To wonder why parents choose to forward face their child from a young age?

[incognito1991]

Genuinely no judgement I’m just curious, when I had my DD 2 years ago, I knew absolutely nothing about car seat safety and admittedly I still don’t know a lot. When looking into it I learned that children are so much safer rear facing for as long as possible and defiantly between the ages of 0-4. I have removed myself off some car seat safety groups as feel they can be too much sometimes but I was wondering if this is the best guidance why do parents choose to forward face from the legal age?

Do you mean extended rear facing wasn't a thing? Because rear facing for babies definitely was.

One child was very travel sick. The second was Houdini - safer if we could see what he was up to. No point in rear facing if he was out of the straps. Also, until youngest was 3 we had a 3door car - not even sure how rear facing would work in that case. We don’t all have massive fancy cars.

Possibly. (I missed the baby stage.)

For me it was mainly because it was a barrier to conversation when we couldn't see each other. And travel sickness was a factor. I had to weight the increased safety against the impact of the dc's unhappiness when we were driving (and we drove long distances because we live very rurally). I decided a decent quality forward facing seat was ok.

It's a bit like the fact that when I had dd2 I moved dd1 from the safest seat in the car (rear passenger side) to the second safest (driver passenger side) as she was the older dc, even though I knew it was less safe. Parenting involves a lot of choices about risk and safety, and generally individual families have to balance things as best they can, as long as they stay within acceptable boundaries.

Some car seats are sold forward facing only and sold as safe. I do find it slightly confusing what I should and shouldn’t be doing. If it isn’t safe then surely they should stop selling forward facing for younger children.

I did because she gets horrifically car sick going backwards and car seats aren't perfectly upright, they tip you back slightly. She vomited, choked and if her 7 year old brother hadn't been sitting next to her and saw what was happening, I wouldn't have heard a thing.

He shouted to me, but I couldn't pull over instantly as was on a very fast dual carriageway. He pulled her out, tipped her forward and thumped her back but it was very scary. Mostly because she didn't make any noise. She's been forward facing ever since. Obviously forward facing from a year old isn't ideal but the risk of her throwing up again is higher than the risk of a car accident.

Just a few reasons:

• Not aware of the differences
• Budget (extended rear facing seats are hugely expensive compared to some other options)
• travel sickness
• Child whinging and escaping from one set up but not another
• Driver seat space / adult passenger seat space / visibility.

We couldn’t get an ERF seat into our (Swedish) car and have the driver in a sensible seat position, an adult passenger in the car and have a decent view of the wing mirrors. On risk modifiers, we have winter tyres, check tyre regularly and run well above legal minimum tread, drive with phones in the glove box, and have very high safety rated cars. So the trade off between good driving position and visibility vs seat was one we chose to make. The safest crash is the one you don’t have.

Ah fair enough, I shouldn't have assumed you'd had babies!

I think some people are just desperate to show how grown up their DC are, obviously not those who had sicky children, or children who screamed/ got out of their straps. But I knew loads of people who FF as soon as the child hit the lowest weight limit to do so. I kept mine rear facing as long as possible. Mind you DS2 didn't get travel sick/turn into Houdini until We FF him!

Definitely rear facing for babies. But when mine were little (>20 years) the next seat up was a forward facing seat with a 5 point harness, from 9 months!

DC1 is 5 years and still rear faces.

DC2 is 2 years old, still rear faces but has started to get car sick, so we’re considering turning him round. Only issue is his older sibling will of course want to forward face too.

Because he would cry until he projectile vomited if facing backwards- facing forwards he is a happy, engaged traveller

It was the same for mine. But instead of rushing them into the FF seat at 9 months/ whatever the min weight was, I kept them RF until they outgrew the baby seat.

I'd say for a few reasons:

1. cost - ERF is expensive which prices some families out
2. practicality - some cars cant take ERF car seats and still allow an adult to sit in the front or even it at all.
3. the child - either whinging, escaping or not accepting ERF.
4. not aware of the differences.

