I’m on my final stretch of pregnancy and so my husband and I have been contemplating on getting a larger car for our expanding family. Lucky for us, Ford Australia reached out and offered to let us try their Ford Kuga, their 5-seater small family SUV, for a few days.

We decided to go on a staycation around Melbourne (since I don’t want to go too far away from where my hospital is!) and this made me realize how perfect this car is for an expanding family and for use during pregnancy as it had all my requirements for a “perfect family car”, especially during pregnancy, checked off!

So what do we pregnant-with-a-toddler (or toddlers) mommas look for in a car?

Basically space and convenience, amirite?

Well, the Ford Kuga offers both, and so much more.

Here are the ten features I think a perfect family car should have that the Ford Kuga has provided us with.

1. Spacious Leg Space

First and foremost: leg space. Oh yeah. Us pregnant ladies get pins and needles from sitting in the same position for too long, we need to be able to move our legs around and stretch them out; plus we need extra space if we need to grab something from the floor.

Click on one of the images below to view the gallery.

Look at how spacious the leg space is! I’ve had an Audi Q3 and a Mercedes Benz GL in the past, and I can confirm that the leg space in the Kuga is actually bigger.

I also need to mention how perfect the height of the car is. We currently have a Mercedes Benz E200 and my husband always complains about having to bend so low into the backseat of the car to buckle Zayden up, and it really hurts his back. The Kuga has just the right height for us to put our kids in their car seats – not too low, not too high.

 

2. Spacious Boot/Trunk

Having a spacious boot is just as important as having lots of leg space as we need to store not just shopping bags but strollers. We have a Baby Jogger City Select with one seat (baby no. 2 will be using a car capsule in the stroller) and even with the stroller in the boot we can still fit a bunch of other stuff in the boot.

In the images above, our boot was filled with Zayden’s stroller and some household stuff we’ve been needing to buy for a while from IKEA and Kmart, including a huge storage tub, some wall shelves, a large wood chop block, and lots of other knick knacks. They all fit cozily in the boot just fine.

I remember disliking how small the boot of our Audi Q3 was – we couldn’t fit much else if we had our stroller in the back of the car. That was one of the main reasons why we decided to sell our Audi Q3 – we needed more space.

If you need to get taller and bigger furnitures from IKEA, the backseats can also be folded down so you can definitely go furniture shopping with this one! (Just don’t bring the kids, of course!)

As with most SUVs, they also have a boot cover that we can just roll away when we don’t need to use it.

Closing the boot is also one press-of-a-button away, which makes life so much easier for a pregnant woman!

 

3. Spacious Compartments

Still in the “space” category, I’m always fussy about having spacious compartments in the car.

I love how large the door/side compartments are in the Kuga. My camera bag rarely ever fits into a car’s side compartment or “door pocket”, and look at that! My camera bag fits cozily on the passenger door pocket/compartment. The glovebox and centre console underneath the armrest in the front seats is also deep and spacious.

I also love how they provided a small “bowl” on the door and side of the front seats for small knick knacks like coins, hairties, and what-not. Not many cars have this!

 

4. Heated Seats

Now, on to the real deal. My favorite feature of all.

Seat warmers! Oh my goodness. Backache? What backache?

I swear I slept like a baby multiple times from turning on the seat warmers. You can adjust the warmth of your seat, and it heats up immediately, radiating from the seat to your back. I don’t have much to say about this except for how life changing and helpful this feature was, especially during pregnancy.

I honestly wanted to sleep in the car as we don’t have these at home! Repetitively heating wheat bags in the microwave aren’t as convenient as these press-of-a-button-away heated seats!

 

5. Trays

Another top favorite feature – tied with the seat warmers – are the trays in the back seat. Yes, trays just like the ones they have in planes. I occasionally sit in the back seat just so I can use the tray and blog away!

Zayden loves using this as a footrest (shoes off, of course) when he’s sleeping, he would ask me to lift up the tray right before he dozes off. He also loves using this to put his iPad on. I allow him to watch stuff on his iPad during long trips. He also eats on the tray.

Even with the tray up, I can still sit comfortably because of how spacious the car is.

Look at that space!

 

6. Active Park Assist

Now, on to one of my husband’s favorite features – Active Park Assist! Parallel parking in Melbourne can be a pain in the bum, especially in the CBD and South Yarra/Toorak area, and the park assist feature is such a time-and-energy (and life) saver! It simplifies the process of parallel parking by finding a park you can fit into and steers the car into it with a simple push-of-a-button while we control the accelerator and brakes.

My Mercedes Benz E200 also has a “Park Assist” feature but we can’t control the speed of the car when it’s parking and it can often be scary because it parks the car at a pretty high speed. However, with Ford, we get to control the speed, which I honestly much prefer.

 

7. Keyless Driving & Entry

Got your hands full? No need to rummage through your purse to find your key. Simply keep your keys in your purse and get close enough to the car – it will unlock itself! You can also turn the ignition on with the push of a button (with your foot on the brake, of course) without having to take the keys out of your pocket or purse.

The Ford Kuga I tried only had the keyless driving feature, but it was still impressive!

The Smart Keyless Entry also features Hands-free Power Tailgate where the tailgate can open and close with a kick of your foot under the bumper. Perfect for mommas with toddlers because you’ve probably got your hands full and your keys in your pocket or purse.

 

8. Large Panoramic Sunroof

Just a bonus but I love sunroofs that go all the way to the back seat. Share the sunlight!

Most cars only have sunroofs above the front seats, but ours went all the way to the backseat and Zayden loved it – he enjoyed looking up to the sky.

My favorite is when it rains though. So therapeutical!

 

9. User-Friendly Infotainment System

One thing I dislike about changing cars is trying to get used to the new operating system. I love how Ford’s infotainment system has a simple four-quadrant layout marked with four different colors.

The yellow tab (top left) is for everything phone-related, the green tab (top right) is for navigation (GPS), the red tab (bottom right) is for entertainment where you can choose to access music from a wide variety of sources, and the blue tab (bottom right) is for climate.

It also has voice control features!

They also have Bluetooth and USB, AUX, and SD Card slots inside the centre console.

 

10. Adaptive Cruise Control & Other Safety Features

My husband’s top favorite feature is the adaptive cruise control “Active City Stop” feature that detects if the car ahead of us has unexpectedly stopped or slowed down and automatically reduces our speed to adjust to the speed of the car ahead of us to avoid accidents while we’re driving on cruise control.

Turning your cruise control on and off throughout the freeway can be tiring, so my husband loved that he was on cruise control throughout his drive along the freeway! Didn’t turn it off, not even once!

The car also has other handy features such as parking sensors and cameras, and sensors that notify the driver when it’s not safe to change lanes.

 

 

So those are my ten requirements for a family car, which Ford Kuga has incredibly fulfilled! We had such a wonderful time driving around with the car, this is definitely on top of our list!

Here are some fun shots we took during our trips…

…and some gorgeous exterior shots of the car!

What are your perfect-family/pregnancy-car requirements?

 

Disclaimer: This blogpost was kindly sponsored by Ford Australia, however all opinions expressed are, as usual, unbiased and of my own.