What age did you change your DC car seat from rear to front facing?

[pinkbottle48]

The advice in the UK seems quite different to other countries. A lot of friends I know changed at about 9 months. However, Sweden, for example, recommends not till the age of 4, the US I think is 2. DD is 16 months and still rear facing people here seem to think it's strange we haven't turned it around yet. But why do other countries have such different recommendations?

Ds was about 15/16 months old, but that was 7 years ago when not quite as much was known. He was certainly one of the latest of his peer group to move. For a lot it seemed like a race

There again he is 8 now and one of the few at his school who Still use a hbb and stopping that is a long way off for him

We had a rear facing seat in one car until she was about 4. Couldn’t fit it in the other car so she had a forward facing cushion seat in that from about 2.

#1 was 8 months.
#2 was 3 years.

4

DD1 was 4 years, 11 months when she hit the 18kg rear facing limit for her car seat. You can now but ERF seats to 25kg.

DD2 is still rear facing at 4 years, 1 month. It'll probably be another 12-18 months before she hits 18kg.

4.5 because he was outgrowing it and I didn’t feel I could justify buying the even bigger rf seats at that age. We weren’t the last in our group to switch.

DD(2) is quite small and I expect she will stay rearfacing till 6 in the same seat.

About 9 months IIRC. He was large and very rarely in the car (once every two weeks for no more than an hour), and rear facing wasn't so readily available.
More pissed off I had to move him at 2yrs and 2 months into a high backed booster with seatbelt as he was too tall for the toddler seat. I was about to complain to the manufacturer about false advertising (they said suitable to 4 years) when I realised he was the size of an average 4 year old.

The law changed a while ago so children in the UK should be rear facing until at least 15 months. You also need to look at weight and height rather than age.

DD1 was ERF until 4yo, which was well before the new law came in. We had a lot of raised eyebrows and one person (close family member) even told me that we were being detrimental to her health and that it was all just an urban legend that children were safer ERF. DD2 is currently 2yo and still happily ERF. We'll keep her like this for as long as she fits.

DS is almost 2 and still RF. Most of our friends have turned their DC to FF- main reasons are DC bring car sick when RF (which I understand), and worrying about them damaging the car’s interior by kicking it (which I don’t understand). I think there’s a real lack of understanding of the reasons for ERF in the UK, and the guidance has only recently changed.

That said, I don’t think DS will make it to 4 in a RF seat- he’s on the 95th percentile for height, and 75th for weight.

My eldest is still RF at 3. Causes an awful lot of confusion to my parents, like it's a new 'trend' or something

Advice has changed a lot in the last ten years, so have the size of newborn carseats and the availability and cost of extended rear facing car seats.

It will take time for what is usual parenting to catch up with that and for people to stop reusing the older seats they have.

Depending where you live in the UK an awful lot of parents don't actually drive themselves, either due to no car or no licence and so they will make different decisions about what they need in a car seat than a country like Norway where I imagine its pretty rare to not be driving your kids around on a regular basis.

18 months for us. He is so much happier forward facing, car journeys are no longer a scream fest!

I was a bad ass that changed the seat round at 18 months, I have a britax dualfix that I love Dd seems much happier and I can talk to her a lot more

DD1 is 5.5yo and still RF - we have the Axkid minikid which is suitable to 25kg and she's only 15kg, the skinny minnie, and still well under the max height for the seat.

DD2 is already 10kg at 1yo so I suspect we'll end up turning her earlier when the time comes. But we aim to RF for as long as possible.

Three to three and a half for both of mine. Get constant passive aggressive comments from the inlaws like I am just following some new fangled fashion.

He's nearly 2 and still rear facing, I aim to go to 4. People judge and think I'm odd but I genuinely don't care. Turns out people will judge your parenting whatever you do

Apparently it’s illegal past the age of four here in Australia. I find this weird because I thought it was all weight/height based anyway. My DD is almost 1 and will be RF for a long time yet.

We’ve just bought a ERF seat for DS and I plan to RF him until at least 4. The seats aren’t cheap though so I can see why that might be a deciding factor for some people

First two children switched at 4yrs 11mo. Third child is still rear facing at 3yrs 10mo and will be for another year or so at least.

Once the older ones switched to forward facing for most journeys, I still put them rear facing for long journeys until they reached the 25kg limit for the seats. For long journeys the rear facing seats were so much more comfortable for sleeping in, as well as being safer for the faster driving on motorways etc.

We switched when DS was just 2. I'd have preferred him to be RF for longer but he was already 19kgs and I didn't want to spend even more money on another seat that wouldn't see him past 25kg! We have the Joie Bold that still has a 5 point harness upto 25kg but then converts to a HBB up to 36kg

Both kids were erf until just before 4yo. It's safer.

I’m going to keep going as long as possible, he’s currently 20 months. I don’t know anyone still in rear facing that was born at same time as him. His grandparents wouldn’t listen to me and have forward facing seats but he’s not in their car that much. I think it all depends on what seats you have. I got a cybex sirona and have used it from birth and it’s isofix and rear facing til 4 but it was £375 so if you had bought an infant seat first I can understand maybe not having the funds for both.

As soon as he got to 9k just past age 1. DS hated the babyseat/ rear facing, and would scream and either distract the driver, or do that thing where they scream so much they forget to breathe!

Other DC would stay rf longer.

“I was a bad ass that changed the seat round at 18 months”

A “bad ass”? What the actual fuck? You think you’re cool for putting your child in a forward facing seat?

My toddler is in a rear-facing seat. It can be used forward facing as well but we are sticking with the rear-facing option as it is proven to be much safer. I’ll see how old he is when he outgrows it but I want him to rear face until at least 4 so if he hasn’t turned 4 yet, we’ll get a 25kg rear facing seat like an Axkid Minikid.

We have a mirror so we can see each other and he has a good view out of the windows so he’s not bored at all.

I think all of the arguments against rear-facing are a bit ridiculous really and I don’t see how any of them can outweigh the safety argument.