AIBU to put 5 year old in front seat?

[Boating123]

My DD(age 5) and DS (age 3) do not travel well together in the car. They hurt each other, annoy each other and are generally really awful. My DS gets bored easily so will do anything to avoid being bored. It is really distracting listening to them, trying to make them be good e.t.c.
I know the back seats are safer but AIBU to think it would be safer to move my DD's seat to the front so they can't bother each other so much - which will allow me to concentrate and therefore reduce my risk of crashing.

Google says it's not illegal to put a child's forward facing seat in the front.

Have you tried strapping a duvet into the middle seat so they can't see or reach each other?
audio books
sing along songs, times tables songs etc?

I wouldn’t!

I would but check your car handbook as I have a Dacia and you absolutely cannot have any child seats of any kind in the front seat.

I wouldn't risk it. Even if you drive perfectly there are still other numpties on the road than can cause accidents. A previous poster suggested putting a barrier between them - I think that's the better idea.

A child can't withstand the force of an airbag deploying until around 12. Regardless of it being legal or illegal it would be very very dangerous. I'd definitely be trying any other way possible.

Driving is probably the most dangerous thing you can do if your life is quite safe otherwise.
i absolutely wouldn’t risk it.
is it worth it if something happens?
not even a tiny smidge.

I would concentrate more on disciplining them so they don’t misbehave rather than this

Firstly it’s dangerous to have them in the front at that age as other posters have pointed out

Secondly separating them isn’t really the answer to the problem anyway - they need to learn how to behave

I’ve had a five year old in the front - the alternative when I occasionally had to take three kids in child seats in a narrow car was that the one in the middle wouldn’t have had a child seat, I couldn’t fit three seats across. I pushed the front passenger seat as far back as it would go. It’s not illegal, though obviously it is less safe than them being in the back so I wouldn’t do it unless I had to.

I’d work on child behaviour first though - are there things DS could be doing to entertain him? Are there consequences to misbehaving? Mine learnt the hard way that I absolutely will stop the car at the next safe place, get out and wait for them to stop messing around before I move again. And I will just turn the car around and go home, including from a day out they were looking forward to.

I do it with my 8 year old nephew but he is the height of a 12 year old and I turn the airbag off.

I wouldn't do it with a 5 year old. I think you might just need to be stricter with them re behaviour. We never played up in the car because our parents/aunties would pull over and smack us all, regardless of whose kids were actually being naughty.

Can you introduce a consequence? Preferably something immediate like turn around and go home if its somewhere fun or if that isn't possible something else? I use homework on the 6 year old. She never does it all as they get a ridiculous amount so I insist on 15 minutes reading, 10 spellings and 10 maths questions per night. If she's badly behaved I double the maths as they take the longest and it comes out of her screen time.

I hope @Boating123 you’re prepared for the Exclusively Rear Facing mafia , they’re brilliant value on here ..

Ofcourse you can have car seats in the front seat

Without wishing to be described as the mafia 😂 I was going to ask if your 3 year old is still RF? If so I would put him in the front seat, rear facing, airbags off - that's perfectly safe and arguably the safest place in the car.

If not I would consider putting the 5 year old in the front, air bags ON (pp who said they put 8yo in the front and turns off the air bags please don't do this!) but seat moved bag as far as possible. I would try other methods first though.

*seat moved BACK as far as possible

You can switch the airbags off generally in the front of the car if necessary. I think I would exhaust all other options first though.

It's never to late to learn something new. A lot of people don't have the information so people share it. There's no need to be sarcastic just because it's not something you do.

There is a big difference between back and front seat, and the reason why what OP has suggested is against the law.

Unless OP was suggesting for a one off, where there was no viable alternative (only expensive taxi)

It's legal although not very safe so if you have the option to keep them in the back I would. My 6 yo travels in the front if I need to take all 3 while we save up for a bigger car. Her seat is as far back as it can go so there is less chance of the air bag hitting her if it deploys. It is illegal to have the airbag off when someone is forward facing in the front passenger seat so please don't do that.

Check your car manual though as I noticed recently that my husbands car has a huge sticker on the front passenger door that says forward facing car seats are not allowed in the front, so if he takes all 3 he has the youngest rear facing with the airbag off

For clarity the air bags dont turn off in my car which is why I can't have the rear facing one in the front of mine as I realise it is safer than forward facing in the front

OP isn't suggesting anything illegal @grey12 ! It's perfectly legal for either her 3 or 5 year old to travel in the front as long as they are in a car seat.

Most cars have an airbag off switch.

You can't travel forward facing with the air bag turned off though. Its only to be turned off for rear facing seats

My apologies, it is illegal in my home country until 13yo, unless there are no seats in the back, or is a baby under 1 that could distract/worry the parent

I am going to try to find something like a Backseat Wally (thing i found on the Internet only available in America) that goes between the two seats.

In case anyone is interested - on the journey back from holiday club this evening they played up. I said leave each other alone or there will be no DVD tonight. The result was my DS got into a such a state he wore himself out and fell asleep by 5:00pm. I had a lovely evening with my DD but she said something like- sometimes I'm good, sometimes I'm naughty but why am I being punished all evening (ie no DVD all evening). I wasn't sure what to say. I just said I'm just trying to find away to get you and DS to be good on car journeys. I'm not sure punishments work unless they are immediate and it's hard to think of an immediate punishment or natural consequence on a car journey.

Oh well done you've read the exact handbook of my exact car like I have and come to a different conclusion! Congratulations, maybe I mis understood where it says absolutely no cars seats allowed in the front seat 🙄