Since when have Citroen's and Peugeot's been considered reliable?

As a father of three, my wife and I have some experience of carting children and babies around. The most important (after reliability) is the height of the car. Low cars are a "no no". As you stretch into the car to put a heavy baby seat in, there is a great deal of strain on your back and it hurts; leaning over to attach the seatbelt makes it even harder. A higher car eases the strain.

There are may alternatives as have been identified above. If you are doing almost exclusively suburban driving then you dont need anything which is fantastic on a long run. The less gizmos the better as they go wrong. I would get remote central locking and air conditioning. Electric rear windows are a pain.

The car need not be huge. The Nissan Note has a sliding rear seat which can swap between a larger boot at the expense of rear legroom. It is a bit low though. Berlingo and Xsara Picasso would be good cars, even the C3 Picasso if you can find one for £6,000. Maybe find a Golf Plus or a Mk1 Ford C-Max. As said above, no need for a seven seater such as the Mazda5, unless you found a cheap one. They are reliable.

Petrol is far better than diesel for this type of driving.

A left field choice may be a Mercedes A-Class. My wife dropped down from a huge 7 seat MPV to one of these despite having three children and did not miss the extra space at all. In fact the model they have just replaced has been very reliable, comfortable and has a remarkable amount of internal room for such a small car outside. She gets an average of 34mpg despite having a heavy foot and loads of urban driving. It has withstood over four years of abuse with nary a wimper.