Feet touch back of seat FF

[Kcoffecakebubs]

Hi

We have our 20 month old DS forward facing in his car seat (Joie 360 spin), and his feet touch the back of the passenger seat.

I just wondered if is this ok?

I know Rear facing is preferred, but he screams which is distracting, and also is sick every time he is rear facing, even of he's only been in the car 10 minutes, so for those reasons we now have him FF.

Thanks

[teaandlotusbiscoff]

It’s not the safest, as there has to be 55cm between DC’s nose and the seat infront when forward facing. I’d make sure that there is 55cm as if DC is long legged but still has the 55cm it could be fine

[PotteringAlong]

Just move the front seat forward? Problem solved?

[Kcoffecakebubs]

@PotteringAlong the seats as far forward as it can be, my knees are against the glove compartment. So can't do that.

@teaandlotusbiscoff thank you, I'll measure next time we're in the car.

[PotteringAlong]

How tall, and big, is your 20 month old if they can’t be forward facing without hitting the back of the seat in front of them when the seat is the furthest forward it can go? My 3 (4 next month) year old doesn’t do that. In fact, I’m not sure any of mine have. Is it only when his legs are completely outstretched? Or is it a car seat too big / car too small issue?

[Kcoffecakebubs]

@PotteringAlong he is big, 16.4kg, over 99.6th centile for height and weight, in age 3-4 clothes.

His feet touch it just sitting in the seat. But yes our car is too small, but unfortunately we're not in the position to change it at the moment.

[PotteringAlong]

@Kcoffecakebubs could you change to a smaller car seat? You don’t need one that can rear face if you’re only going to forward face?

[Kcoffecakebubs]

I guess that's something to look into, although I was hoping to jot have to buy another one until he gets to the weight limit. I had a big headache choosing this one. If we got another seat then I'd need it to last for a good while, and I always seem to find a lot of the seats don't harness over 18kg but I could be wrong.

[teaandlotusbiscoff]

As your DS is 16kg at 20 mos you’ll definitely need a 25kg seat.

Forward facing seats to 25kg
Joie bold—require isofix+tether+seatbelt for installation
Cosy n safe Excalibur—has a slightly shorter shell than the bold so may not last as long
Cosy n safe Hudson—the cheapest of 25KG seats
Baby auto dupla— can actually RF to 18kg, harness to 25KG then a booster
Maxi Cosi beryl—the only one which doesn’t require top tether. Can be seatbelt installed or isofix. Has a rather short shell, so not likely to last as long as the others.
Infasafe FX - don’t know much about it and
Chicco seat up - only one which doesn’t convert to booster, but I wouldn’t worry about that as boosters can be rather cheap. We found our bold to be rather wide so likely would be hard to use with seatbelt.

[Kcoffecakebubs]

Thank you, thats a really helpful list

[BertieBotts]

It isn't the best if his feet touch the seat in front, because this can lead to broken legs in an accident. However, if there's any space at all then you probably do meet the min 55cm requirement, which is about whether or not they would hit their head (which is a bit more serious than legs!)

I wouldn't worry about it overly yet, but as he gets bigger it might be best to get a seat where he sits a bit further back and there's some distance. You could always wait until he's close to 18kg before switching.

As he's big the Bold is the biggest of the 25kg options. However the BabyAuto Dupla crotch pad is a bit further forward which can be more comfortable for chunkier kids. I'd beware of the "beltfit" model which seems to be floating around some websites - stick to the one that uses isofix and top tether.

[BertieBotts]

@PotteringAlong

How tall, and big, is your 20 month old if they can’t be forward facing without hitting the back of the seat in front of them when the seat is the furthest forward it can go? My 3 (4 next month) year old doesn’t do that. In fact, I’m not sure any of mine have. Is it only when his legs are completely outstretched? Or is it a car seat too big / car too small issue?

It's probably because he's in a spinning rear/forward facing seat. They tend to sit a bit higher up in the car and further forwards to allow for room for the spinning mechanism and sometimes a rebound bar for rear facing (not in this particular seat). Purely forward facing seats sit a bit lower and further back on the car seat, so there's more distance. Also in smaller cars there is less room to begin with :)

[PotteringAlong]

@BertieBotts exactly. So it’s a seat too big / car too small issue, as I said. Which is why I suggested the smaller seat. It’s not that her child is too big, it’s that her set up doesn’t work for the car they have.

[BertieBotts]

Yep! Sorry, I missed that you were the same poster suggesting seats, I thought it was a standalone question.

