Please help! vw sharan. Rear facing..up to how old and how to keep an eye on children?

[babybear5]

please please can anyone help i am so confused. I want to rear face my children who are 5, 3 and 16 months. Is the 5 year too big/old? Also i have integrated toddler seats in my car which means i would only need to turn the complete adult seat around and not buy rear facing seats??? The manufactures recommend that while the toddler seat is in use (i.e..the 5 point harness) it should be rear facing. All the children safely fit the 5 point harness so does that mean they are ok rear facing. I am really worried i have got it wrong
Also because the whole adult seat turns, headrests get in way of any view i may have in rear mirror and how do you keep an eye on rear facing children when i would in theory have no where to install mirror

Babybear - have you got the manual? What is the maximum weight/height limit for the toddler seat? If your 5y/o is within the limits then I would put them in the toddler seat as you would be able to trust a 5y/o to tell you if there was something wrong. If the 5y/o is too big/tall then I would put the 3y/o in (providing they also are within the limits).

You can get mirrors which mount on to the head rests for the seats for the younger children that you can angle so that they reflect into the rear view mirror or towards the passenger seat if you are not the driver/regularly drive with a passenger.

HTH

Is this the child seat you're talking about? I'm surprised they meet safety regulations to be honest. And they have no side impact protection at all. If the manual says they should be rear facing then they should be ok but I wouldn't make them forward facing because they've probably tested them forward facing and decided they're not safe that way.

If you decide to buy proper rear facing child seats, there are quite a few seats that go up to 25kg if your daughter's lighter than that. They are the Britax Secura Hi-Way, Britax Two Way Elite, Britax Multi Tech, Brio Zento and Maxi Cosi Mobi. The britax Multi Tech is sold by Volvo rebranded as their own seat for £130. You can buy them from their showrooms. If she's 25kg or more then she's probably quite safe in a high backed booster forward facing.

I can't really comment on not being able to see your children with them turned the other way because I haven't had any problem not seeing my daughter as she's only 9 months old.

Thank you for your advice. yes -aswellasyou that is the seat and up until now i have never used them as, like you say they don't look wonderfully safe. Is there a maximum weight limit for rear facing before you turn them then or does it just depend on the seat they are in? Because i have 5 children it is going to be very expensive so i dont want to get it wrong and i dont want to compramise safety...there is so many different views on rear facing..do's and don'ts.
Thank you for your time answering guys

All of the seats I mentioned above are rear facing until 25kg. Some of them can also be forward facing from 18kg to 25kg. If I were you I would go to a local Volvo dealership and see if you can fit the multi Tech into your car. If you can, then it would be much cheaper than buying from anywhere else. Five of them will cost £650 from Volvo or easily £1000-£1500 anywhere else. You never know, they might even do a bulk discount!