To ask MIL not to use their car seat?

[WorriedAboutHurtingFeelings]

MIL bought a car seat for her car, for when they take our 18-month old DD somewhere. This is very kind of her and I'm grateful. But the one she's bought isn't rear-facing, and everything I've read indicates that children should stay rear-facing as long as possible.

MIL doesn't see DD very much (they live an hour away) so I don't want to discourage contact, but she's very sensitive and I'm worried that it will hurt her feelings when I insist they use our own rear-facing car seat if they do take DD somewhere. I also have a strong feeling that MIL thinks I am too protective and precious about DD.

AIBU to insist they use our rear-facing seat instead of the one they've bought? As far as I'm concerned, DD's safety comes before MIL's feelings, but DH feels awkward about it.

May I just ask those who reckon their child will still be rear facing when they are SIX, what the hell do you do with their legs? My child is 2 and although we wanted to keep her RF for safety reasons, we’ve had to swivel the seat and FF because her legs were too long and there is no way to adjust the seat to accommodate this that I can see (joie360). She’s not a tall toddler.

The seats sit further back, leaving a small footwell

Rear facing is statistically safer because most bad accidents involve travelling at a speed and then slowing down quickly - even side collisions often involve hard breaking, which means the child is thrust forwards, which is a problem if they are forward facing and they are better protected if rear facing. Technically if someone crashed into the back of you, your child might be better off in a forward facing seat. This type of accident would happen at a lower speed than most frontal or side on collisions and is less common.

A compromise is the impact shield offered by some of the newer forward facing seats. My children have all had ‘rear facing till 4’ seats, including my eldest back when everyone was moving their child to forward facing from 9-12 months - everyone thought I was weird!) My youngest is only three but faces forward with an impact shield because he could unbuckle himself from the rear facing seats, and kept doing it, which was obviously far more dangerous than forward facing.

If it’s too late to take it back I’d thank them for having a car seat ready in case of them needing to step in in an emergency, but that for trips with time available you would rather they use your higher rated car seat.

Also, you need a massive car. Cars just aren’t designed for multiple children rear facing till 6. I had three across the back all in car seats and I couldn’t have fitted them all rear facing and I have a massive car. Even now I still have two in car seats and an older child rammed into the middle seat without one (he’s11), it’s a proper squeeze.

YANBU. Rear facing until at least 2 is so much safer, and really not difficult to do.

for anyone who uses the argument ‘we had our children forward facing and they were fine’, please remember, that’s a rubbish argument if they were fine because you didn’t have an accident, not because forward facing is perfectly safe.

i was a child of the 80s so my parents put me in the backseat in a Moses basket. I was fine. But crucially, I was only fine because they didn’t have a crash. Those babies who weren’t fine aren’t around to make that point.

How in the world are people fitting 6-8 year olds in a rear facing car seat?! Do they have detachable legs?

Take a step back and evaluate the types of journeys she will be going on.

My mum had a car seat that was FF from 18 months. Initially I was a bit eeek about it. However I thought about the journeys she will do with my child. All of them involved roads under 40mph, majority 30mph max, and usually lower with parked cars etc. The journeys would be under 10 minutes so I deemed the risk being very very low. She kept the seat and I kept my mouth shut.

They bend

YANBU 18 month olds should definitely not RF, but if she can still return the seat tell her now, unless she has other grandchildren who will be using it.

The seat gives foot space.

Our car is a citroen c4 and would fit three extended rear facing seats in the back.

Yes, that’s an interesting suggestion. I know my DH would respond well to that, whereas without it he’d probably just say that we forward faced from before 1 - because that’s what everyone did 20 years ago. I read a post on here from an emergency services person - or perhaps their spouse - about seeing the horrific damage done to a young child in a forward facing seat which could have been prevented by rear facing. That’s the point - a better understanding now of safety. It isn’t acceptable for grandparents to say, well, that was what we did in our day etc.

So it's a legally allowed car seat and she's rarely going to be in it?

I couldn't really get too excited about that tbh.

We did have a serious accident. 3 kids in back, 5 and 7 year old were in forward facing high back boosters and baby was rear facing in spin 360. Very bad accident, clipped pole at 50mph, sent us spinning across road and landed in ditch on side. Mercifully, all kids were absolutely fine. Not even whiplash.

I know rear facing is safer but for a 5 or 6 year old it seems overkill.

