To think car seat safety groups on Facebook are absolutely mental!

[Busby88]

Not sure if many MN members are part of some of the car seat safety groups on Facebook but honestly can’t believe what a mad population they are (and I know MN can also be pretty bonkers!)

Joined for advice on high backed boosters as want to put my almost 5yo in one and all it is is comments about how they should still be rear facing. Seen comments similar aimed at people with almost six year olds looking to forward face.

I completely get the safety aspect and how much safer rear facing is, I really do. And will be rear facing my 4yo as long as possible in my car, but he’s reached the 18kg limit in the seat we have for grandparents to us and it would be nice to just be able to get some advice without just being yelled at for being unsafe.

Honestly can’t believe the negativity and unhelpfulness aimed at people who are even considering forward facing before the age of 6.

I remember asking a question about research/evidence so I could make the best decision for my child. All I got was that she should be RF, even though for various reasons it's not possible.

She wasn't a 13 month old. She was FIVE!
(I'm trying to with it whether harnessed FF is safer than HBB for a older but tiny child that's 14.8kg, when the recommended minimum weight for HBB is 18kg).

They are horribly aggressive and bullying groups, especially the one lead by Gabi mentioned upthread.

Ps: Its not as clear cut as HBB better than FF due to neck load as mentioned earlier. 5 point harnesses are safer overall hence why F1 drivers use them etc.

@AgeGapBbe I didn’t say it wasn’t safer - a whiplash injury is a fairly ‘safe’ injury to have in the scale of things so it being more likely doesn’t necessarily make the seat less safe. It might be a consideration though if 100% of your driving is pootling about town.

Try RoSPA for advice. They were great when i was asking for advice about DD in (shock horror) taxis without a car seat. (They said to ask for a wheelchair accessible one, and put the pram at right angles to the direction of motion. We didn't have a car. We did get a car seat later on, but chose on the basis of the one the shop said fitted in the maximum number of different cars.)

Yes those groups are awful, and I still RF my 5yo. But he turned FF in the childminders card at 4.5yo. I dared not ask for advice on the best HBB for him (needed a very narrow one that puzzled well).

There's no evidence that a harness is more dangerous than a seatbelt for a 4 year old. Studies are equivocal. There is some movement in the seat so it's not just the harness itself.

The most important thing is that the child is sitting properly in the seat which is arguably more likely in a harness seat for a 4 year old.

Either way, children in any car seat used within its instructions are statistically very safe in an accident

You're unlikely to be a high speed rear shunt collision though...

Sorry to derail, my kids are late teens now.
But where to the legs of a 4/5 yo child go if rear facing? Up the back of the seat?? I can't picture it!

My relatively tall 5yo often crosses his, or puts one either side of his seat. He doesn't complain about his legs, other than on very long journeys (5+ hrs) will say he gets a sore bum, which I'm guessing would happen regardless of direction.

Agreed. I’ve been made to feel really quite shit on occasion by others when it comes to FF vs RF. I fully understand the advantages of ERF but cleaning up a spewy car seat every week isn’t really much fun either.

That seems really uncomfortable! Maybe it's because I'm old!

My 5 year old's seat has space in front where she can put her feet - just like a normal chair. The erf seats are quite upright and designed for better leg room.

There's not a lot of leg room for the front seat passenger though.

I planned to rear face my lo for as long as he would tolerate but it became unsafe as he could unclip his harness so I purchased the cybex car seat which has no harness, instead it has a big guard that holds them in like a ride! It claims its safer than fallword facing with a harness car seat

See I don't think that can be right. The forces are a result of the relative speeds and directions - not the absolute speeds and directions. Physics doesn't know if one car is stopped and the other doing 30 into the back of it or one car doing 30 and the other 60 into the back of it. Can anyone explain this to me?

Car seat safety groups hate those seats.. unless it's the really expensive airbag one

I'm curious about rear facing til 36kg - that seems the weight of a child considerably older than the age most children would outgrow needing a car seat anyway (typically Y4ish)? My average height Y2 is 18kg so it's double her weight.

Surely comfort depends on the person. I’m an adult and I look at rear facing children with their legs crossed, or on the seat with their knees above their hips or whatever and think I’d be far more comfortable like that. I find sitting at right angles like very uncomfortable and if my legs were dangling unsupported like they do in FF seats I’d really really struggle. Maybe because I’m hypermobile, but I am a bit jealous of seating positions ERF children have available.

It depends on your child and situation so YANBU at all IMO.

We live in the Netherlands so hardly use a car at all (bike, walk or use public transport for everything). We do have a car, which mainly gets used in the school holidays to take the children to see their grandparents. These journeys are extremely long (12+ hours) so rear-facing for such a long time is totally not the same conversation as e.g. a 10-minute school run.

My eldest is now 6 but forward-faced from an early age as he is extremely long and leggy. It would have been VERY uncomfortable for him to be concertinaed into a rear-facing car seat for such long journeys.

By contrast, our nearly 2yo is of a totally different morphology: long torso, short legs. He is still rear facing and will continue to do so for some time yet (until we perceive that such long journeys are no longer comfortable/feasible for him while rear facing).

In short, people need to use their common sense.

I think I actually saw your post! The group used to be soooooo much worse! A lot of the admin/moderators left the group quite suddenly and as a group they would definitely bully people.

I’m looking at one of these for my DD aged 2y 8m. Likewise I’ve had to stop rear facing due to her being able to get both arms out of the harness straps. No matter how tight the harness is, she will be crying it’s too tight etc she can still get out of it. I have no idea how she manages it!

I really need to look into the safety of cybex seats. How do you find yours?

I intend to keep my Ds in his 36kg exclusive rear facing seat until he’s 6-7 years. Fully fully on board with rear facing as long as possible.
But yes, some of the comments on these fb pages can be particularly mean.

Can I ask why 6 or 7 though? What changes at that point if the seat is up to 36kg? As I said previously, that's double the weight of my 6 year old. Does the difference on safety between FF and RF become less as children get older? And is it as they get older or is it heavier and/or taller? I've never ventured onto the FB groups and struggled to find any actual information (not just opinions) when reading about it online.

There's a way to deliver information. They are just rude. People are a lot more likely to listen to you when you're not a dick.

FFS no wonder so many young people can't cope with life. Mothers strapping them in to rear facing seats at 6 and 7 years old. Depressing.

I’m confused about their legs, where do they go?

My kids are only teenagers but they were forward facing as soon as they didn’t fit their first baby seat, normal at that time (2010/11)

I know people have very strong feelings on this and it can cause chaos when it’s brought up.

But to absolutely agree some of these Facebook groups are insane! I feel many of you may know the one I mean. Run by a lady with the initial G.

I actually agree with rear facing and my two are in britax max safes for as long as they will fit, but I actually got blocked from her group having never commented on a post in my life, I think because I laugh reacted to someone calling her out! She’s is a cult leader I swear! People will make a post saying they can’t afford the seats and she will say well, sell your car/home/soul and buy the seat I sell or your child will die.