What would you do?

[shrubbery]

If you saw your next door neighbours approximately 6 month old child in a forward facing car seat?
I happened to be outside the other day when they pulled into their drive to park. As they put the brakes on and the car stopped, the baby's head lolled right forward.
(Maybe I should have posted this in AIBU...)

Speak to them about it very gingerly and be prepared to be glared at.

I'd print of a leaflet from this group

www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.430748466938124.105159.225535207459452&type=3

And stick it through their door,

I'm not sure there's much you can do. Much as I hate to see people taking stupid risks with their children's safety, there are a fair few loons who seem to see forward facing as a rite of passage and somehow flipping their seat round early makes them very advanced.

A friend of mine who is usually pretty intelligent had her DS forward facing from 7 months "because his dad gets carsick when travelling backwards".

Nothing. If their baby weighs 9kg then they're doing nothing wrong.

The law is bonkers in this country!

Well, I decided to mention, as tactfully as possible, that I had been advised to keep my baby rear facing as long as possible, at least to a year old. Not much was said in reply, but I had a knock on the door some time later and a fairly furious torrent of unpleasantness was thrown at me.
Still, I feel better now that I have said something. They are obviously going to leave the baby forward facing.
The last two times I have been in a similar situation and not plucked up the courage to say something, someone has died, so being yelled at is really not that bad.
I see that the law change, making it illegal in the EU to forward face a child less than 15 months old, has been delayed from its January 2013 launch. I guess in the meantime it will be a bit of a Darwinian thing - the information about relative risks of forward and rear facing is readily available if you look for it, so I guess it is down to the individual to choose whether to ignore it or not.

Shubbery :-( not nice being yelled at.

Where have you seen delay in launch of new I regulations?

I would keep my beak out

No lagoon, not nice, but at least I now know I've done something, even if it didn't help the baby!

Details of the delay here:

www.anec.eu/attachments/ANEC-PR-2012-PRL-008final.pdf

usualsuspect - I don't have a beak, but I do have a conscience.

sorry usualsuspect, that was a bit rude of me.
I understand your point - they certainly didn't like me saying anything, but I only found out about the whole forward / rear facing thing by chance and so wanted to share some of the information that I was given.

When I was looking at group 1 car seats and asked the salesmen which of the seats on offer was safest, he said they were all much of a much.
I then asked him which of the seats they sold he would choose for his child. He said: "I wouldn't put my child in any of these. I would keep my child rear-facing as long as possible".
I am eternally grateful to him for having the courage to risk his job and tell me that.

How disappointing. Lets hope the regulations go through soon.

Agree that salesman was very courageous as would be sacked if overheard.

that neighbour would have been me 24 months ago and I wouldn't have appreciated your 'concern'. It's nothing to do with you

Well Done for having the courage to say something though :) The amount of abuse i've got off various mum's for posting about child seat safety is unbelieveable! Let's just hope they are never in a crash