[Princessbanana]

Just to add, most seats that harness to 25kg require isofix and a top tether, if you car is old then it might not have these. Just something to make sure of before you purchase.

[Kcoffecakebubs]

Car has isofox. Never checked for a top tether, but car is just 4 years old. Going to measure the head room, then perhaps look.to purchase the Baby Auto Dupla- either now or when he gets close to 18kg limit and we would need to change seat anyway

[BertieBotts]

It will likely have top tether if it's only 4 years old. They have been standard since 2013.

[Kcoffecakebubs]

@teaandlotusbiscoff @BertieBotts , we have measured the distance and it's 52cm with seat as far forward as we can go. So new car seat it is for the time being. We are looking to change the car at some point now, but of he continues over the top centile line he'll be over 18kg anyway later this year, so he'll outgrow the 360spin anyway.

Just wondering what your personal recommendations would be out of these mentioned previously? Ruling out shorter shell models, and we do have a top tether (just not much room!)

Joie bold
Cosy n safe Hudson
Baby auto dupla

Thank you, hope you don't mind the tags, you seem to be the experts!

[BertieBotts]

Is it 52cm from the corner of the seat crease, or from his position in the current car seat? Because if it's from the seat crease, you're taking a risk with any forward facing seat so it would be safer to go with a rear facing one, or move him to another position in the car.

Let me explain where it comes from - as part of the process to get a car seat approved, car seat manufacturers have to put their products through a crash test. As part of the crash test set up, there is a bar placed at this distance, 55cm forward from the seat crease. See attached, an image used in the legal guidelines to demonstrate. (For i-size seats, it's placed at 50cm, although currently there aren't any i-size seats harnessing higher than R44 seats unfortunately).

If the crash test dummy hits the bar, the seat fails the test. You will always get some degree of forward movement in a crash with a forward facing seat, but modern seats employ all kinds of methods to try and reduce this movement as much as possible.

Does that mean that your child is definitely going to go exactly 55cm forwards out of the seat if you did have a crash? No - not necessarily. It just means that provided you've installed the seat tightly enough and harnessed the child in correctly, they will come no further forward than 55cm. Hopefully, with a well-designed, highly tested model the companies themselves are going to design a bit of leeway into that - if I was going to design a seat myself, I probably wouldn't be satisfied with a 54cm head excursion just in case that extra 1cm caught me out on the day of the legal test! So you'd hope that with a decent quality seat you'd not be getting anywhere near 55cm of head excursion, and 52cm may be absolutely fine. But 55cm is the line where you can say yes, this is definitely a safe distance to install a child seat. So if you have less than 55cm space, you might want to think about whether you do want to use a forward facing car seat there, or not.

If you've measured from where his face is, then you'll be fine - plenty of space over the 55cm minimum!

Of the three seats suggested, I am not as keen on the Cozy n Safe, I would only recommend it if you need something especially narrow or lightweight. Joie Bold has been tested by ADAC and only got an average safety rating, but that might just be because it's a seat for an older child and of course the bigger the dummy = higher forces involved. BabyAuto Dupla hasn't been tested by any independent agency but they do seem to design and test their own seats at a university lab in Spain and so I'd put them at a similar level of trust to Joie.

[mootymoo]

Not sure if they are still made but mine had graco seats at 2 years old, forward facing only with a harness that could be removed when they outgrew it. Our car was small and 2 fitted fine in the back. the reversible seats are huge, as you are forward facing I would look at a seat that can be harnessed for the longest period.

[mootymoo]

Should add they lasted until 6 harnessed and 10 with seat belt.

[BertieBotts]

In the UK, mooty? The Graco seats in the UK are only harnessed to 18kg unfortunately. You can buy them with longer harness limits in America, but their laws aren't the same as ours so you can't buy those models here.

[Kcoffecakebubs]

@BertieBotts I measured from the front of his face!🤦🏻‍♀️

So it should be ok then seeing as I measured from the wrong bit! At least it's less of a panic, his feet still touch the seat and he will outgrow this year so still need a change, but at least I have more time.

I had no Idea how much room the spin seat would take up, but we had our reasons for needing one at the time of purchase. As it turns out we couldn't keep him RF due to his car sickness.

[BertieBotts]

Ah then he will be fine in the 360 :) Legs still an issue, but as they get bigger, their legs eventually touch the front seat in any seat... it's not really something you can avoid.

[Kcoffecakebubs]

Thanks @BertieBotts, and by the size of him the legs would be touching sooner than later anyway!