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

It was just becoming a thing when we my kids were little and not the norm yet, but I was glad to get out in time and not have to spend the money and make my DC uncomfortable.

For me, I could see that the data was taken at a theoretical crash at 56mph, when I will be almost exclusively driving in a city with a 20mph limit. The actual risk was already extremely low for serious injury in a forward facing seat. Maybe ERF was "twice" as safe, but I was looking at a real reduction in the zone of 0.01% to 0.005% which weighed up financially and car-sickness wise didn't swing it for me.

The Swedish data wasn't available and I felt a few different elements were being put together to paint a more dramatic picture. For example, Sweden had 11 child deaths on the roads last year, from 2.3 million children. Assume 3 are pedestrian/cycle, so about 8 maybe, with probably half over car seat age and maybe one baby rear facing whatever. So about 3 deaths a year, two which could be saved by extending rear facing.

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, which is odd, it almost feels like exploiting parent fears to sell them something.

Plus, not everyone buys Volvos (or whatever the safest car is these days)

My son was sick without fail every car journey. It is not safe when a driver is distracted worrying that a toddler might choke on his vomit in the backseat when you can only see them reflected in two tiny mirrors.

We took what we considered was the safest course of action overall which was forward facing. It solved the problem instantly.

It's the same reason people put babies in jumperoos and baby bouncers They don't research and assume if things are sold then it means they are ok.

Mine too. Seems mad now thay they forward face at just 9 months.

Erf seats were just starting to become a mainstream thing when our 3rd was a baby. He's 14 now. But the seats were massively expensive, hard to find to test in shops and really bulky so we wouldn't have been able to fit everyone in the car.

I can see how kids would be comfortable though without their legs dangling down. I hate it if my feet can't touch the ground.

Because a rear-facing seat makes long journeys much more complicated. Because FF seats are safe. HTH

This. Travel sickness which I suffer from too aonI can relate, screaming and climbing out. I am yet to find a lock that resists DC3.

I'd say for a few reasons:

1. cost - ERF is expensive which prices some families out
2. practicality - some cars cant take ERF car seats and still allow an adult to sit in the front or even it at all.
3. the child - either whinging, escaping or not accepting ERF.
4. not aware of the differences.

Forward facing isn't unsafe its just not as safe as rear facing. Like a lot of things in life, t's about weighing up the risks against positive.
e.g. a car sick child is probably safer forward facing as you can see them and in a more upright position. Having a child screaming their head off during a drive because they are rear facing is less safe than a forward facing happy not distracting the driver child.

Mine stayed rear facing until 4 years old then turned around. One has just come out of his booster seat in one car (as he is tall enough) but not the other car.

It was the same for mine. But instead of rushing them into the FF seat at 9 months/ whatever the min weight was, I kept them RF until they outgrew the baby seat.

Because he would cry until he projectile vomited if facing backwards- facing forwards he is a happy, engaged traveller

DC1 is 5 years and still rear faces.

DC2 is 2 years old, still rear faces but has started to get car sick, so we’re considering turning him round. Only issue is his older sibling will of course want to forward face too.

Definitely rear facing for babies. But when mine were little (>20 years) the next seat up was a forward facing seat with a 5 point harness, from 9 months!

Ah fair enough, I shouldn't have assumed you'd had babies!

I think some people are just desperate to show how grown up their DC are, obviously not those who had sicky children, or children who screamed/ got out of their straps. But I knew loads of people who FF as soon as the child hit the lowest weight limit to do so. I kept mine rear facing as long as possible. Mind you DS2 didn't get travel sick/turn into Houdini until We FF him!

Just a few reasons:

• Not aware of the differences
• Budget (extended rear facing seats are hugely expensive compared to some other options)
• travel sickness
• Child whinging and escaping from one set up but not another
• Driver seat space / adult passenger seat space / visibility.

We couldn’t get an ERF seat into our (Swedish) car and have the driver in a sensible seat position, an adult passenger in the car and have a decent view of the wing mirrors. On risk modifiers, we have winter tyres, check tyre regularly and run well above legal minimum tread, drive with phones in the glove box, and have very high safety rated cars. So the trade off between good driving position and visibility vs seat was one we chose to make. The safest crash is the one you don’t have.

I did because she gets horrifically car sick going backwards and car seats aren't perfectly upright, they tip you back slightly. She vomited, choked and if her 7 year old brother hadn't been sitting next to her and saw what was happening, I wouldn't have heard a thing.

He shouted to me, but I couldn't pull over instantly as was on a very fast dual carriageway. He pulled her out, tipped her forward and thumped her back but it was very scary. Mostly because she didn't make any noise. She's been forward facing ever since. Obviously forward facing from a year old isn't ideal but the risk of her throwing up again is higher than the risk of a car accident.

Some car seats are sold forward facing only and sold as safe. I do find it slightly confusing what I should and shouldn’t be doing. If it isn’t safe then surely they should stop selling forward facing for younger children.

For me it was mainly because it was a barrier to conversation when we couldn't see each other. And travel sickness was a factor. I had to weight the increased safety against the impact of the dc's unhappiness when we were driving (and we drove long distances because we live very rurally). I decided a decent quality forward facing seat was ok.

It's a bit like the fact that when I had dd2 I moved dd1 from the safest seat in the car (rear passenger side) to the second safest (driver passenger side) as she was the older dc, even though I knew it was less safe. Parenting involves a lot of choices about risk and safety, and generally individual families have to balance things as best they can, as long as they stay within acceptable boundaries.

Possibly. (I missed the baby stage.)

One child was very travel sick. The second was Houdini - safer if we could see what he was up to. No point in rear facing if he was out of the straps. Also, until youngest was 3 we had a 3door car - not even sure how rear facing would work in that case. We don’t all have massive fancy cars.

Do you mean extended rear facing wasn't a thing? Because rear facing for babies definitely was.

So the child can see where we are going and be part of the conversation. Annoyingly I couldn't switch off the front seat airbag, then they would have been in the front seat from a younger age.

Travel sickness for us too, within minutes of leaving the house. The sickness was guaranteed, whereas crashing the car is not, so I felt that there was a far higher risk of choking than there was of injury from a forward facing seat.

We couldn't fit a rear facing seat behind the driver seat when DH was driving so DC1 had to forward face once we had DC as we weren't going to buy a new car at that point.

DC2 screamed on every journey he was in his rear facing baby seat, had to put him in DC1s seat once for a short trip and it was like having a different child.

Because:
a) the vast majority of car seats are forward facing.
b) rear-facing car seats are usually much more expensive than the forward-facing ones.
c) most children are calmer when forward-facing, as they can see where they're going, see other passengers in the car, see their parents etc.
d) children are less likely to suffer from motion sickness if facing the direction of travel.

Yep, car-sickness. Vomiting and hysterical crying are both far more dangerous IMO.

Lots of adults can't even travel backwards in a train, so it's hardly surprising that children can't do the same in a car!