To be shocked people are actually rear-facing their primary age kids

Britax are the ones that had the biggest and widest rear facing car seat with the highest weight range. My youngest was height and weight of a 5 year old at 20 months old and built like a rugby player and the britax car seat he was fine in until he was nearly 7 years old! He was really comfy in it too and complained constantly about his legs and hips being sore when he started forward facing as the weight of them pulling down and the pressure from sitting he’d not had before

The information out there in around 2012 was still forward facing from around 9kg or 13kg I believe but I dug deeper and found out about the ERF being used in Nordic countries and decided to go against the grain and go for a rear facing seat. They were definitely hard to find and very expensive compared to what you could pick up in mothercare or halfords or the like.

Thanks so much will have a look 😊😊 xx

Mine was rear facing until age 6. he would have been longer but that seat won’t go in my new car, only my husbands, and he’s left is so we are forward facing now. H would be even safer rear facing and seats exhaust that accommodate this so it’s sensible for parents to rear face until the child outgrows the seat (typically age 6/7, mine may have made 8 as he’s small)

Why is it any concern of yours? If the child, the seat and the car are all the right size to rear-face, it’s statistically safer so I’d say good on the parents. Perhaps if you were in Sweden you’d see rather more of this, but in any case, you do you.

I think because its less common that like you say people simply dont seem too aware.

I never bothered with an infant carrier, some people will find that odd but given an infant is meant to be in it for 30mins max then I didnt see the point. Many use them now on prams. I bought an extended rear facing seat which came with a newborn cushion. It was £600+ but depending on height and weight, will last my child until 6/7. Il be ERF for as long as possible. Its obviously far safer but if it compare what i paid with other premium brand seats, its saved me money in only having to buy one

I think it tends to be hereditary. I have no issue facing backwards on transport - train or bus. My 3 year old has never complained of feeling sick either. If he had, I would forward face him. As he doesn't, he's fine rear-facing. He has had a couple of 'goes' at forward facing - has never showed a preference for it either.

It was 9 months minimum when yours were a baby... the baby seats went to 13kg.
It changed to 15months minimum in 2017.

Yes, same with my DS who is 14. He was in the small baby seat (the type you can hand-hold and move out of the car) then once he outgrew that, it was forward facing. It does seem there are others with similar aged DC who did extended rear facing so clearly the benefits were known and out there, but I certainly wasn’t aware- I don’t even recall extended rear-facing car seats being in mothercare/halfords/argos and I seemed to be following the right ‘guidelines’ at the time?

Yeah, I don’t know anyone who does that 🤷‍♀️. If you really wanted to stretch the argument I’d suggest that drunk driving your children in a rear facing seat is still going to be safer than drunk driving them in a forward facing seat. However I’m not aware of any direct correlation between parents’ drinking habits and their choice to forward or rear-face their child in a car so I’m not sure where your post fits in to this discussion.

What amazes me is the number of adults who refuse to sit facing backwards on a train but happily sit their kids facing backwards. I get that it’s safer, but how do they not feel sick?

When did the information change to suggest rear facing until an older age? My youngest is 13 and it was always front facing after moving out of the initial baby seat at around 4-6 months

We had the Kiss 2 in our Ford Focus with two tall/long legged parents.

I think that the people that are thinking that extended rear facing squishes a child's legs are imagining an infant carrier/first car seat.

Extended rear facing seats offer leg room for older children. The part of the seat where the children's legs go does not touch the actual seat of the car.

My eldest is 6th form age and rear faced until 7 years.

It cost us £400 back in the day but It's only £125 now!!!!

https://incarsafetycentre.co.uk/products/kiss-2-plus

It rear faced to 13kg in the infant part and 18kg using the whole frame.

We used to have people stop us to ask about this seat.

Is that the Britax Two Way Elite?

We had that one a d we loved it!

Before that, we had the Kiss 2 where the infant seat part would slot into a bigger frame.

I remember when my youngest was a baby, we went to look around a nursery school and wheeled him along on it as it had a handle so you could pull it along behind you like a wheeled suitcase. He slept like a dream in the school office in that seat while we looked around the nursery.

Yep! The seat was rear facing to 25kg back in 2016 and my child was small for their age.

The idea is that it's safest to keep them in it for as long as possible until they outgrown it by weight or height.

You are shocked that people have learned it’s safer to rear face, that since we can buy car seats that rear face up to potentially 7, that people do this??

In theory, we’d all be safer and get less injuries, if we rear faced. But at least while their bones are still weaker why would you not?

The car seat I have for my daughter will rear face until 125cm or 36kg (whichever comes first) she is tall so I expect and hope to get to 6 years. Then she will be ready for a high backed booster.

These parents will l get black out drunk and ‘look after’ their kids whilst in that state and leave drugs around the home where kids can access them - but god forbid forward facing their children because it’s ‘unsafe’.

I have known parents to meet with other parents after school at the pub and will drive home after drinking but will preach about how unsafe forward facing kids are. Like, don’t you think drunk driving is unsafe out of anything, but you still do that?

Can see all the sheep on here - so many saying along the lines of 'only see extended rear-facing on Mumsnet'. So what? That's your excuse for not keeping your child the safest that you can? Do better, it's a pathetic argument!

My son isn't 4 yet but he is still rear-facing. I'm more shocked at the amount of toddlers I see (his age and younger) that I see already forward-facing. Why would any parent move away from what is safer? Yet so many seem to. I think it's ignorance. Or parents just follow like sheep. They perhaps think 'Oh I never see any forward facing kids so it must be OK to do that too'. My son is on the smaller side of his age and I will continue to rear-face him until he tells me he's uncomfortable. He doesn't complain so I will continue to do what is the safest way for now.

I saw something recently about that, but the height limit was still 125cm which wouldn't help me! My kids are very heavy but also a higher centile for height than for weight, so very tall 😅 They outgrew their Minikid 2 by height rather than weight.

Great that it exists though!