My co-parent threatening to stop me seeing my 4 year old daughter after I said I was looking to change rear-facing car seat in my car to front facing.

[lovingthegiftcom]

While I was discussing some issues of concern with my coparent via her friend, my coparent threatened to not allow me to see my daughter again a few days ago.
The reason?
Because I was looking at changing the rear-facing car seat to a front facing car seat for my daughter who is now 4 years old.
I have 20 years no claims on my car, my co-parent has made a few claims and had accidents in the past few years.
I appreciate they are a bit safer. But rear facing seats can cause sickness and vomiting plus it gets uncomfortable as the child gets older. I get that a baby should be in rear facing but government guidelines are:

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/road-safety/car-seat-laws/

I am upset and confused as my coparent does not take into account other more serious everyday issues:

1. My daughter gets foot injuries at her mum’s place sometimes: cuts etc due to glass and nails and other items on floors and in the garden. She blames my daughter for losing her shoes (true my daughter is guilty there) but theres plenty of shoes and slippers about. Her mum has lost one of her cats 3 weeks ago after it ate something lying around in the house. (It died due to internal strangulation or something) Now she has "only 4" cats and wants another one.
2. On car seats: I bought an expensive £200 Swedish safety rated rear facing seat at my co-patent’s insistence but she doesn't care much about the dirt, pc tablets, rubbish and crap in the car that’s far more dangerous in a crash at 70 MPH or if the car topples over: those items will smash on the kids heads. My coparent has already had a few car accidents and incidents in the past few years.
3. I had an allergy to cat fur myself, my daughter has asthma as does her mum. A few weeks ago when I was up there, my daughter had a very serious episode of coughing in the middle of the night lasting a couple of hours. Again letting the cats sleep on the bed does not help but my coparent doesn't think its an issue as she keeps giving us the impression she knows more than the medical professionals.
4. There are flees and fruit flies in most of the rooms even in the cold winter months because of food bits and plates and cutlery because the kids can eat in bedrooms etc and sometimes plates and cups stay there for days. This doesn't seem to bother my coparent much. And she has a cleaner paid for doing 10 hours a week cleaning.

There are other issues which are not needed to be said.

Maybe its me. Maybe I am in the wrong. My relationship with my coparent has gone south in the past year or two but that’s life. I have 2 grown up kids from a previous relationship and I am a good parent as far as anyone can see but yes I also have faults. I am not perfect and I have tried to listen and placate my coparent as I know she really loves her kids. (She has 2 older boys from a previous relationship too) I hope we can find a middle way forward for the sake of our daughter who has so much potential. We got on fine until about a year ago as we found a middle way even when we disagreed but there is someone stirring things up between us which does not help. It is not her friend that I know too a bit but someone my coparent is friends with as my coparent talks to me rudely and looks at me like I am a piece of rubbish sometimes. It is one of 3 people or a combination who are causing trouble.
My coparent will no doubt comment too as she will get the link to this.
Thanks for reading. Any advice or comments welcome but lets be fair too!

@Didshejustsaythatoutloud - it has been recommended for a number of years now and I have certainly seen it regularly.
It wasn’t a thing when mine were that age or yours I assume but honestly you could have quickly googled before commenting that it seems “cruel”. It’s not arcane knowledge.

Your "co-parent" threatened to stop you seeing your child, WHILE you were discussing your concerns with her friend, so you wrote an essay on all the other complaints you have about her 🙄

I assume you are seeking custody considering how unsafe you seem to believe your child is? Or AT LEAST making sure whatever parenting plan you have is being adhered to?

Rear facing is safer. However, ultimately as long as you have them in a legal seat there is nothing a coparent can do. My friend was very passionate about rear facing and the second she split from her partner, he purchased the cheapest front facing seats, i’m sure it was just to spite her. Obviously once a child faces forward they are unlikely to want to rear face in another car.

So you have concerns about your ex's parenting and think that means you should put her in a less safe car seat?

You say rear-facing can cause vomiting. Does it? Is your child regularly vomiting on normal car journeys?

There is no evidence that RF is uncomfortable, in fact, most children sit with legs bent or crossed most of the time and FF, where their legs are dangling, is less comfortable.

You sound like a nightmare coparent tbh, bitching to her friends instead of tackling issues head-on and then bickering over the very reasonable request to keep her in a safe car seat, which you already have and don't even need to buy.

He just sticks his legs straight out and rests his feet on the seat (so the seat takes a battering) The seat that I have can be adjusted to allow more leg room as they grow, he’s been in it for just over two years now and I haven’t had to adjust it for leg room yet, and he’s not short for his age. It’s a bloody fantastic car seat. Well worth every penny.

In the seat in his dads car, he has less leg room but either sticks his legs straight up the seat or crosses them.

Is your child comfortable in their rear facing seat? Are they sick and committing or are you looking for any excuse? Rear facing is safer for everyone and if your child has no issues up on to this point, why change what’s work. FF at 4 years is legal, heck even from 9 months but legal doesn’t mean safer. Good luck doing what’s best for your child and not fighting the spouse.

