You are completely right in your thought process.

Here's what I do:

On the front, I use a hydraulic jack to jack up the car. Please bear
this in mind with my description; I know what it is when I see it, but
I find it difficult to describe by words, so here goes;

The hydraulic jack is located to the front suspension mount point
where the lower control arm connects to the frame/body from a large
bolt.  I jack up the car there then place the jack stands under the 2
notches as you described earlier. Of course the stands don't get
placed until the car gets high enough. The idea is that I find points
along the suspension that are fixed. Given that the suspension is
designed to handle the stress/load of the weight of the car during
cornering, it can more than handle the load of jacking the car up off
of the floor.

On the back I do the same thing.

On my previous Maxima and present Sentra, I have a beam to deal with
in the rear. In that case I jack up the middle of the beam and that
lifts up both rear wheels. The rear end is usually much lighter than
the front for FWD vehicles

Always use jackstands and know where to put them.

Hope this helps

CD