As a paediatric doctor who has worked in a paediatric emergency department receiving toddlers in car seats who were forward facing it is absolutely NOT safe even if you’re using a car seat.

please don’t give advice on something you aren’t certain of. It could put a children’s life and ability to lead a normal life at risk.

It is less safe though so surely OP is being perfectly reasonable to ensure that her 18 month old baby travels in the safest kind of car seat?

I presume that all the people saying that they have always used FF seats and their kids were fine didn't ever have a serious car accident, so this wasn't put to the test. Why not go for the safest option for your child?

Absolutely! I think it's very different when its hypothetical/something read by goggling, to when you have actually seen it.
A 4 year old in a high back booster in a front seat with her feet resting on the dash board will forever stay with me - internal decapitation so paralysed, will need a trache vent for life and both legs had to be fully amputated as despite best efforts to exfix they were so badly damaged would never heal, and she would never be able to walk again anyway. My oldest was 4 at that time, and the thought of this child never leaves me, some patients just stay with you don't they.

Of course it is. If it wasn't safe for children to ff then it would be illegal to sell car seats that do so. It is safER to rear face, that doesn't make it unsafe to forward face.

Why is it a 'dick move' to insist that your own child isn't going in a car seat that isn't rear facing? It seems nobody asked the grandparents to buy the seat. If you're not happy with the situation, you don't have to allow them to take your DC in a car at all, and you don't need to apologise for it.

I used FF seats with mine but that was 15 years ago. Now I'd use RF and not simply assume that it would be fine. Surely you use the best information available to date.

This was my eldest when he was 6.5 (he was FF by then but still fitted into his brother's seat RF) - there's plenty of room for his legs and the seat could be installed with more leg room if needed. My youngest is 6 and also FF as outgrew this seat by weight, he often asks to sit RF again as his legs dangle down and hurt on long journeys.

The majority of my friends and colleagues RF until 4 (all but one of a group of 25 of us in a baby chat did) but I guess we are self selecting as mainly health professionals who understand the benefit.

It is less safe - rear facing reduces the risk of a very rare event to a very very rare event. That doesn't make FF unsafe and at least one poster has said @Babyybabyyy was doing something unsafe when she isn't.

There are lots of reasons people FF:

• space in the car (my DH couldn't move the driver's seat far enough back to drive with a rear facing 360 behind him - Astra, normal car)
• travel sickness (had this one, awful)
• screaming child (even worse than the sickness and dangerous too as you just can't concentrate on the road)
• ERF seats are more expensive

Etc etc etc.

Like I said upthread, OP is perfectly reasonable to want her 18mo to rear face (that's what I wanted for mine at that age too!), but there's no need to vilify parents who make a different choice. No one's sending their children to play on the hard shoulder.

In testing, rear facing seats are safer (meaning less resulting severe injury and death). We use a RF for our 20month old.

You do need to think a bit about the safety in practice versus in testing - my parents (70s) really struggle to get little one in our rear facing in our car (Britax Max Safe Pro) because of the space to maneuver being much reduced. I wouldn't want them to use it without us there as I worry she wouldn't be in the correct position/have the straps done up tight enough. She still fits their rotating car seat to RF but once she doesn't we will need to have a think about what to replace it with. As others have said, some little ones undo straps - that happening and you not noticing is riskier than FF.

I did have to have an awkward conversation with my MIL about car seats and bought her an alternative and she took it really well. I started by saying I know she would never knowingly risk our little one.

One thing I'd like to note - a bunch of comments seem to suggest you are safer if it's short and closer to home journeys, are people not more likely to crash in these types of journey?

Our son was in the 96th percentile for height, he rear faced until he was six (everyone rear faces until four where we live, but most rear face for longer).

Mine are 10 and 15 now. We bought the best car seats cos we cared about safety. But they were forward facing. So I find myself rolling my eyes about your insistence they're only safe in backwards facing - can't help it - but equally I'm horrified at myself having the same reaction as my parents did when I explained the baby had to be fastened in every single time.
So tread carefully and delicately is what I'm saying. You have to acknowledge what a lovely thing it was she did. You're going to hurt her feelings a little. Be sure to put some blame on yourself. It's hard being a parent - you want to be sure you can never blame yourself if they're in a crash and you hadn't done all the safest things that could have been done. And make it really clear it's other drivers that keep you awake at night not her driving.