To wonder why parents choose to forward face their child from a young age?

Backwards facing wasn’t much of thing 15+ years ago, except for very small babies. 40 years ago it was just a Moses basket on the back seat - and try not to break too sharply! Personally I like to be able to see the child. My two survived!

5 times, I believe.

Because they view it as some sort of milestone that means their child is advanced.

The same reason that they allow a child under the 125cm and/or 22kg child to sit on a backless booster or a child under 135cm having no seat? Not informed enough and peer pressure. I had my kid's teacher child (age 6) bullying my 6 year old because mine was sitting in a high back booster and she was a big kid as she was in a backless one. There is no way she is 125cm.

It also doesn't help that the big retailers don't have extended rear facing seats.

I'm not sure but I've had to completely grey rock my mother in law on the issue because she is absolutely determined to forward face even under 18 months, as though any suggestion otherwise is a personal attack on her. Just constant hassle and nagging and passive aggressive digs. I can only assume at this point that she wants them to get injured in a crash and so I no longer engage on the topic.

I'm curious now (as I haven't got to that phase yet), what does "much safer" mean? Double? Ten times? 100 times? And in which situations is it safer? High speed crash? I suppose that for a parking lot accident it doesn't really matter.

I imagine that the safety gain from any approved correctly installed car seat is much bigger than the bonus of specific model/rear facing.

I was completely comfortable with the slightly increased risk of a forward facing seat in return for a 100000x better driving experience and more comfortable seat for by DC as we had a small car. I used to watch poor DN with his feet up on the seat in front because he couldn't fit and think, "I'll take the risk" thank you. The same SIL won't take her car on long journeys because statistically, trains are safer. That's a choice she makes that I wouldn't ever make.

The reality is that we make decisions where we balance risk vs convenience all the time. This one is just more contentious because there are specific guidelines and the moment the government says something, people get a whole lot more vocal about it.

Other risk/reward things we make decisions about all the time are things like when and how to allow our children out independently, or to stay at home alone. When and how to allow them to have alcohol. When to use kitchen equipment etc etc etc.

Can I ask, with genuine curiosity, what the point of being of one (especially multiple) car seat groups is? I know it sounds like a smart arse question, but I just really wonder what you get from that?

Hope you’ve got your hard hat on op, car seats are something which the vast majority would do poorly than admit they might have got it wrong.

car sickness can often be solved by other things and behavioural issues need solving in other ways rather than just turning them forward.

but, ignorance is bliss and all that/ luckily most people won’t have severe accidents to make their poor sense of safety and lack of knowledge make a difference.

We moved our twins forward facing at 15 months old. Travel sickness and inconsolable crying were the reasons. That x2 is horrendous. We did no motorway driving. We were experiencing unsafe episodes of driving due to the impact.

My daughter is 6.5 years old and still rear faces. Will be updating her car seat soon to FF

intend to give my son her seat soon and rear faces him until he is 4+

Four? My kid could have passed as an six year old he was so big!

I forward faced my 15 month old after I crashed the car in a parking lot because of his screaming.

He had been screaming in his car seat since he was born. Any journey over 5 minutes (we never went anywhere more than 20 minutes away) was hell. Complete hell. Lots of singing and games and toys placated him for the first 5 minutes of a journey.

My nervous system was shot, I started developing anxiety about driving!

The second I forward faced him, he stopped crying.

Edited to say I myself suffer from travel sickness so I suspect he's the same but couldn't say it obviously.

30 years ago they went in a rear facing seat until about 9 months. The seats were just little baby carriers so they soon grew out of them

It only fits when the front seat is quite far forward, further than is good for driving for us. So when the second child came along, they went behind the passenger seat, older child (he was 3 anyway) went forward facing behind the driver's seat.

DD1 and DS were perfectly fine. I used to wonder why people did forward facing so early… then DD2 happened and oh my fucking god that child can scream and puke.

I couldn’t drive safely with that at all. To be honest we tend to use public transport more than the car now when we’re going into town. They don’t all fit in my Fiat 500 and I’m not giving her up to get a bigger car till I have to. If we’re going somewhere as a family we take DH’s ugly car which he normally drives. I can drive it but I’m not great at parking it.

We have a 360 and switch the facing depending on the journey. For motorways it’s rear facing. Don’t have an issue with forward facing from 1 for toddling round the town.

He'd scream and panic until he vomited until we forward faced

DD happy to rear face so we plan to go until 3 or 4

I came on to say travel sickness too.

I think if you don’t suffer from it, it’s hard to imagine how awful it is

Gosh how scary and what a brilliant boy you have!

We are the same. One child got very travel sick and as I was the exact same at her age and still can’t travel backwards on a train I won’t subject her to it

Whilst I agree rear facing is safer, both mine turned befor 4, for different reasons.

My eldest turned at 3 because I was having a c-secction with 2nd, so couldn't lift him into the rear facing seat. He couldn't get the hang of climbing into the seat when it was rear facing (some sen & coordination issues), but could ff. Overall, it felt like a better option then being housebound for months.

Second turned when she reached 18kg, as that was the weight limit of our rear facer. She was around 3.5, in an ideal world I could have brought a seat that RF until 25kg, but there is a big jump in price and £300+ is a lot for something that would only have been used another 6 month-1 year.

Because internal decapitation is really, really rare and travel sickness is really, really unpleasant.

Rear-facing may be much safer but travel by car is pretty safe in the first place so its reducing a very low risk to a very, very low one.

You could reduce your risk by more if you reduced the amount you drove by just once a week, for example, but there wasn’t the same push to do that

Yes indeed. Why not encourage parents to walk or take buses and trains rather than driving. But no campaign for that because no product involved.

The advice when mine were small was rear facing until around 18 months old - I can't remember the exact age. My first was very tall and simply grew out of his rear facing car seat at just over a year old. Children 2 and 3 screamed blue murder when rear facing from around a year old. It was almost impossible to drive with them making so much noise.

I fully agree that it wasn't ideal and its not the advice I'd give, unsolicited, to any daughters in law I may have but, fortunately, it worked for us.

@TeenToTwenties safety measures are usually incredibly complicated and take into account impact and likelihood when calculating risk. As far as I remember from my research, the logic is that most accident are from behind, so if you're rear ended it's safer to be rear facing. For the majority of adults being rear ended won't have a massive impact, but because kids necks, bones and muscle are still developing it can have a greater impact. So like most safety features it's not 100% safer in every circumstance it's very nuanced. Take into account the cost of manufacturing a car, the likelihood of adults being happy rear facing, the likely damage to adults from being rear ended et it all goes into the over all equation to find the route of least harm.

Because she was crying and shouting when rear facing, and the distraction to the driver from that was IMO more dangerous than the forward facing position. Especially as almost all our journeys are in London - so low speed but lots of decisions and concentration required.