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.

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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!

I do, I spend most of my day sat cross-legged, so I'm always confused about this argument!

Doesn't sound like a healthy co-parenting relationship at all. If what you say is true your co-parent is neglectful. I say if what you say is true as it seems odd to bring all this up when discussing a car seat and say that you hope things get better. If you wanted things to get better you wouldn't be so fixated on a forward facing car seat, looking for research to suit your wants and then listing other things your co-parent has done wrong. If you really wanted things to improve then you would stick with the rear facing car seat. Surely your research has led to you learning that rear facing is recommended for as long as possible.
Your post just comes across like you are desperate for some form of control and are trying to be clever about it by finding research to back you up and painting a picture of a neglectful mother. If you are seriously concerned about your child's health and safety with her mother forget about the car seat and address the actual issue.

So its hard to relay everything. There are things on the floors due to the fact theres a lot going on in the house & things are often left & the kids do what they want to a large extent. I am always doing the tidying up, bringing plates from bedrooms, sorting fridge out, clearing things, washing up etc when I am up there which alternates every fortnight when I have my daughter down in Essex. I treat her two older boys from a previous relationship the same way I treat my daughter and I have looked after them all when she has had days out etc. The cleaner is provided for by Adult Social Services but she can only do so much. I try & help & yes things in the past have escalated to involve outside bodies. Some progress has been made. My point in stating some of my concerns is to contrast those with this obsession with rear facing seats. I genuinely dont understand that. I had kids from a previous relationship &I had front facing car seats after they became over the 18 month stage. I am not the sort of man who wants to do petty point scoring but wanted some constructive feedback. Thank You.

When we started have my stepdaughter overnight many years ago and neither of us drove, we had no idea about carseat safety and the few times we went somewhere in someone else's car we just sat her on a booster. I now know that she should have been in a FF seat at least, if not a RF seat.

I'm not going to cling to my past ignorance just because I made a mistake last time. DD5 sits in a RF seat and will do until she outgrows the weight requirements.

It seems like you are making this into an issue for no reason. You've got the seat, you know it's safer, your ex is more comfortable with it.

My point in looking at front facing was mainly given her growth & also she is more prone to sickness too & she has been sick in both my car &her mum's . She gets a bit bored & sleeps so I was considering the change. I may leave it for a few months yet but I started the conversation with mum to see how she felt.

I'd be very shocked if you can find a child who hasn't been sick in a car once or twice. If she has regular bad car sickness then it's worth considering but FF won't necessarily help. In terms of growth, she's either over the weight limit or not.

I had my dcs in a FF seat at 18 months or so too.
But that was a time when there was very few RF seats….

My point being, if your dd still fits the RF seat, don’t change it. Dint change it ‘because she bored and/or falling asleep’. Don’t change it because she has been sick a few times in the car. A lot of children are.
Safety is more important imo.

My kids were both FF from about 18 months, my eldest has always had terrible car sickness and the seat being one way or the other made zero difference. Either seat is legal so it's up to you, but if it's genuinely about travel sickness it's not going to make a difference. Anti sickness pills are the only help, and I'm convinced that's only because they knock them out.

I have indeed googled it and I still think WTAF.
15 months to 2yrs is adequate.
Do you not think kids look awkwardly positioned?
Facing a piece of material, not being able to see outside seems unnecessary. So please don't imply I am either stupid or ignorant.
I stand by what I wrote

15 months is not even close to adequate. Why would they not be able to see outside? There's still windows...