MIL has bought a forward facing seat for 2 year old?

[Elisabeth3468]

I want to start by saying my son is 2 and is rear facing and has a specialised seat that rear faces up to 25kg. I plan on keeping him rear facing until he grows out of the weight/height limit which will probably be aged 5. I know how much safer it is.
My MIL knows how I feel about rear facing and I've provided her with all the facts and information but she doesn't seem to listen or want to know any better? That's fine because he never goes in her car anyway as she hasn't had a seat.
Until the other day she turns up and has bought him a forward facing only seat, brand new. It was off a colleague so highly discounted so she paid next to nothing but still it's forward facing and does rear face at all.
She keeps saying it's fine to forward face at his age etc. but she knows why I choose to rear face.
I feel really awkward now and I don't want my son to go in that seat.
I can't understand why she's done it. My mum has a car seat for my son and it's the same as ours and she's taken on board that the safest is to rear face.
I said to MIL I will buy a seat for her car if she wants one. She rarely looks after him anyway so confused why she's bought a seat.
AIBU?
What shall I say to her? I feel like she thinks I'm ungrateful.

My 2 year old is forward facing but if I was you OP I would put my foot down - it’s the undermining for me!

You can prefer whatever you want, but you wouldn’t be taking my children anywhere unless they were in an ERF seat.

If you love your grandchildren, surely you would want them to be as safe as possible? Surely you wouldn’t want to compromise their safety?

How does a 2 year old actually fit in a rear facing? Mine were in forward facing at that age

@ByPeachSeal "No. Legs can go anywhere."

I honestly don't see how. Maybe my children were particularly tall/unbendy, but I can only imagine knees drawn up, or legs straddled uncomfortably wide.

Does isofix work rear facing?

She obviously thinks she needs a seat.

You will apparently want your child RF for 3 - 5 more years, and at least twice you've said you'll buy her a seat, but still haven't, so she felt compelled to buy her own.

If you'd bought her the RF seat when the subject was first broached, would there be an issue?

There’s literally been photos on this thread showing where legs go.

You are dead right OP, stick to your guns.

I do have to say though, these threads always make me feel a bit crap because a) we have a small car and b) I couldn't afford one of the fancier car seats when our son outgrew his infant carrier. We did get a good brand, and it is ERF but only to 105cm/22kg which at his current trajectory he will hit at about 3 and a half.

These threads can end up being quite shaming of anyone who doesn't ERF until their child is 7 and can really fuel anxiety. I'm sure almost everyone is doing the best they can with the knowledge and resources they have.

Including in the reply to the original comment...

OP, my 38yr old fully grown adult is still rear facing so do it as long as you can

I literally just showed you a photo of exactly how

Yes, plenty of isofix extended rear facing seats on the market.

You buy ERF seats that allow your child to RF until 6 or 7 years old.

The Swedish style ERF seats are designed for tall, leggy, Swedish children! And the European regulation is accepted in the UK so you can legally use such seats here.

They are usually designed so that they can be set back a little bit from the back seat, which allows space for legs as though they are sitting in a chair, but even if they don't have this space due to the seat design or it being fitted in a more compact way, then it's not a problem at all for children to cross their legs or have them resting up on the back seat.

I am looking at my 2yo right now who is sat on the floor watching TV with his legs in a complete W-shape. And my 5yo is snuggled up under a blanket with his legs pulled up to him, too. Children of the age to be in a car seat are not generally choosing to sit in a position like they would in a chair in a classroom. They are much happier than adults to sit all scrunched up.

People come up with all sorts of objections to rear facing but they are almost always not founded in reality, and are mostly about the person's own familiarity with forward facing - we tend to be more comfortable with things that seem familiar to us and less comfortable with/more sceptical about things which are outside our previous experience. So there is a certain amount of "looking for" problems with rear facing rather than looking objectively at the two options. For example people make an assumption that a RF seat will take up more space or be more difficult to use, without actually looking at the seats and comparing with a FF seat.

