extended rearward facing carseats, and bonding/attachment

[Meita]

Following up from the recent thread on rearward facing pushchairs, and promoting bonding, I was idly wondering if anyone had any thoughts regarding rearward facing car seats?

On the one hand, there is clearly less possibility for eye contact, and it's harder to keep an eye on the child, too. We have an ERF seat for DS and we use a mirror and it's ok, just not optimal. Oh I am speaking as a passenger, I don't drive so I do actually have the option of looking backwards.

On the other hand, I hear that car journeys can be great for having conversations with children, exactly BECAUSE there is no eye contact (and a clearly defined limited time frame for the conversation, too).

Any thoughts?

We went backwards facing with DD purely because of the safety aspect. Lots of info about that out there I think.

She's ff now at nearly 4. Were you thinking older than that as well though ? I guess not because of the age of your ds?

I don't drive so I always sat in the back with her playing mad toddler variations on 'eye spy' where there are no rules so it worked for us...

I think the uninterrupted conversation thing is more when they're older and sit in the front. You can't really have a detailed conversation with DC in a car seat in the back even if they are forward facing because of the noise of the engine.

We have an ERF seat that goes to 25kg, at the rate we're currently going it might last DS until he's 5.5 or so. Hoping to adopt in the 0-2 range so clearly not going to have many conversations initially ;) but who knows what LO might come up with by age 5?

Bertie, maybe our car is quieter than most, or we all have really loud voices (the latter is quite probable ), but we seem to manage to get info about nursery school out of DS on car journeys. We won't be dissecting complicated friendship issues, but sometimes he does take the opportunity to share a nugget of something.

The one thing you may find is that if a child has been used to forward facing in the foster carer's car they may not like suddenly going backwards. DD was used to forward facing so I continued with that.

Our fc had a forward facing car seat and due to attachment she would not tolerate not being to see us. And would be highly likely to case stress and re traumatise her

Personally I would go for the normal type car seat just my view

I would go for ERF because it is safer.

I manage to hold reasonable conversations with my two children when they're in the back, rear facing, and I am driving. No eye contct needed.

Simy because it is safer, I would go rear facing.

As you don't drive, you could sit in the back with the child if you're concerned? I do (just!) fit in between two car seats in the back of our car, if you're not happy with the older travelling in the front.

I think we will go with rearward facing with the option of me sitting in the back when needed. Though getting into the middle seat between two ERF seats does involve quite a bit of climbing...
And some seats can be used rearward or forward facing, so that allows to adjust if child does not tolerate RF. Though as we will be looking in the 0-2 range, chances are the LO will still be used to stage 0+ baby carriers, which are RF anyway.