baby seat questions

im a proud father of a 2 months old boy, and a few days before my girlfriend gave birth i tried to put a baby seat on the rear passenger side but the front seat wouldnt slide all the way back and clip in! so i gave up thinking it wasnt to big of a deal but now when we go to the camp we have to go with the equinox and lets say its more of a city SUV then a bush SUV lol
ive looked all over and i didnt find what i was looking for: when installed the baby seat is to big for the front seat to clip in place so the back support stays folded and the seat just slides back and forward, i dont find this safe.
and i dont really want to seat him in front.
what did you guys do?

 

When my girl was an infant in one of those colossal rear-facing car seat, I put her in the front seat and turned the airbag off.

This is completely acceptable, so long as you have the ability to turn the airbag off (I don't know if that was still a feature in the 01-04s).

Bill Finchbaugh (sp?) is one of the nation's leaders of infant/toddler/child car seat safety and he personally installed my daughter's car seat in my Tacoma.

When she became forward facing, her car seat fit just fine in the back behind the passenger side seat (just flip out the cup holders, their dual purpose is to support a car seat).

 

ya them rear facing seat are so big, even more with the flip down carring handle that you cant leave upwards it takes like a foot of space on its own! but the thing is i dont wanna set the seat in front cause on week days i pick a coworker and the week-end i often go wheeling with a buddy sitting beside me, it would be a pain to always remove and put back the baby seat and set it up properly every few days.... but maybe its the only way to go

 

It is.

Short of starting a healthy regiment of horse steroids for your boy to get him into a front facing seat sooner... you'll just have to make do. I did. It's not bad.

Can you turn the airbag off in your '03?

 

you bet

 

We had an x-tra cab Tacoma when we had our daughter. We had no choice to put her in the front. Make sure the air bags are turned off. And when we would go on long trips well, the yota had to stay home in the end we just had to bite the bullet and get a bigger Tacoma. Good luck, small trucks and infant car seats suck.

 

yes my next taco will definetly be a 4door