich.

most estates don’t have much bigger boots (to the parcel shelf) than their non-estate counterparts – the real advantage is that you can stack them to the roof and its easier to get stuff in and out. A ‘soft roader’ will likely have a similar footprint/interior volume to an equivilent estate car, with compromises elsewhere, if you want that sort of look.

One thing to note – rear facing child seats take up a LOT of room. If you’re short, this isn’t an issue, but i can’t comfortably sit in my mates 3-series estate in front of his carseat. as rear-facing seats are getting ‘older’ this will only get worse.

Where do you want the dogs to travel? back seat or boot? If the latter, I guess you need a car with a long enough back seat to get in ALL your luggage, for 3. If you’re not going away for any weekends, this is probably feasible, but I doubt even something like a superb will fit enough room on the back seat (next to a childseat) for a family of 3 for a week away

You need an estate. As said above the sheer amount of stuff with kids is crazy. As above I’d go with the Mondeo. Great car and superb value for money.

We have one baby and one (fairly small) dog. We have a VW Golf and a BMW 3 series estate. Golf boot fits the pram with one wheel removed but not much else, and when we were using the crib part of the pram that had to be put on the back seat. The BMW fits the pram easily without wheel removal, plus room for a fair bit of other stuff, but there’s no way the dog can fit in the boot too. My mum has a Civic Touring and although the boot is big, it’s definitely not as big as the BMW estate. You could put the pram on the back seat and the dog(s) in the boot, but putting a pram on the back seats is a massive faff and doesn’t leave much room for any other luggage.

Basically, unless you buy something huge, you’re not going to have enough room for everyone plus stuff unless you have the dog in the front with the passenger – and if you get a second dog then you’re screwed! The only car we’ve used that has room for the pram plus a dog in the boot is a VW Toureg, but even that might be a squeeze with a large dog.

Don’t worry though, after the arrival of your baby your wife will probably abandon all thoughts of a second dog. Also, the logistics of walking a single dog while pushing a pram are tricky enough – a second dog would be a nightmare unless all dog walking is done with someone else or without the baby.

Stop! Don’t get the second dog until baby arrives would be my advice.

Many congratulations.

Any idea when you are thinking of getting the second dog?

Having a new born is pretty intensive, it’s going to be a little different for the current dog as there is something new in the house getting your attention. Add to that a second dog…might cause some friction.

As for Cars, Estates, but bear in mind, young kids have so much crap that goes with them. I couldn’t wait until ours were old enough to leave the push chair behind, they take up a lot of room.

Firstly congratulations, brilliant news.

Cars … you need a bigger car but but beware the bigger car you get the more stuff you will lug around. I can’t think of too many Civic sized car which will take a buggy and 2 dogs. Yeti is a good call. Touran/Rav4/CRV/Verso ? It would be useful to find a car you could remove seats in (like old model Rav4s and Yetis, Touran ?) then you could put baby in one seat, remove the other for buggy storage and dogs in the back perhaps in a car cage ?

Note when our kids got a bit bigger we went for a small folding McClaren buggy which would go in the rear footwell if needed to keep boot space free.

edit: I’d also agree with advice of no second dog unless you get it now and you are prepared for a lot of work inc dog walking when knackered through lack of sleep.

Many congratulations.

😀

Stop! Don’t get the second dog until baby arrives would be my advice.

❗

Skoda Yeti?

8)

Get a Van. Covers all of the bases…

actually a not-bad suggestion for a car with a smaller footprint would be a honda FRV. Might be a bit older (but the advantage is cheaper) than you were looking at, but 3 seats at the front (the old multipla is the same) would mean a huge amount of room for all the possible dogs/prams/bikes/whatever in the back you could want

one point is that when babies are small they spend a lot of time crying. On longer journeys, we’ve found the ability to have my wife in the back with the baby (to play with him, and feed him from a bottle if needed) was an absolute lifesaver. A crying baby does not make for a relaxing journey. I expect he’ll grow out of this requirement, but its worth considering

incidentally, a yeti has a tiny boot, and is thus a rubbish answer

I have a civic estate, bought at the time our daughter was born last year.

Based on the year since, I would say get something bigger. The civic might have a big boot space on paper but the shape of it has meant that once the pram is in and a few bits of luggage, its pretty much full. We would never have got a dog in.

