To tell my parents they can't take my daughter out if they forward face her

[IdiotSandwich05]

Would I be unreasonable to tell my parents they can't take my daughter out if they're going to forward face her?

This is NOT meant to turn into a debate about car seats and rear-facing vs forward-facing.

So my daughter is 3.5 and been rear facing since birth and still is. Her rear facing car seat goes up to 25kg and she's only 14kg so I plan on keeping her in it for the foreseeable. My parents have mentioned forward facing her loads of times, (since she was about 18 months!), but it's happening a lot more often recently. They keep saying they're going to buy her a booster seat, I asked why and what's wrong with the car seat we got them and they say her legs are too long and she looks uncomfortable in it 🙄 they also mention that she's quite badly car sick and forward facing would help it. She DOES get car sick but I'm not sure wether FF would do anything and tbh I'd rather she was sick but was safer than not sick but less safe!

They even say they know it's safer to RF! Yet are still constantly mentioning FF 🙄 When I try and show them studies, car seat safety tests, even news articles ect they just laugh and tell me to stop Googling stuff and they did it with me and I survived blah blah. Really bloody frustrating.

Well it came to a head the other day and I lost my temper and flat out told them she was going to continue RF and if they couldn't respect that they weren't taking her out in their car. They can still see her of course, just not actually take her anywhere in the car if they're going to FF.

Well my mum has now called me ridiculous and isn't talking to me 🙄 she says I'm 'over the top' with safety and need to relax a bit! I think SHE'S being ridiculous but I don't know if I was a little harsh?

I should say that this isn't the first time we've argued over safety or lack of it! One time they watched her when she was 8 months old, and when I came to collect her she was asleep in a travel cot with a pillow! I told them this wasn't safe and again got the 'we did it when you were a baby' ect. But they did remove it.

I'm sure this is an argument a lot of us have with our parents. But was I too harsh for saying this?

For me it would depend on where they were driving her. If it was motorway/busy dual carriageways then I think you are not unreasonable to insist on RF. However if it’s 30-40mph around the local town then the chances of serious injury even FF are low enough that I would prefer to avoid the misery of car sickness and risk of aspirating on vomit and go with FF.

dd was the first one in her class to outgrow her booster seat so I just can’t imagine her being still in a rear facing seat at 3.5years old. Where would her legs go in the event of an accident apart from slapping herself in the face with her knee caps which could cause massive injury

By that age both Dd and Ds had worked out how to get out of their car seats and told all of nursery what to press to release the buckle. So I can’t imagine them staying in a seat that made them feel uncomfortable

Dc went all over the place at that age.
I would think I was restricting them if I didn’t take them out We went to all the museums and attractions that London has to offer as well as the theme parks and days out. Dc still remember the Thomas the tank engine day at a steam railway miles away. Dc were still in nursery
The tube, trains and buses don’t have any sort of seat belts. Do you take your Dd on these forms of transport or do you keep her safe, indoors and never take her anywhere that doesn’t involve nausea and vomiting because that just sounds like the opposite of child safety and well being

Totally understand you want to do the safest thing for your DD. But I think that might be clouding your judgement somewhat over the car sickness. I do feel sorry for her, having to sit RF and get sick each time, when switching her around to FF may actually alleviate that. The chance of a serious accident in her grandparents car is really very minimal to the fact she gets sick on every journey. Plus if the car is rear ended, as I understand it rear facing is not actually any safer.

Can you compromise at all? They are talking about a booster seat, which you do not want at all, but can you look into the safest FF seats and buy them that for their car, so you know she is as safe as can be? It may really help the poor little things car sickness aswel. Then if they want to go on a long motorway high speed journey, they compromise and use the RF one.

If I was in your situation, I would honestly choose FF if it stopped my little one being car sick everytime. That must be horrendous for her. And its not like you are just plonking her on the back seat and hoping for the best. FF car seats for her age are also very safe OP. And yes RF is considered safer, but FF are also very very safe, especially for a child your dds age. You are preparing for the 'might never happen' scenario and ignoring the 'is actually happening every time' one. You are in essence prioritising your own fears of what might happen, over your DDs discomfort all the time.

Jesus, some of you should be ashamed of your responses. The OP said right at the start she didn't want a RF/FF debate and she doesn't care what other people do with their own kids, so there's no need to be so bloody defensive.

I think your priorities and assessment of relative risk/harm are wayyyyyy off. Pretty obvious that sitting backwards makes sickness worse, and she’s 3.5 ffs! Cruel. Lots of cruelty towards children can be well-intentioned, very obviously from over cautious parents.

She should be ashamed of her own responses. They are that nasty they have to be deleted.

The UK seems very behind on this

Yet posts in AIBU and then when people say yes gets defensive of the answer

Being car sick is so horrible.
I'm not surprised that your in laws are trying to reduce the amount of times your dc has to travel backwards.
I do understand why do are doing this but I also understand why your in laws make a different choice.
I wouldn't intentionally do something that made someone car sick if I could possibly avoid it.

