8-9 seater owners - Rear facing seats advice!

[dangtfc]

We are a family of 6 (my wife and I, teenager no car seat, 4 yo with car seat and newborn twins.

We have a V Class for full family outings, with 8 seats and space in the boot the twin pram.

We are finding our best configuration for the car and at the moment have it set up as in the attachment. Wife/I sit in the back corner, with twin isofix seats next to us facing rearward. 4yo sits in the isofix rear facing seat and teenager and driver up front.

Ideally, we’d have the twins in the rear facing bench with their seats facing rearward, so that we can easily tend to the twins or the 4yo from one position. The problem is that the Joie I-spin is not recommended (according to the manual) to be fitted to any rear facing car seat.

Are there any 8-9 seater owners out there who have a similar setup and does anyone know of any isofix infant seat that can be placed in a rear facing seat?

thanks!

I have a Viano and twins too. Because of the seat back getting in the way, car seats can't recline enough to be facing out on the rear facing seats for newborns - at least not any that I've found. Once mine were 9 months I used group 1+ "forward facing" ones on the rear facing seats.

For instance this is the manual for the Britax Evolva (1-2-3), you can use in a test facing seat at long as it is approved for adult use (which they are in a V Class).

*rear facing

Oh that’s really interesting and useful, thanks! I was surprised in the Joie manual that it specifically addressed rear facing seats and said not to use on them, so it’s good that the Britax does.

Logically you would think that a baby seat facing backwards on a rear facing seat would serve the same purpose as when they face rear wards in a forward facing seat - basically that baby is cushioned into the baby seat on front impact.

The Joie I-spin can be rotated to face away from the seat back - it can be used this way from 15M+. I’ll maybe try to contact Joie to find out why they say not to use rear facing?

It won't have been tested that way and it isn't approved. It's to do with the different forces in RF/FF crashes, and perhaps due to the potential misuse of putting a too-young child in a rear facing seat on a rear facing vehicle seat, which would cancel out and make them forward facing. Most companies don't do any testing and just say a blanket no - Britax is your best bet. You have Britax Dualfix which is their spin seat, if spin is a priority, however it does not have that disclaimer in the manual, so you would need to speak to them directly. I did see on a FB group that one person was advised that the newer Britax infant seats on their spin bases would be suitable to use inserted backwards into the spin base, but this is very unusual advice and I would not follow it unless you get explicit permission from a safety engineer at Britax.

The problem is that seats for children 15m+ that would be forward facing on a normal vehicle seat are much too upright, not reclined enough for newborns.

And if you used a reclined newborn seat (including the spin type ones) on a rear facing seat, then it would be forward facing which is too dangerous for babies. You may notice with the spin seats that you have, they are angled so when you spin them to rear facing, they are more reclined and when you spin them to forward facing, they are more upright. Therefore even if you used them "forward facing" on your rear facing seats (so the child is facing the rear) they would be too upright for newborn babies.

So in order to use a forward facing child seat on your rear facing seats, you'll ideally need to wait until they are 9kg+ or 15m+ (depending on whether it's a weight based seat or newer i-size height based one) and then get forward facing seats which can be used rear facing - Britax are your best bet for this, or Cybex with their impact shield seats (except the new Anoris).

The only other company I would look at is Besafe, because they have a spin seat which has an unusual leg configuration which means you can drastically change the recline setting outside of the usual settings. They might approve the use of that if you speak with them.

By the way, I don't think your Maxi Cosi booster seat is technically approved to use on a backwards seat. If that bothers you, Britax and Cybex (and possibly Besafe) are. The fact that some boosters are approved and a booster is mainly a belt positioning device means the risk is probably low in this case. I would be wary of flouting the manufacturer's advice with a more complicated and large seat such as a spin seat.

To expand on the "different forces" as I realise that is quite vague.

With a standard vehicle seat facing the direction of travel, the majority of crashes and the most severe crashes, due to combined speed, will be frontal impacts, impacting on the front of the child seat, throwing the child themselves forward into either the seat straps (for a forward facing seat) or the seat shell (for a rear facing seat). All car seats are optimised for this type of crash/force because it's the most common and the most severe.

Second most common and second most severe are side impacts. Many car seats are now optimised for these too.

The rarest and least serious crash type is a rear impact. While these can still happen, they typically happen at low speeds (traffic lights, parking, junctions) and when they happen at high speed (motorway pile up, very rare) they are devastating. Car seats aren't really optimised for these types of impact. While there might be some kind of testing for this impact - adult headrests for example, primarily protect against whiplash in rear shunts, and anti-rebound devices in car seats may provide some protection (though their primary focus is in reducing the rebound from a frontal impact)

So when you have a rear facing vehicle seat, everything is reversed. The most severe and most common type of impact is still a frontal crash for the vehicle, but will be experienced as a rear impact to the seat/child.