However, MsJimmy insisted on sitting in the back with the kid, which you might want to do, too. This prevented us from dropping the seats to extend the space, or use the “magic seat” space by lifting up the rear seat.

It did “free up” the front seat, but that’s only of certain use. Depends what journeys you’ll need to do and how flexible you are with where the dog goes.

In your shoes, I’d be looking at something with a more practical boxy shaped boot (eg Passat), rather than the sloping rear the Civic has.

ps wanna buy a slopey rear-ended civic?

Well the way I see it you’ve got 2 options.

A) Baby in buggy – buggy hitched to tow bar – may however not win parent of the year award
B) Get an estate car

Large estate with a roofbox. Just going places to do overnighters, we FILL our Subaru Legacy estate, and that’s genuinely not taking a great deal – small babies need lots of ‘stuff’ carting round. Prams for little ones are massive, even ours which folds down relatively small.

And congrats – our little one is bloody brilliant. But he hates the car, so we don’t actually go out in it much!

a baby and 2 old english sheep dogs in a hatchback. 😯

Biggest estate car you can get. Superb or Mondeo would be my advice having trialled most of them.

Biggest. You. Can. Get.

Congrats!

Two kids and an active lifestyle, estates all the way for us; Passat, Octavia and E Class. Now got a Caravelle and a puppy… I’m scratching my head as to where his travel crate is going to go sensibly when we go away and tow the caravan. However big you go you will always fill it. Ours will be a Kombi next.

Caddy Maxi?

Ask yourself what kind of parents you’re going to be. If, like my Wife and I, you are the sort who take everything with you ‘just in case’ (this has improved slightly as jnr. has aged), then you’ll need something Civic sized just for the kid and their stuff. As mentioned, modern prams (travel system type) are huge and will fill the whole boot floor of something like a Golf hatchback.

If you are able to go out with a backpack and a sling for the child, then a Civic will be big enough for the dog too.

Be aware that Yeti/Qashqai etc aren’t bigger than Civic’s. Most SUV of that size will probably have a smaller boot.

We don’t have a dog, but we do have a daughter who is now just over 12 months.

We were convinced that we could keep both of our cars & cope with the ‘stuff’ that we needed to lug about. We both had Seat Ibiza’s; mine the previous generation model & my Wife’s is the latest version.

How naïve!! We purposefully bought the smallest buggy system thing we could find – the BabyStyle Oyster & it only just fitted into the boot…

Within a few weeks we realised we needed a bigger car & ended up going for a Citroen C3 Picasso. Footprint wise it’s smaller than a Focus by quite a bit, but it’s like driving a bus, so everyone is very upright in it. As a result, the boot is pretty large and it’s got sliding rear seats to increase the boot space, as well as the seats folding down flat into the floor.
Even so – I am not sure once you’ve filled the boot with all the necessary gumpf where the dog would go…..! Even a simple overnighter generally has the boot full because of the buggy & travel cot….

Best solution might be as suggested above; an estate with a roofbox.

Typical STW answer I know, but my mate has got a littlun’ and seems to get all he needs to in his Octavia estate.

Wow, thanks for all the advice and real world experiences – I’ve sent this to the Mrs so she can read too.

I have partly vetoed a 2nd dog for the time being, shes isn’t happy and as much as we want a little friend for our current dog it isn’t realistic. It would make this first experience for us much more difficult and tiring than it should be.

Ideally it would be grand for her to sit in the back with little one as I defo agree, a screaming baby does not make a pleasant trip, her parents live in Norwich so there will be a lot more visits down there and we’re currently in York.

Shes so far opting to check out the Modeo, I’ve only ever driven Fords so it wouldn’t be too bad to switch.

Thanks again 🙂

Get an estate – in fact buy mine SEAT Exeo ST Sport

Well within your budget so plenty of money left for baby and dog stuff (or even a new bike :-))

We have managed to get by without an estate though I did chop my Golf for an Avensis saloon when #2 spawn was inbound.

At 3 & 5 we need less clobber and could manage with a smaller car again.

No hound though.

Typical STW answer I know, but my mate has got a littlun’ and seems to get all he needs to in his Octavia estate.