Your child your rules.

But I have to mention the car sickness. You say in your OP that changing your daughter to FF probably won't make much difference. I suffer badly from car sickness and FF makes a HUGE difference compared to RF. if you don't suffer from it then you can't imagine how awful travel sickness makes you feel. Mine can last hours, sometimes days, after a particularly bad journey.

Appreciate that feeling sick vs safety is probably not that important but honestly I've felt so ill from it that I felt I wanted to die!!

@namechangetheworld I think a lot of the responses are from people who FF from a young age and now feel like I'm judging them or their parenting. I'm not at all. What other people do with their own kids is their choice. My initial question was whether I was BU to insist my parents respect my wishes, but it's been lost in the bun fighting. Part of that is my fault I admit but when I'm accused of torturing my child of course I'm going to defend myself

YANBU. Belittling and disrespecting you alone.

You’re flogging a dead horse with car seat safety here. I haven’t read all the comments but I can imagine there are a lot of “where do the legs go” (crossed, it’s much more comfortable than to have them dangling anyway, as a short person I attest to that).

It’s so much safer. Just because something is “the law” doesn’t mean it’s the safest option. Yes you can forward face again certain ages / weights depending on the seat, but if there is a safer option (resurfacing) why wouldn’t you do the safer thing for your child / grandchild?

I can’t imagine people arguing so much if the grandparents were advocating poor SIDS sleeping for example “you used to sleep on your front / with cot bumpers etc and you’re fine”. Survivor Bias.

I know lots calling you a monster will probably also be ignorant to other car seat safety (no big costs / snow suits / thick jumpers / 3rd party products like blankets that go under the child etc) and have terrible car seats with naff Minnir Mouse or Batman too no doubt. But you know better. You can only present people with information, but if they’re choosing to ignore the multiple safety records, studies, they’re choosing to opt for the less safe option then I’d be questioning their other choices.

Stand your ground.

Three and a half? Wow I thought we were talking about a baby. Do what you want but don't expect help and support from people when you're such a control freak.

As a person who suffered with very extreme travel sickness as a child, I can confirm that forward facing will make a massive difference to nausea levels. YANBU in that your parents should respect your wishes, though I don't blame them for trying to discuss it with you - scrunched up legs are uncomfortable for anyone.

The argument is they just cross their legs and kids dont get uncomfortable like that....as someone who never could be comfortable cross legged for the 20 mins at school in the assemblies we had from age 5 i dont get it...seems like rf is the only time a child is expected to sit still staring at a seat no matter how long the journey. The head support cuts off access to a reasonable window view. I winder how many adults would be upset sat facing a seat back legs crossed and unable to read through car sickness for half an hour or more.
Yet our children in everything else must be comfirtable and enterained.

Yeah my son is 23 months and we've just had to turn him to FF as his legs were getting cramped. He's only 75th percentile too so tall but not massively tall.

Other peoples opinions really don't matter here. Remember that this country is full of people who think that any kind of safety rule is ridiculous and pointless just because the chances of the danger happening are pretty low. A lot of people don't care about the science behind it, they just care about what's most convenient for them unfortunately.

YOU are responsible for your child's safety, and you are responsible for ensuring that whoever looks after her is keeping her safe too. Not being OTT at all, your parents are being completely unreasonable for trying to push your boundaries in the first place!

Your 6 year old is seriously under weight. A 6 year old at 14kg is below the 3% percentile. Please check your daughter’s weight, and if she is genuinely that weight, I would respectfully suggest you seek advice from a health professional.

Car sick is horrible. For a parent it’s about cleaning it up but for the person feeling it then it’s really horrible. At 3.5 I wouldn’t keep putting her through it no

@Theydoyaknow Someone said I was torturing my child and I called them and f'ing idiot. Not mature or nice no but nor is being needlessly accused of being an abusive parent.

Well no, because it matters. Whether or not someone is being unreasonable about something also depends on the underlying principle too…

www.carseat.se/rearfacing/rear-facing-basics/

some actual statistics and science. Sweden leads the world in car safety but Volvo are definitely BU right?

And yet it’s the OP having posts deleted for breaking Talk Guidelines…

They’re from people who know how horrible car sickness is, and think you’re not weighting your child’s regular comfort and happiness highly enough against driving down an already very small risk even further. A parent who was so anxious they never let a child climb at the playground, or who never let a teenager go anywhere unsupervised, would he inadvertently cruel too - though their motive would be exactly the same as yours: reducing risk as much as possible.

Being carsick is torture. It's horrendous. It is extremely traumatic for the child. Being willfully put in a position that will make the car sickness worse at almost 4 years old is horrible. I can understand what that poster meant. It is a torturous thing to go through.