To be shocked people are actually rear-facing their primary age kids

[EmsandPens]

My DD is 4, 5 in December and we swapped her from rear facing to forward facing in January this year. She started primary school recently and I noticed one of her classmates is still rear facing. I know the family from around town but had never seen them putting their kids in the car before and I know this child is already 5 and has pretty long legs for her age.

I know on Mumsnet it’s quite common to hear people saying rear facing until 6/7 is best but I had never actually seen anyone around here doing it.

AIBU to be shocked people actually rear face their primary age children?
Did you rear face your child past 4?

Gosh, I bet you shiver when you think about how they would all have almost certainly been killed if you'd been in a serious accident. Thank goodness we have more information to make safer decisions now.

I rear face when I get the chance. Why wouldn't you?

7?!?!

The advised age is 17 when you get them driving lessons and their first car so they can go out with their mates

I know a lot of people who don't take their babies in the car because the screaming is just relentless. Or, if they do, it's only if they can have another adult sat in the back to supervise/distract.

I was a child who really struggled with car sickness and my parents had me in the front seat as soon as possible, otherwise I would vomit every single time. I can't imagine how horrendous it would have been to be in the back AND rear facing.

My 3 year old doesn't rear face.

Take a look at some of the Facebook car seat advice pages and educate yourself about the benefits of rear facing for as long as possible.

I don’t think you should be affronted at other parents keeping their children as safe as possible.

My youngest is starting school this week and is still rear facing. She isn't tall enough for a high back booster so will stay rear facing until she is, which will likely be around Christmas just before she turns 5. We did the same with her older brother.

On a car journey the other day, I looked over to see a primary aged child in the front passenger seat jumping about not even with an adult seatbelt. All other passengers in the car were adults wearing seatbelts. Now that is shocking IMO!

Why aren’t cars just made with rear facing passenger seats?

There will likely still be someone on here decrying that you were abusive and that they should have been pretzelled in

Our erf seats took up no more space than the other car seats..

There's no room for a lol on a thread about car safety

There’s loads of info online about why rear facing is safer. It’s the law in many other countries to be rear facing for far longer than it is here. My children are teenagers but we sat them rear facing for as long as possible. We’ve only ever had small cars, there wasn’t much choice on rear facing seats then but there were some suitable. I Hopefully there is more choice now.

Ask any health professionals who work with children in critical care or in rehabilitation how what seats they use. They will all have their children rear facing for as long as possible and in seats with 5 point harnesses after that. Boosters with normal seat belts will not protect in an accident.

lol was at my idea of making cars with rear facing seats, but apologies if it upset you.

Pp's mentioning kids seen on the school run etc in the front seat or no seatbelt etc. I've seen this too and imo is far more shocking than a child in a RF seat! I've seen a YR 4/5 yo in the front passenger seat with no car seat, a 2yo in a car seat FF in the front passenger seat, kids not restrained at all when the car is still moving.

Yes I did. It’s 5x safer. Why wouldn’t you?! 🤷🏽‍♀️ she rear faced until she was 5.5 and I knew her
bones were a bit safer. My son will do the same.

I have similar aged children and agree with you . I’m sure they were only rear facing up to maximum age 2, then moved to front facing. I’m sure it was the normal at the time. Obviously things change over time with research. Not sure when this changed. New car seats must be bigger to accommodate the longer legs.

Mine started getting car sick when rear facing around age 4. Forward facing stopped it when everything else failed. We don't travel by car much and mainly travel on roads in our local town at 30 miles an hour. We made a judgement call about what was the right thing for us as a family.

Mine started getting car sick when rear facing around age 4. Forward facing stopped it when everything else failed. We don't travel by car much and mainly travel on roads in our local town at 30 miles an hour. We made a judgement call about what was the right thing for us as a family.

Mine rear-faced until 7 and 6.5, they’re now 13 and 10. With all the information available even then, it is shocking that companies continue to push parents to buy seats which encourage people to put their children at such avoidable risk.

I RF for as long as I could, had some comments but I put safety first. I’ve seen the crash test videos! And read about internal decapitation.
There are such things as travel sickness pills for kids who are sick!
The reason rear face seats exist is because there has been lots of research done and medical and practical evidence that it is much safer for a child, in FF impact, the child’s head is the heaviest and gets thrown around and the crash causes the most horrific injuries.
Yes there were no car seats or even seat belts when I was young, (70’s baby) but there was a lot less traffic on the roads then, and if families were lucky enough to have had a car it was just one like us.
Research also suggests that the majority of accidents happen very close to home so that ridiculous concept of “oh it’s only down the road” is dangerous, I saw a kid shoved into the footwell of a car while his mom sat in the passenger seat in her mates car as there were no other seats once. She lived at the top of the street 🙄 and I saw a woman strap a seatbelt around her and her 5/6 month old baby once 🤦🏻‍♀️ someone related to my exDH had her grandchild regularly in her car and FF when her grandchild was still very small, honestly the seat buried her. But she said it was because baby wanted to see out the window 🤦🏻‍♀️ God forbid if anything happened!

Agree, I always book train tickets that way. My youngest DD still gets travel sickness. She screamed in the car until forward facing so was safer for me. Never grow out of it.
I hate on bus when the rear facing back seats are the last left.

No anti sickness tablets work for me, I’m strange that way.

Rear facing is safest for a head on collision (statistically most likely type of collision), forward facing would have actually been better for your kids if the car was hit from behind. If you watch the crash test simulations you'll see why.