We have a 3 1/2 year old and are now on our second Octavia estate. As said previously, my main bugbear with it is the boot lip; otherwise it’s a great space and we could get the pram-thing and then a McLaren buggy (folded, obviously) in lengthways with seats up. We’ve done regular trips with child, child kit, two bikes, bike kit, presents and other extraneous stuff without having to resort to a roof box (which is a good job as there’s two bikes on there…)

For more room the whole SMax / SUV removeable seat idea is a good one. Not tried it, but could see it working. For us I see out next car being something like a Mondeo, Passat, Superb or another Octy.

jolmes – Member

Ideally it would be grand for her to sit in the back with little one as I defo agree, a screaming baby does not make a pleasant trip, her parents live in Norwich so there will be a lot more visits down there and we’re currently in York.

We found the best way to do this is to time your journeys around the baby’s normal sleep routine. You can generally get 1.5-2hrs then with the baby asleep.
You quickly get into a system routine & will end up stopping at some services to feed the baby etc.

Norwich to York is a bit of a mammoth trek!

We have had a few occasions where the ability to hop in the back & comfort our daughter has been a godsend….when they start crying in the car, it can be a very stressful situation.
We’ve only had to do it maybe 3 times in the last 13 months though….careful planning will help with this.

Oh – and my comments about the Citroen C3 Picasso. While it is a car ideally suited to our needs for carting baby & kit around it hasn’t been exactly reliable & not a particularly good advert for Citroen cars. I wouldn’t have another on the back of this one, but a colleague has a DS3 & a C4 Picasso & reckons he’s had zero issues with both.

Link not working EssexBiker. Not that I was interested in looking at the car, you understand… 😉

Congratulations!

Being a Dad of 2 girls, I’m familiar with the various issues around cars etc!

Personal reccomendations:

1: Hold off on the second dog. I know loads of people who get a new dog/puppy when they have a baby, as they’ll be round the house lots so it’s a good time to get one. Neither of my two were (are) good sleepers, the only way we could get them to Nap at times was either in the car or being walked in the buggy. This meant lots of time out the house, and the first buggy was so knackered after 24 months it went in a skip…. Sleep deprivation is a killer, and adding a new puppy into the mix could be just too much. Loads of people seem to manage it though, so it could be us/our kids making things hard!

2: We have a Peugeot 3008 SUV thing as a family car. Great as it has an adjustable floor for varying luggage requirements and a drop-down tail-gate for use as a seat/changing table, giving a flat loading area. However, though it looks big, getting even an umbrella fold buggy in is a squeeze, as the boot is short, and we had to get a buggy to fit the boot (width ways) as not all would. A neighbour with a Focus estate fits their buggy in front-to-back easily. I have a 3 series saloon that has a larger boot-floor than the Peugeot, but the parcel shelf gets in the way of anything tall, and the opening is small. I’d go with an estate if we chose again for this stage of life. (I wanted an estate but I was overuled!)

3: Buggy. Personally, I’d go with one with pneumatic tyres every time. They are so much more robust than the plastic wheeled ones, don’t really take up much more room (when folded) and roll SOOOOOOOO much more easily that pushing them is a joy and much smoother. We have a Little Nipper double that was great, our neighbour have an equivalent single buggy that is on their second child, and was second hand to start with… Can be awkward to load/unload from a car if not got a flat load entrance (ie estate).

4: Can you manage with the fiesta for a bit? No point in spending loads on an estate now, with the intention of keeping it for years, if you end up with a set of twins on the way in 18months (I know some people this has happened to!). Do you really need to change the Fiesta now? We coped with Fiat Punto for the first 3 months untill we sold a house to get some capital It was mostly fine! A buggy and a changing bag is what you need day-to-day, would adding a roof-box allow you to manage trips away etc? Then you may have a better idea of what you want from a car?

If doing it all over again, I’d buy the biggest estate I could, as the previously mentioned comments about “stuff” are so true. But we always wanted more than one child, so planned that in… Though having a third child would mean swapping out both cars for some sort of 7 seaters..

Once old enough to not need a travel cot (and sleep in a full sized bed) the amount of stuff needed drops off remarkably, then once they’re out of the buggy (3yr old ish) it’s almost back to normal…. A new normal, but one that kind of feels reasonable rather than ridiculous….