That said, I am not as staunch an ERF advocate as some in the car seat world. I'm a strong believer in if it works for you then absolutely keep doing it, as the safety benefits are well worth it, I also think it's well worth promoting overall as a "standard" option, and I do support lobbying industry to offer more ERF options which solve some of the problems people have with RF, and I will happily help any individual find a RF seat which meets their needs if I can. But on an individual level - if it does become a hassle at some point, for example due to car sickness (which not all children suffer from), budget, space, or any other practical reason, where a seat which would solve the problem is not available or accessible, if the child is over two, and certainly the older they are, the difference isn't so great that it justifies a lot of inconvenience. I also think that a strong focus on RF to the exclusion of any FF at all causes an issue in that parents find it difficult to find solid advice about FF seats, how to use/fit them correctly, what is important and the differences between them.

In terms of policy, I think the current law is fine, but I would extend the 15 month rule to all seats (not just R129 seats) and increase messaging emphasising the preference for rear facing seats for the whole of the "integrated restraint" (where you use car seat straps rather than the car's seatbelt) stage.

Basically, if you're in a crash then there is a chance that the crash is so extreme that no car seat will save them. There is a chance that the crash is so minor, even an unrestrained child will be fine. And then there is a large area in the middle where it matters what seat they are in. This area in the middle is rather larger than most people assume. Most people think that either a crash will be minor and so children will be fine whatever, or a crash will be severe and then nobody will be fine. The truth is more complicated and children are much more vulnerable to injury in a car accident than adults.

Unrestrained > restrained is the absolute biggest difference, except for children under the age of 1, where a forward facing or booster seat (yes, it happens) or a seatbelt alone is almost as poor for outcomes as being unrestrained.

For children over the age of 2-3 years old, even a seatbelt is MUCH better than nothing.

Then you have improvements in outcome over and above "any restraint" for the in between area, for each type of seat - a booster seat is better than just a seatbelt, a 5 point harness seat is better than a booster seat, a rear facing seat is best of all.

The second biggest factor in whether or not the car seat will improve outcomes is about how it's installed and used - there are some really common misuses which still make a bigger difference than forward vs rear facing.

So rear facing vs forward facing is actually the third most important factor (after using anything at all, and ensuring it's used properly). However, it is the most important/significant factor in the seat choice itself.

Other aspects like side impact protection, isofix vs seatbelt, old regulation vs newer regulation, construction material, individual safety features of a seat etc are less important. These are all negligible compared to the other three factors. Arguably the most important aspect of a seat's design is how easy it is to use correctly and avoid misuse.

So: A cheap/basic/"bad brand" or old fashioned RF seat will offer better protection than the best, highest performing FF seat (possible exception: Cybex Anoris).

BUT misuse trumps direction. So even a cheap/basic/"bad" FF seat used properly is safer than a RF seat which is being used incorrectly, if the misuse is severe.

At 2 years old I would let this go. A five year old forward facing is just ridiculous

You might be reassured to know that 3.5 is a perfectly normal age to forward face in Sweden according to this observational study by Besafe: https://www.besafe.com/gb/safety-tips/safety-education/statistics-safety-in-cars-2018/

With a closer analysis of the children between 2.5 years and just before 5 years, we can see that a large proportion of the children are turned forward facing after 3 years and 3 months. Before that, three out of four children travel rearfacing. At the age of 3.5, half of the children travel rearfacing. A large proportion of the children are turned forward facing after 3 years and 9 months.

Although they comment on it negatively, the fact is that Sweden has excellent child safety statistics despite the fact that the report is worded as though this is a terrible thing.

Also, many children slow down in their growth so you might find you get a bit longer in the rear facing mode than you expected to.

where is your dh in all this its his mother

I am currently having similar 'discussions' with my MIL 😂

I FF both my older children as soon as they outgrew the infant carrier. With my first, that was the done thing at the time, completely in line with the legal requirements etc. RF was vaguely a thing but it wasn't common. I didn't know I was doing anything bad/wrong etc.

With my second, I knew about ERF but I had a problem with her absolutely screaming her head off, which magically disappeared as soon as she was turned to FF. So I don't regret my decision as overall I believe it was safer.

However the youngest is now approaching outgrowing the infant carrier and is a very chilled traveller so I want to ERF. MIL has seen the research etc but genuinely thinks that because my other kids were FF, it's not fair to RF the youngest. I happen to think that is crazy so we'll be going with my way 😂 but it is strange what views people have on it!

