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Nope, I think you would be fine with 1 kid & two little dogs with those vehicles, especially commuting I would stick with the better gas mileage.

I drove my lo around in my little Saturn for 2 years with no issue we upgraded to a van after lo2 was born but only because our families are out of town and we do a lot of driving travel.

I think it totally depends on the car/space. Can you fit a stroller in the trunk? How much room is there when you put a rear facing car seat in? Will you want other people to be able to ride with you? There are sedans that have great room for all of those. I had a rogue that is a crossover and I got annoyed with it because if I wanted to sit in the back and nurse him I could barely fit. We traded it in for an SUV, but I've been in much roomier sedans than the crossover was...

We had a VW Jetta and a VW Passat when our first LO was born. I am SO GLAD we upgraded to Jetta to a Ford Explorer just over a month after she was born. Everything was such a tight fit in the small cars and the extra space is awesome! And I can't fathom any sort of road trip with the baby and dog without the SUV.

I think you are fine. We have twins and 2 dogs and they all fit in my CRV. My one dog sits in my lap and the other 50lb dog can fit on the foot space in the second row. (We did try once to put my bigger dog in the cargo area when we didn't need the stroller and my dog hated it. So that's why we moved her to the second row foot space.) The double stroller does take up the back cargo area, so I wouldn't take my CRV on a long road trip. For quick trips, my crv works. My husband has a highlander and it's a smidge larger. I'm petite and can fit between the two car seats in my CRV. The highlander can fit a person a bit bigger between the two car seats.

Oh, I am tiny enough that I can crawl through the front to get in/out without having to remove the car seats.

Anyway, I think you are fine with one kid and small dogs.

We have a medium size dog and one child. We drive a Nissan Versa and it's decent. With another child, we will need something bigger for trips, but as an everyday car it will be fine.

I had a Mercedes C230 and vowed never to get an SUV because I loved having a smaller car. Sometime around the time DD turned 6 months I became fed up with what a pain it was to get her in and out of my car. And the pain of getting the stroller in the trunk. And the pain of having to push the front passenger seat way up to accommodate the rear facing car seat.

I recently got an Audi Q5 and I'm SOOOOO happy that I did. All the annoyances are completely gone with the larger, taller car.

We have an Acura TSX, and it's a comfy fit with two kids. My only complaint is trunk space, and one day I would like to upgrade to a TSX wagon. We've traveled 14+ hours in the car with two kids, and it works for us.

You'll be fine in the smaller car but I do have to say, it's much easier to change a baby from a trunk of a SUV (which we did all the time).

If you are planning on buying a stroller, I would test out how it fits in your trunk and think about taking that along with any gear you need for your family day to day and on trips. I had a Mazda 3 and the stroller fit in the trunk but nothing else could really go in there. The backseat with the carseat was tight - we couldn't move the front seat back. We ended up getting a Prius V which has tons of space.

No, you don't. Our Chrysler Sebring was more than enough space for two adults and one kid. It got dicey with our second only because the double stroller was a pain to get into the trunk and once in there, left room for little else (like groceries). We don't have dogs, but we regularly did multi-day road trips with our eldest, baby gear and luggage in that car, and everything fit just fine.