To think car seat safety groups on Facebook are absolutely mental!

I've seen these pages. I just don't know how kids fit into a rear facing seat as they get bigger.

DD is 5 and tall, her knees would be up by her ears if she was rear facing.

I actually once posted something similar to the above on a car seat group and had about 8 women trawling through my profile pictures and telling me how ugly they think I am 😔

I also think that people who are avid “we must follow all of the rules all of the time” don’t take into account that knowledge, research and recommendations change constantly. I used cot bumpers with my DD before they got banned because the messages back then were “It reduces head bangs”. Same with those thingies that you hooked to do door frame so they could bounce being told it’s safe and helps with leg development or something. Wholly and faithfully buying into advice is not the holy grail people think it is

It’s to do with bone ossification, particularly the within the vertebrae. The vertebrae most commonly injured during a car accident doesn’t close until around 4, though in some children later. The older the child, the more their bones will have hardened, decreasing the risk of injury in a crash.

A forward facing 5 point harnessed seat in a collision will pin the child’s body back and fling their head forward putting excessive pressure on the child’s neck. The impact will be more evenly distributed in a rear facing seat.

My ds is quite small so I’d like to keep him rear facing until 6-7, or whenever he’s big enough to safely have a high backed booster using a normal seatbelt. In a bigger child it wouldn’t necessarily need to be as long.

Hope this helps without making me sound like part of the cult!

Its been a gamechanger! He started off beeing able to take his arms out then one day driving down one of those smart motorways with no hard shoulder to stop he unclipped the harness and climbed out his seat! It was so terrifying! I avoided longer journeys and the motorway as he found it a funny game as I had to pull over to strap him back in! A lady in mamas and papas suggested putting the hard side of velcro on the harness clip but it didn't stop him! He likes his pillow I call it to him on the cybex car seat and he looks and seems comfortable in it and his arms aren't long enough to undo the belt that holds it in place but he's not even attempted to! I reccomend the cybex car seat with the impact shield to all my toddler mum friends! We are finally able to go places without worry and stressing when he undoes the harness where can I pull over next!

When my 2 year old started getting car sickness when rear facing we turned her around, her legs were getting a big long anyway.....

I think keeping an average sized 6 year old rear facing is bonkers. My first daughter was tall enough not to even need a car seat by 8...

depsite my kids being 8 and 12 I’ve stayed in two types of groups because the mental posts are hysterical - that is car seat safety and breastfeeding groups.

I forward faced both mine at 12 months. They would scream being rear facing by the age of 1 (they both get motion sickness now so it may have been that) and I felt it was more dangerous to have two screaming children in the car than just facing them forward

I've never been on these groups but I defriended someone who went on and on about car seats and eventually was practically 'PARENTS WHO USE FORWARD FACING SEATS BEFORE AGE 4 ARE MURDERS'. I mean, it wasn't quite that extreme, but close. A lot of 'holier than thou' about it.

Another aspect to safety is the driver being confident to focus on the road and their driving.

I'm a widowed grandma, so didn't have another adult in the car with me when I drove with my little grandchildren in rear facing seats. Even with the extra mirrors I couldn't see their faces, and that freaked me out. I couldn't confirm that they were okay, and so I was slightly distracted and worrying about them rather than just concentrating on driving.

I won't say what age my DD put them forward facing, but it was a huge relief to me. When I have them now, I'm a safer driver, because I can check on them with the briefest of glances in the rear view mirror.

We have the airbag one! It’s great, our LB loves it.

I often feel those groups lack the nuance between less safe and unsafe

Exactly this! Lots of people have a very poor appreciation of relative risk. I once got drawn into a debate with someone because I said that the safest thing (if we are going to talk absolutes) is to not let your child travel in a car at all but I don’t think she got the point I was trying to make and we went off at a massive tangent.

I’d always ask BertieBotts on here.

I honestly sometimes think MN should pay her, she’s so informative and helpful but also unfailingly NICE.

There's no rear facing harnessed seat on the market which goes beyond 125cm, so the 36kg seats are almost always outgrown by height, not weight.

I know people have very strong feelings on this and it can cause chaos when it’s brought up.

But to absolutely agree some of these Facebook groups are insane! I feel many of you may know the one I mean. Run by a lady with the initial G.

I actually agree with rear facing and my two are in britax max safes for as long as they will fit, but I actually got blocked from her group having never commented on a post in my life, I think because I laugh reacted to someone calling her out! She’s is a cult leader I swear! People will make a post saying they can’t afford the seats and she will say well, sell your car/home/soul and buy the seat I sell or your child will die.

I’m confused about their legs, where do they go?

My kids are only teenagers but they were forward facing as soon as they didn’t fit their first baby seat, normal at that time (2010/11)

FFS no wonder so many young people can't cope with life. Mothers strapping them in to rear facing seats at 6 and 7 years old. Depressing.

There's a way to deliver information. They are just rude. People are a lot more likely to listen to you when you're not a dick.

Can I ask why 6 or 7 though? What changes at that point if the seat is up to 36kg? As I said previously, that's double the weight of my 6 year old. Does the difference on safety between FF and RF become less as children get older? And is it as they get older or is it heavier and/or taller? I've never ventured onto the FB groups and struggled to find any actual information (not just opinions) when reading about it online.

I intend to keep my Ds in his 36kg exclusive rear facing seat until he’s 6-7 years. Fully fully on board with rear facing as long as possible.
But yes, some of the comments on these fb pages can be particularly mean.

I’m looking at one of these for my DD aged 2y 8m. Likewise I’ve had to stop rear facing due to her being able to get both arms out of the harness straps. No matter how tight the harness is, she will be crying it’s too tight etc she can still get out of it. I have no idea how she manages it!

I really need to look into the safety of cybex seats. How do you find yours?

I think I actually saw your post! The group used to be soooooo much worse! A lot of the admin/moderators left the group quite suddenly and as a group they would definitely bully people.

It depends on your child and situation so YANBU at all IMO.

We live in the Netherlands so hardly use a car at all (bike, walk or use public transport for everything). We do have a car, which mainly gets used in the school holidays to take the children to see their grandparents. These journeys are extremely long (12+ hours) so rear-facing for such a long time is totally not the same conversation as e.g. a 10-minute school run.

My eldest is now 6 but forward-faced from an early age as he is extremely long and leggy. It would have been VERY uncomfortable for him to be concertinaed into a rear-facing car seat for such long journeys.

By contrast, our nearly 2yo is of a totally different morphology: long torso, short legs. He is still rear facing and will continue to do so for some time yet (until we perceive that such long journeys are no longer comfortable/feasible for him while rear facing).

In short, people need to use their common sense.

Surely comfort depends on the person. I’m an adult and I look at rear facing children with their legs crossed, or on the seat with their knees above their hips or whatever and think I’d be far more comfortable like that. I find sitting at right angles like very uncomfortable and if my legs were dangling unsupported like they do in FF seats I’d really really struggle. Maybe because I’m hypermobile, but I am a bit jealous of seating positions ERF children have available.

I'm curious about rear facing til 36kg - that seems the weight of a child considerably older than the age most children would outgrow needing a car seat anyway (typically Y4ish)? My average height Y2 is 18kg so it's double her weight.

Car seat safety groups hate those seats.. unless it's the really expensive airbag one