Forward facing isn't unsafe its just not as safe as rear facing. Like a lot of things in life, t's about weighing up the risks against positive.
e.g. a car sick child is probably safer forward facing as you can see them and in a more upright position. Having a child screaming their head off during a drive because they are rear facing is less safe than a forward facing happy not distracting the driver child.

Mine stayed rear facing until 4 years old then turned around. One has just come out of his booster seat in one car (as he is tall enough) but not the other car.

This. Travel sickness which I suffer from too aonI can relate, screaming and climbing out. I am yet to find a lock that resists DC3.

Because a rear-facing seat makes long journeys much more complicated. Because FF seats are safe. HTH

Mine too. Seems mad now thay they forward face at just 9 months.

Erf seats were just starting to become a mainstream thing when our 3rd was a baby. He's 14 now. But the seats were massively expensive, hard to find to test in shops and really bulky so we wouldn't have been able to fit everyone in the car.

I can see how kids would be comfortable though without their legs dangling down. I hate it if my feet can't touch the ground.

It's the same reason people put babies in jumperoos and baby bouncers They don't research and assume if things are sold then it means they are ok.

My son was sick without fail every car journey. It is not safe when a driver is distracted worrying that a toddler might choke on his vomit in the backseat when you can only see them reflected in two tiny mirrors.

We took what we considered was the safest course of action overall which was forward facing. It solved the problem instantly.

Plus, not everyone buys Volvos (or whatever the safest car is these days)

It was just becoming a thing when we my kids were little and not the norm yet, but I was glad to get out in time and not have to spend the money and make my DC uncomfortable.

For me, I could see that the data was taken at a theoretical crash at 56mph, when I will be almost exclusively driving in a city with a 20mph limit. The actual risk was already extremely low for serious injury in a forward facing seat. Maybe ERF was "twice" as safe, but I was looking at a real reduction in the zone of 0.01% to 0.005% which weighed up financially and car-sickness wise didn't swing it for me.

The Swedish data wasn't available and I felt a few different elements were being put together to paint a more dramatic picture. For example, Sweden had 11 child deaths on the roads last year, from 2.3 million children. Assume 3 are pedestrian/cycle, so about 8 maybe, with probably half over car seat age and maybe one baby rear facing whatever. So about 3 deaths a year, two which could be saved by extending rear facing.

You could reduce your risk by more if you reduced the amount you drove by just once a week, for example, but there wasn't the same push to do that, which is odd, it almost feels like exploiting parent fears to sell them something.

Because she was crying and shouting when rear facing, and the distraction to the driver from that was IMO more dangerous than the forward facing position. Especially as almost all our journeys are in London - so low speed but lots of decisions and concentration required.

@TeenToTwenties safety measures are usually incredibly complicated and take into account impact and likelihood when calculating risk. As far as I remember from my research, the logic is that most accident are from behind, so if you're rear ended it's safer to be rear facing. For the majority of adults being rear ended won't have a massive impact, but because kids necks, bones and muscle are still developing it can have a greater impact. So like most safety features it's not 100% safer in every circumstance it's very nuanced. Take into account the cost of manufacturing a car, the likelihood of adults being happy rear facing, the likely damage to adults from being rear ended et it all goes into the over all equation to find the route of least harm.

The advice when mine were small was rear facing until around 18 months old - I can't remember the exact age. My first was very tall and simply grew out of his rear facing car seat at just over a year old. Children 2 and 3 screamed blue murder when rear facing from around a year old. It was almost impossible to drive with them making so much noise.

I fully agree that it wasn't ideal and its not the advice I'd give, unsolicited, to any daughters in law I may have but, fortunately, it worked for us.

You could reduce your risk by more if you reduced the amount you drove by just once a week, for example, but there wasn’t the same push to do that

Yes indeed. Why not encourage parents to walk or take buses and trains rather than driving. But no campaign for that because no product involved.

Because internal decapitation is really, really rare and travel sickness is really, really unpleasant.

Rear-facing may be much safer but travel by car is pretty safe in the first place so its reducing a very low risk to a very, very low one.