For me I think the most practical combination for you would be 2x infant carrier seats on the forward facing vehicle seats initially, then buy 2x "forward facing" toddler seats to install on your rear facing seats, making them rear facing. I know that doesn't really fit what you've already bought though.

I wonder if Multimac can be installed on rear facing bench seats? You could put it on the forward facing row while your babies are under 9kg and then turn them all back around rear facing once they are in the main seats.

Just wanted to add a final message here as I got the right setup in the end thanks to the contributors to this thread!

I went for the Cybex Pallas (which is a great seat btw), thats our rear-facing toddler seat. For the twins I went for 2x Mountain Buggy Protect car seats with Isofix and standard bases. Made the most sense since we have a MB Duet pram and they can drop onto there if we don't have the carrycot with us.

The Joie spin seats are both in my wife's car for occasions that she's out with the twins on their own. If any other twin/minibus owners stumble upon this thread at least they have something to work from! Thanks again all

Does anyone know if the cosatto all in all can be fitted in the forward facing position (o
nto a rear facing car seat). This would be for a 3 year old as we have our babies rear facing in infant carriers on the forward facing seat (as in the picture above).

Hi, no it can't. There are very few seats which allow this, Britax and Cybex have some - their forward facing only seats are allowed to be fitted this way. I don't think there are any spin seats which allow it.

Actually looking in the manual it doesn't say here. I don't have access to a fit list. Can you check your car on the cosatto fit checker on their website? That should give you a clear answer.

Thanks, BertieBotts it appears on the car seat checker that they fit on all seats in a viano but all are ticked in the direction of travel. I've just tried emailing them..its obviously not a very popular layout but if the seats are approved to carry adults in that position with 3 point seatbelt sbd usifux points, surely fitting a car seat as if its in a forward position with back against the rear of the actual car seat Is not too dissimilar to fitting one in a forward facing normal seat

I did a lot of checking and like you say the V class show all seats as being valid with Cosatto AiA. It doesn’t show it as rear facing though as others have said. I agree that the logic of a spinning seat working forward and rear wards should mean it’s fine, but since they are probably not tested in this configuration they can’t say definitively.

It is quite different in terms of the physics that would apply to the seat in the case of a crash. A frontal crash on a RF vehicle seat would basically be like it experiencing a very severe rear shunt. Whether that would actually cause a problem or not, I don't know. Britax have their own in-house crash test facilities so they can check these things and that's why they approve it I understand. I believe that Cosatto purchase their seats from a business-to-business car seat manufacturer so they might have to get the info from their own supplier. Hopefully they have a reply for you though!

BertieBotts thanks for all of your assistance it is very much appreciated I think I'm hoping to explore the Britax advansafix x

Yes I like the Advansafix. I will say though be aware the original Advansafix (not Pro) has a 102cm limit on the harness, whereas the newer Evolvafix, and Advansafix Pro have a 105cm limit on the harness instead. 3cm is about 6 months' worth of growth, so worth having the higher limit.

we are about to go on a very long drive and wanted to know if you are allowed to but forward facing childrens car seats onto the rear facing vehicle seats in a renault trafic as we are looking at turning the 2nd row round to face the 3rd to create more space to be able to get in and out many thanks

Do you already have the child seats you want to do with this?

For the van you'll need to check the manual to see if you are allowed to have adult passengers in those seats when rear facing.

What forward facing child car seats are you using?

we have the cosy and safe Excalibur

We have got the cosy and safe Excalibur and the cosy and safe apollo aqs they need to be belt fitted due to no isofix

I doubt these would be approved to be rear facing as very few are. Joie confirmed to me that their seats were not recommended to be fitted against the direction of travel (when i emailed them asking them about the specifics of my car). There are very few seats that are approved. I have 3 forward-facing britax seats in our middle row seats (facing rearwards) as these were the only car seats that had a caveat that stated they could be used against the direction of travel if the seat was approved for adult usage.

thank you we are struggling to find seats with 5 point harness the are seat belted in with a decent weight

Britax Caveat... Permitted for fitting against direction of travel (No) but use is permitted against the direction of travel if the vehicle seat is also permitted for adult use.

Britax advansafix II

britax evolva 123/isofix which can be fitted using either isofix or seatbelt