[simonsarris]

Is this really true in 2026? Even 10 year old cars are simply big now, and not that expensive. I could believe it in 1990 maybe.

I have 3 babies (ages 0, 2, 4 when we started) in a 2016 Subaru Outback for 1.5 years now and it's been mostly fine. I have 2 "slim" seats from Clek, one is a booster, and it's really not a big deal. I cannot imagine deciding to give up a child because of a minor inconvenience like this.

Buying slim car seats is just not that expensive compared to buying a new car, so we did that. It's hard to believe that people who really want 3 children cannot make it work.

[bombcar]

As mentioned it’s an attempt to note the pressure without doing direct interviews.

And not to disparage you or cast aspersions, but if you think about why you do not have a fourth kid it’s likely that “have to get new vehicle” could be part of it.

Of course, when you come around from the other end (fourth is on the way, what do) you then change the equation and work it out.

To test the theory presented in the study, we should issue minivans with car seats to new parents; since they have a vehicle large enough they should statistically have more kids than the median.

[kelnos]

> I cannot imagine deciding to give up a child because of a minor inconvenience like this.

I don't think the article was suggesting that parents sit down together, ask each other "hey, should we have a third kid?" and one of them says, "well, I would say yes, but the only downside I can think of is that fitting a third child seat will be really hard, so let's not do it."

Parents who decide not to have the third kid certainly have other reasons for not wanting one, and the difficulty of a third car seat is a contributing factor, not the only consideration.

[magarnicle]

Only quite small cars would have this problem - we had to upgrade from a Honda Jazz/Fit for this reason, but only to a Hyundai i30.