Oh, and all kids are different, our two are poles apart in attitude, temperament and appearance! Until you have yours you may not know what you actually want/need…

Feel free to ignore all/any of the above, everyone manages parenthood differently so what works for one person could be the worst of all worlds for someone else! Just hope it’s of some use as thinking points if nothing else..

Cheers,
Keith

We found the best way to do this is to time your journeys around the baby’s normal sleep routine. You can generally get 1.5-2hrs then with the baby asleep.
You quickly get into a system routine & will end up stopping at some services to feed the baby etc.

We live on the IoW and visit parents in Bury St Edmunds. As above, the trip is catered to eating/sleeping patterns – most of our early Suffolk trips started in the evening with a food stop on the M25.

Focus Titanium Estate? The Mondeo is a big old car coming from a Fiesta, and the estate is considerably bigger.

I have partly vetoed a 2nd dog for the time being, shes isn’t happy and as much as we want a little friend for our current dog it isn’t realistic.

Not that I’ve any experience of owning either, but I’d respectfully suggest that anyone going “we’re expecting a baby, quick, let’s get a puppy!” needs their head examining. (-:

As for Cars, Estates, but bear in mind, young kids have so much crap that goes with them.

It’s the parents that take the crap, not the kids. Most of it is completely unnecessary.

With two (largeish) dogs and a baby we just about coped with a B6 Passat Estate, although it meant adding a roof box for anything more than an overnight. The dogs will take up *all* of the boot meaning you need to find space elsewhere for everyone’s luggage, and as already stated, buggies take up loads of space.

I’m actually surprised you got an Old English Sheepdog in a Fiesta to begin with tbh !

Not that I’ve any experience of owning either, but I’d respectfully suggest that anyone going “we’re expecting a baby, quick, let’s get a puppy!” needs their head examining. (-:

I have to agree, the puppy was however planned a long time before we knew of the baby, which was completely unplanned.

Thanks for the wall of text Kieth, really appreciate the points you have put across. This is why I love STW forums.

We could potentially manage with the fiesta for a while with a roof box, putting everything baby related in there and the dog continues to ride in the boot with some smaller stuff. It would also give me more time to think what we do need. Tbh i’d be happy with a sling and a backpack but I’m not always going to be there with the Mrs.

Timing trips around baby nap times sounds like something we’ll figure out as we go along. She has a bladder the size of a pea anyway so the standard 4hr journey normally contains 2-3 stops anyway.

Zafira B worked well for us with 2 greyhounds in the boot and the buggy behind the drivers seat. Slide middle seats forward and have 2 bikes in vertically with the front wheels off for bike duties too. Don’t buy the 1.6, it’s fine if you live somewhere flat, suprisingly nippy even, but dies on it’s @rse if you try to drive up a proper hill.

Next car will likely be a Astra/Focus sized estate though, much less gubbins to transport now mini me is 3.

Oh, and the 2nd dog….hold off…..we made the mistake of getting our 2nd dog shortly after the birth and despite what people say 2 dogs aren’t the same as 1 in terms of effort.

You could put the pram on the back seat and the dog(s) in the boot

I wouldn’t advise that in case of an accident. You don’t really want a pram taking out your child in a crash.

but I’d respectfully suggest that anyone going “we’re expecting a baby, quick, let’s get a puppy!” needs their head examining. (-:

This.

the puppy was however planned a long time before we knew of the baby

I figured as much. Consider the baby a puppy substitute (most couples do that the other way around, you realise).

I’m actually surprised you got an Old English Sheepdog in a Fiesta to begin with tbh !

She is a very small one, shes around 4″ smaller than she should be as she was the runt of the litter, her big brother who we see every month is twice her size. Pics below

Ponyo

2 dogs (labs) and 2 little ones here (toddler and baby). We have a Ford galaxy. We can get the dogs in the boot AND the double pram/pushchair plus other odds and ends if we go out. Middle set folds flat for more storage room or wife sits in it on long journeys between the kids. Previously had a yeti .. boot isn’t very big so the 2 dogs filled it straightaway. It was pretty useless space wise for us. Without dogs everything would be so much easier – they take up a lot of space.

Trips to the inlaws mean the roofbox goes on. Don’t underestimate how much gear you need to carry for even one night away with kids and dogs.

We had our dogs before the babies so we just get on with it but in your position I’d be holding off on that second dog for now.