Rear facing baby seat in a rearfacing seat car seat ?

[Number6at40]

Hi, I have just got a new car , middle row of seats can be rear facing .
I have a 7 yr old a 5 yr old and a 5 month old .
I would like to use the middle seats rear facing with the 5yr old and baby .
If Ido ,do I turn the baby car seat ( britax forward and rear facing) so she is still travelling backwards ?
And is this still a safe option ?
Thanks

[Anomaly]

I would say that you would have the baby car seat fitted to the seat in what in most cars would be the foreward facing position and then have the whole seat rearfacing. But I'm not an expert so can't say how safe it would be. Why don't you try contacting this lot I bet they would know for sure www.rearfacing.co.uk/

[BertieBotts]

No you can't do this.

The seat isn't tested for use in this position - it's a pain as of course it would be much safer! But it's not advised to do this at all. If you contact the car seat manufacturers or look in the manual you'll see it's a no-no. Child car seats are designed to be installed in forward facing adult seats only.

It might be doable with something like you describe, but I have a feeling not - the stresses on the seatbelt etc are totally different because the force of a frontal impact is so much higher than a rear impact. It's definitely not advised with a booster seat IIRC.

[BertieBotts]

In the instructions of the First Class (www.britax.co.uk/media/2540722/9.pdf) it says NOT to use on seats which face backwards.

I don't know which seat your 5 year old is in but Britax's advice on their KidPlus high backed booster is as follows:

1. Use is permitted on a rearward-facing vehicle
   seat (e.g. in a van or minibus) only if the vehicle
   seat is also approved for use by adults. The seat
   may not be in the area of effect of an airbag
   
   If you don't have the manual for your car seat any more you can usually find it in PDF form on the manufacturer's website. (The Britax one is scary though as all of their instruction videos started playing at once!)

[breatheslowly]

I'd ask www.incarsafetycentre.co.uk/ for advice.

[Number6at40]

Thanks everyone , both the 5 and 7 are in recaro starts.
I will contact the rearfacing and incarsafety for advice ,
I did think it would maybe be safer traveling rearfacing
Thanks again

[BertieBotts]

It is safer to travel rear facing definitely - it's just whether the booster seats are designed to cope with this. :)

Perhaps you could put the baby in the back row rear facing and the older two in the middle, rear facing if their car seats allow?

[BertieBotts]

Hmm - the instructions of that seat say "Always install in direction of travel"

You could try contacting Recaro as they are more likely to know than the in car safety centre I would have thought - they won't have crash test details for every single model of car seat whereas the manufacturer of that seat will.