She has a cleaner for 10 hours a week. Unless she lives in a sprawling mansion, there's no way it's as messy and dirty as he's claiming.

As someone whose kids were pre the current rear facing advice I still can't picture where their legs go. How wide is the chair if they can fit in it cross legged. Surely that's bad for circulation if on a longer journey?

My very tall 4 year old still RFs. Obviously it’s not a legal requirement and not something to stop someone seeing their child over but I get why she’d have an issue with it. The rest of the stuff it sounds like you are not actually taking any steps to improve your daughters living situation and are just using it as a way of insulting the coparent. It’s your job as a parent to make sure she is safe and well cared for even when not in your care.

So you don't really give a shit about the issues other than wanting to use them in a they do this tit for tat.

Your poor child.

It doesn't concern him that his child gets cuts on her feet from glass and nails😟

@lovingthegiftcom please get social services to do a home visit and assessment . Maybe you should file for more custody

Why is communication going through 'a friend' surely things can be lost in translation or made 'more' or 'less' than what they are. That may be making communication worse not better in a way.

As far as car seats go, you are within your rights to change to forward facing, rear facing is considered safer but as long as your child meets the height and weight criteria for a forward facing seat (is it a high backed booster or a 5 point harness seat?) then legally you are fine, but saying you have twenty years no claims is pretty ridiculous and adds absolutely no purpose to your 'argument' aside from trying to come across as superior.. 20 years no claims won't matter if someone isn't paying attention and rear ends you at 50mph+

If you think your child's health is being put at risk you need to do something about it, you seem more bothered about 'who is the better parent' rather than what is best for your child?

Bringing up your co parents issues is tit for tat and has nothing to do with your argument over a car seat.

These are lots of separate issues. Rear facing IS safer due to the developing spine.

The other issues sound neglectful and obviously need sorting.

I think you are both really underestimating the damage that could be happening to her lungs. A child with asthma cannot be expected to live in conditions that irritate her lungs. My dad grew up like that and his lungs were always a mess and he died of a fatal asthma attack when he was 36. Please give your DD a chance to heal and outgrow her asthma.

They go in front of them. M 5yo is rear facing and has his feet flat on the seat in front of him- where an adults bum would go if they were sat in the car.

His seat has runners so slides back, he's not scrunched against the back of the adult seat.

Much more comfortable than having dangling legs if he was forward facing.

Crossed is better than dangling for anyone surely? How long would you be comfortable sitting on a bar stool with no foot rest?

Why are you discussing the car seat with them? By discussing it you invited the opinion of others.
The co parent cant ban you from seeing your child because of a car seat.

It's not good for circulation to be on a very long journey anyway; that's why you're recommended to get out and stretch your legs every few hours.

However, walk into any environment where children are sitting and you'll see they sit in all kinds of crazy positions, but what you won't see is them sitting on a high seat with their legs dangling, as they do in a FF seat. For that matter, you won't see many adults sitting this way either, hence why bar stools have foot rests on them.

The seat doesn't need to be wide enough for them to sit cross legged because their knees with poke out at the sides in that position, which isn't an issue. The purpose is to protect their head and neck.

https://erfmission.com/rear-facing-legs-go/

She is wrong to threaten to stop contact due to the car seat. But if you have so many concerns about her living conditions, why haven't you, or aren't you doing anything? What kind of contact are you currently having?

You sound passive aggressive and controlling. You have 14 more years of parenting together, your poor friend can't act as a go between for all of it. Stop focusing on "winning" and beating your ex and start focusing on actually being a good parent.

Let's not bring the whole rear facing vs front facing debate into this thread. It's not about that, and there are a million other threads exclusively on that subject.

It's about whether the other parent can prevent OP from seeing their child if they use a FF seat. And they can't. It's ridiculous. The FF seat is perfectly legal and no court will consider it a reason for OP to be deprived of contact with their child.

The tit for tat is immaterial (though I appreciate it's frustrating) and those issues need addressing by other means.

I don’t understand why you even needed to tell her about the car seat.

Do you live far away? You say up there which suggests you do. Can you move closer and go for 50/50?

If you’re concerned about her living conditions then contact SS. Is your daughter actually allergic to cats? I have a similiar aged child with asthma, hers is only triggered by illnesses and letting the cat sleep on her bed or not makes no difference. We’ve tried and it’s not different.

Sounds less like co-parenting , more just arguing via a proxy.
Poor child!
Nightmare for all

This is an image from a Google search of the car seat I have. This child is obviously way older than 4 so if you can imagine a much shorter cold would just stick their legs straight out in front of them.
My kids quite often chooses to cross his legs anyway, I think as grown ups we think of having our legs crossed as strange and uncomfortable because we just don’t sit like that, but if you watch kids they quite often cross legs and fold themselves into weird and wonderful positions because they are so so much more flexible than adults.