“He absolutely loves his big boy car seat!”

[Noti23]

...combined with picture showing a cute, smiley, barely of sitting age baby, in a toddler seat. ABUI to HATE seeing this all the time? A car seat is not a developmental milestone or achievement, safety should be priority. It makes me so sad that so many people seem to do this.

The latest Instagram post features a 6 month old baby sitting in his new “big boy” forward facing car seat.

Where do their legs go? Against the seat, for example. Much more comfortable than having them dangling www.besafe.com/misconceptions-rear-facing-car-seats/

@HavelockVetinari

Hang on. I thought it was 15 months at which point you could front face? I’ve not seen a car seat that lets you rest face for that long? Tearing my hair out as DD is ready to move out of her infant seat into a toddler one but trying to find a rear facing one is a nightmare

Clearly didn’t mean rest face 🙄

I find it very surprising how much animosity there is towards the RF thing. We had a RF seat for DD who has always been teeny and could fit in it until 5. It was expensive, so we didn't change it until we absolutely had to. You wouldn't believe the amount of aggression we got about this, even from family members. It's like your decision to RF suggest that they themselves aren't too concerned about safety, so they cover it up with a lot of strange bullshit implying your child is being developmentally backward/held back/infantilised by sitting backwards in the car. Because sitting your bum in a 21st century automobile is apparently an innate human developmental milestone these days. Even my mum tried to come up with some bullshit about how it would teach DD never to grow out of carsickness (??) Ooo-kay.

I’ve not seen a car seat that lets you rest face for that long?

Axkid Minikid that I had allows to rear face until the child is 125 cm tall. I have not seen that tall 15 month old yet.

Except for the baby carrier style seats I have never actually seen any of these rear facing seats for older children. The only place I hear about them is Mumsnet. Obviously they must exist but I have never seen one in a car.

LittleTopic -- we had a Cybex Sirona which is RF until approx. 4yo, but I think there are more options that do so nowadays.

LittleTopic plenty of options here and even if you don't want to mail-order, they are very helpful over email helping to choose the right seat for your child and car. No affiliation. www.carseat.se/

(and before anyone gets going about the price of the extended RF ones, just take a look at the prices of most parents' buggies/travel systems! We knew we wanted an ERF seat so we didn't buy an expensive travel system -- we used an old buggy that was donated to us by a friend. It wasn't stylish at all and it was a bit odd and battered, but we spent the money we would have spent on a travel system on the ERF seat instead.)

Isn't affordability an issue with extended-rear facing car seats though? I'll be looking to get my own car soon, and am factoring in the cost for my youngest who will still be under three. I've not seen one that's under a three-figure sum though, am I looking in the wrong places?

@MitziK

I think the seats were different then. My DD's were tiny and rear faced until 18 months (we never used an infant carrier, had a reversible fixed seat) but by then they were really cramped and very fed up being squashed. My seat only just fitted in the car rear facing, no way would a larger one fitted. We did have a motorway crash unfortunately, the property fitted forward facing seat did its job with no injuries, crucially it fitted the car and installed as per manufacturers guidelines - the best safety rating seat is useless if not installed correctly.

Our Cybex has now gone on to my younger brother's young children -- and strangely because my brother is the favourite child, family don't say a peep about him using it or his babies ending up developmentally backward from sitting in it

Yanbu. All ours were in RF seats for as long as possible. Admittedly this was slightly less than we would have liked for dd2 aka Houdini who learnt how to get out of the straps of the RF seat. First I knew of this was half way round Birmingham's inner ring road in heavy traffic. I noticed she was smiling at me in the rear view mirror and I suddenly realised I shouldn't be able to see her face in the mirror! She was twisting right round out of her seat to wave and smile at me! That was a scary moment. Her car seat was one that converts to be forward facing with a totally different type of harness and so far she hasn't figured it out. She was 3 when this happened anyway, not 15 months or something!

@LittleTopic , it's a pain. I spent literal hours trying to find one for my toddler, unfortunately most shops don't stock many RF options so I had to just go by recommendations and order online. I got the Axkid mini-kid which is to approximately 6 and the Besafe modular which is to 4. Both great seats but the Mini-kid doesn't recline.

Ps no such thing as extended rear facing then

@Noti23 - Is it definitely a toddler seat and not one of those swiveling/reclining baby -> toddler seats? Perhaps they just took a picture of it in its forward-facing option?

How long has RF until 2-3 been a thing? I’m pretty sure mine faced forwards from about 10-12 months..... unless I’m remembering incorrectly. It was a seat sold and fitted from a reputable store for the correct age and weight and it reclined (not a toddler/ booster seat). But they were definitely younger than this thread is saying is correct.

@G5000 thank you!

@sqirrelfriends argh, I know. I think we have seen a Joie one...only being able to look online is confusing me!

I spent an absolute fortune on car seats - over £1500 for two children across 3 cars. I'm glad that my eldest is now nearly out of them altogether (legally he is but he has 5 cm or so left I think on his HBB) and little one is in a large HBB that will take him until he outgrows them as well. I hated car seat shopping as its so complex and emotionally difficult but I never have to do it again ha ha ha ha. (I may also have had too much caffeine.)

I think some people genuinely see it as a developmental milestone. My brother turned all his DC forward facing before they were a year old because "they are so clever and advanced for their age"

Mouthbreathingrage try the brand joie, they have affordable rear facing seats up to 18kg (about 3-4 years)

The cheapest is the tilt (£50-60), but it is a little small if you have a taller toddler, the stages is bigger and can be used as a HBB after 18kg, I've seen them for £80.

A family member of mine a few years ago used a booster cushion for her 9 month old...

I was horrified and I will never understand why people have children if they aren't even going to ensure their basic safety needs are met. People would rather put their children at risk using car seats that are inappropriate for their child's age/size than spend a bit of time doing their research. Incredible selfish and terrifying

@titchy that is unnecessarily cruel. My answer would have been “ i prefer a wheelchair over a coffin” (mine had severe travel sickness that ended up with throwing up and breathing in vomit - now THAT is life threatening!

@PorpentiaScamander yes, I have a colleague who said something like this (her DD was tall for her age) but her DD was 9 months. I desperately wanted to say something and wish I did but equally I didn't want to be seen as judgy.

It's never easy to talk about internal decapitation.

I had DS1 in a RF seat until he was 3 1/2 and we needed it for DS2. Most people thought I was weird, but DS loved it.

Unfortunately, DS2 only lasted until a little after two as he screamed blue bloody murder in the RF that his brother had so loved (very upright and a great view out of the window), so I turned him around as it wasn't safe for me to drive with that screaming. The only way to travel further than 30 minutes without 120dB screaming was FF with a DVD on. TBH he's not much better these days and he's 8!