👏

Rebound is less strong than the initial impact. Rebound IS important - it's why adult seats have a headrest on (which should be correctly adjusted, but hardly ever is, BTW - check your car manual).

The study that was posted about the danger in the rebound phase does not really apply to UK seats, because UK legislation requires car seats to have some anti-rebound protection which that study was looking at US regulation seats, which don't. (Weirdly, Canada does - so you get the same seat sold in the US and Canada with different instructions).

You can reduce the effects of rebound in two ways, the first way is to limit the amount of forward rotation in the first place, which is the job of features like a support leg (braces the seat against the hard floor), rigid metal isofix (helps hold the car seat at a rigid angle on the seat, as opposed to the isofix "straps" American seats have), the seat base making good contact with the vehicle seat, a top tether holding the top of the seat up and back (less effective for rear facing) or the diagonal part of the belt wrapping around the back of a rear facing seat (like infant carriers) or the top of the seat (like Maxi Cosi Tobi). Some older style seats were also designed to rest/brace on the front seat or dashboard itself. Reduced forward rotation means that the rebound stage is even less severe.

Then the other way to reduce rebound is to have something preventing the seat from riding back up. For best results, you want both. Some ways to do this are anti-rebound bars or boards, which are present on a lot of isofix seats although not all - this is a sort of brace which goes by the child's feet and may be adjustable to get a tight fit. Or the base of the seat may be tilted up so that this causes an anti-rebound effect in itself - this is why some cheaper seats make you recline the seat in RF mode. Infant carrier seats often have a rule in the manual about the positioning of the handle, which may be designed to stay up or point down to brace against the back seat of the car, which can help prevent the seat lifting up or act as a "roll cage" protecting the child. And the Swedish type seats are generally tethered down behind the seat to a point which is low down in the vehicle (generally, the rails attaching the front seat) which holds the seat in place and prevents it riding back up again.

I think you have to weigh up safety against the misery of cramped legs, isolation, car sickness, lack of stimulation.
If your child is strapped into a good age and size appropriate car seat, the extra benefits of being forward facing in an accident (which is very unlikely anyway), may be more about your own peace of mind than what is holistically best for your child

@BertieBotts honestly and sincerely would like to thank you for your post. That is so kind and reassuring.

Christ, there are some obtuse posters here (who appear incapable of looking at photographs).

I have two children. DD1 is now 23. DD2 is 2. When I had DD1, ERF wasn't really known about (I didn't know anything). I did what I thought was best and bought a good quality Britax forward-facing seat for DD1 when she outgrew her infant carrier. Thankfully we never had an accident.

Now that DD2 is here, 21 years later, the advice and safety has changed. DD2 is rear facing. She will be rear facing until she is 5 or 6. We have a mirror so we can see her. Her legs are fine. She is perfectly happy in a rear facing seat which is considerably safer than forward facing.

The safety evidence of ERF is overwhelming. My daughter's safety is paramount. Therefore she will rear face.

It actually doesn't matter whether rear facing is safer or whether random mumsnetters can 'get their head around it', OP's MIL knows what OP has decided is best for her child and has gone ahead and overridden her. This is annoying enough when it's about slipping kids chocolate before lunch or letting them stay up late when mum's not about, but when what's at stake is a child's safety it's really crappy behaviour.

I’m from Australia and not far off 70 years of age. I had my children young (first at 19) and when they were babies it was a carry cot/moses basket for the baby in the back seat. I had a European car so it did have seatbelts in the back too. I used to wrap the carry cot in mosquito netting, then the seatbelt around the carry cot and through the handles but in an accident I doubt it would have helped really.

By the time the oldest was 5 they had fitted car seats but I’m not even sure they were ‘safety tested’ and regulated. But still, baby capsules had not arrived on the market. Actually when my oldest was born it was not illegal to not wear a seatbelt, and many back seats of cars didn’t have them fitted. It wasn’t like we were unaware. The hospital paediatrician came around to speak to all the new mums in the hospital and I remember him saying that an unrestrained child in a car going at 30miles per hour which was stopped suddenly in an accident, is equivalent to them falling 3 stories. It scared us all half to death but not much we could do about it at the time. I took my firstborn home, holding in my arms while riding in the backseat, while ex husband drove more slowly than usual. At least there was no where near as much traffic on the roads back then.