To make a PSA about extended rear facing car seats

[purplemonstermunch]

and link to this page for more information?

www.securatot.co.uk/car-seat-useful-links

And to ask those in the know to offer up any other useful information they have about the importance of extended rear facing?

The P&C supermarket parking space threads attract hundreds of comments; this thread could actually save children's lives...so could I also ask you to give it a bump if you don't have further information that could help?

Thank you

I hate when this stuff is in AIBU. yy extended rear facing yadda yadda

We have a rear facing seat for my ds (15 months) I don't really have anything to add to this thread but the statistics speak for themselves.
notyomomma there is a hide button if you feel a child's safety is not important.

I don't recall saying that

oh wait... I didn't

We have two, but they are so bloody expensive - they really need to be affordably priced before people can/will choose them over forward facing.

I think the message is getting out. Saw that the John Lewis baby brochure has a piece on them now, and the shop where I bought mine is receiving more and more orders.

Yes they are expensive, but many people who buy new clothes (rather than 2nd hand) and live in nice houses say oh but they are so very expensive. If you can't afford a rf car seat but you can afford a car I really don't see the logic. If you are so poor that you can afford to keep your child as safe as possible in a carthen you are too poor to have a car and you shouldn't have a car.

YABU - this is not the place for Public Service Announcements.

I kept my child as safe as possible and resent the implication that I did otherwise. For us forward facing was the safest thing to do.

I'm pretty sure if this was a safety announcement and forward facing was so unsafe we shouldn't be driving then the govt would make the announcement.

Did you give ur a child a high fat meal at any stage? Heavens you shouldn't have children!!! See, utter tosh.

Each parent makes the choice for their child. That is why they are the parent.

Erf does not make you a better, a more conscientous or a safer parent.

I'm afraid I can't find the link but I remember reading an article written by a road safety officer saying that most cars in the UK are not compatible with rear ERF car seats and that he would much rather see a child secured in a highly rated forward facing seat than a ERF seat wobbling about. This all gets a bit preachy, I'm afraid.

The only flaw with rear facing car seats is that you can't see if a child has unbuckled the belt.

No matter how tight me and DH done DS he managed to escape,I couldn't sit in the back as dd was in a car seat also so I used to check every 2 minutes.

Let's face it, most posts in AIBU belong somewhere else, but the OP still highlights good info.

Seems to be a very emotive topic.

I don't understand why people get so hot under the collar about rf car seats. To me it makes sense they are safer. Yes, it's every parent's decision which seat they get, but surely it's best to have all the facts to make an informed decision?

Maybe AIBU is the wrong section, but I still think it's information worth knowing.

I have an ERF seat for my DS, and I would always recommend them if asked, but tbh I don't think it's fair to try and guilt trip people into buying something that costs so much.

Mine cost almost half what my car is worth!

They won't become the mainstream choice until they are more competitively priced and more widely available

Unless you live in Milton Keynes they're rare as rocking horse shit.

Also, they aren't compatible with all cars so that is a big factor.

I think it's great to get the information out there and make it more widely available but after that it's up to each person to make their own individual choice.

I think kids should not be in the cars at all, but towed behind in big fluffy pods covered in 12 feet of padding - to be on the safe side.

If you can't afford a big fluffy pod covered in 12 feet of padding then you shouldn't have a car.

The same could be said about ff car seat natwebb. There are a great many car seats (ff and rf) which are fitted incorrectly. I don't think ff are any easier to fit tbh.

YANBU to try and raise awareness - especially as new rules are coming in to make RF compulsory until at least 15 months which is a reasonable start. I'm not completely sure if AIBU is the best place for it though as people get edgy about this kind of thing (due to feeling judged).

I have a kind of hybrid. The Joie stages seat. It rear faces to approx 4yo. Then forward faces to approx 7yo (although my 9 yo would only just have outgrown it).

It was £150 and is available from babies r us.

Might be a good idea for those (like me) who wouldn't like to remortgage to buy a car seat.

My ds hated rear facing, screamed blue murder for the whole journey. It meant I drove distracted, tense and probably faster than I should much of the time.

As soon as we tried forward facing, when he grew out of his rear facing seat, he instantly loved it. Loved seeing me driving, loved peering out of the windows and sitting a bit more upright.

I now drive in a much more relaxed, less tense, slower fashion, enjoying chatting to my ds and singing along to songs.

I know that rear facing is generally safer, but forward facing, obviously secured properly in a maxi cosi pearl, is a much safer option for our family.

I'd also recommend the Britax 2 way elite for relative (and I still understand £220 is a lot) affordability. It lasts until 25kg too so I see DS being in it both RF and then FF as a high backed booster for many years to come.

I think the problem is the lack of awareness in the UK, I have friends who I know have a lovely chunk of disposable income, they do everything possible to give their child the best/safest start but they had no idea about rf seats.

I live in a country where all new parents are shown a (horrific) advert for rf seats. I think the UK need something like that.

Car seat safety also depends on what type of driving you do. We went for a RF stage 1 seat as most of our driving is on single carriageway rural B roads - exactly the type of roads where you're likely to have a medium-high speed head on crash which is the most dangerous type of accident for a forward facing child. However, if most of our driving was pootling around a town or city or on motorways I don't know if I'd have bothered, especially as in a rear end shunt (more likely in a town) the RF seat won't give as much protection as a FF seat (forces reversed).

YABU. They are not the safest option for all impacts. They can be in fact pretty poor in a side impact entirely depending on where the child's head is in relation to the car's window. If you were asking for better information for parents about the safest seats in their cars then YWNBU. In the average family car erf and side impact isn't always brilliant or even as good as impact shield and front facing.

I researched this when choosing my son's car seat and the evidence is not clear cut. WHICH don't recommend rear facing above forward facing, as I recall the reason is that some models are very hard to fit correctly yourself, and as there are few places to get them fitted in the UK there is a risk that many RF seats wont be fitted properly.

Also the claim they are "seven times safer" is questionable because that stat was apparently arrived at by comparing accidents in the UK with accidents in Sweden; but in Sweden the cars people drive are bigger and safer than in the UK and that is not taken into account.

So yes YABU.

There is one RF seat as I recall which WHICH has as a best buy but there are also lots of cheaper FF seats they judge to be just as good.