Is it reasonable to forward face at 4?

[RedCarAndBlueCar]

I have 4 year old DTs. They are just about growing out of their current isofix rear facing car seats as they're pretty average height and weight (they're about 103cm at the moment and just under 16kg).

The trouble is having two I need to buy two car seats at once. It seems that if I get two more rear facing ones, I'm looking at £1k. Whereas forward facing, even the highest rated seem to be less than £400.

Obviously you can't put a price on your child surviving a car crash etc, but it is a huge amount of money.

Is rear facing at this age really that much safer? If I do shell out for the rear facing ones will they decide they hate rear facing in a year or so?

Most things I've read seem to say rear face for as long as possible but this also seems to mostly mean until 4. Is rear facing beyond this worth it?

What have others decided to do?

ERF is safer, but we were the only ones that did for a long time out of any of our parent friends like nct etc. People were always shocked we did and it always felt a bit uncomfortable like we were insinuating they weren’t safe just by making that choice ourselves. But once I’d done the research I couldn’t shake the knowledge and so wanted to RF as long as possible. I agree with PP to join the ERF Facebook group for info, and I feel your pain on cost - we had to buy two each time as grandparents needed one.
We’ve only just turned FF as DC is over the 25kg limit at age 5. There is a 36kg ERF seat but we were happy to get to the end of the MiniKid’s limits and then turn to a HBB.
Even with cost etc I’d ERF again, it gave me peace of mind. We have a second DC and I’m going to do the same, although it’ll be more of a moan I suspect as they’ll be aware of alternatives from their sibling in a way the first wasn’t!

isofix vs seatbelt -

Isofix improves safety in two ways:

It reduces user error - misfitted seats are implicated in the majority of serious injury/death in car crashes where children are in car seats, so it's a huge issue not to be taken lightly. There are many possible ways to err when fitting a child seat with seatbelt, and most of them are serious with the potential consequences being huge. Isofix is specifically designed to be foolproof, with red/green (and sometimes audible) indicators and easy steps - you basically just click it in and go, and if you get something wrong it's usually minor.

Something like half of all belt fitted seats are fitted incorrectly, whereas only about 20-30% of isofix seats are fitted incorrectly. The figures vary because they are always small sample sizes and it depends on what they are counting as misfitted.

The second thing is that Isofix seats have what's known as a third point of anchorage. Any car seat is "anchored" into place with two points - the isofix arms that you click in, or for a belt fitted seat, the two ends of the lap part of the belt are the first two anchors. The third anchor might be a support leg or a top tether. The purpose of this anchor is to prevent the seat from tipping forward in an accident, which helps reduce severity of injuries. So you do see measurable differences between e.g. a forward facing belt fitted seat like Maxi Cosi Tobi and the isofix version of the identical seat e.g. Maxi Cosi Tobifix. Or the Britax Duo for example, was the first isofix seat, and it was allowed to be fitted with and without the top tether, or with seatbelt - it performs better with isofix + top tether.

So for the first point, a belt fitted seat only performs worse than an isofix fitted seat if the belt fitted seat is fitted incorrectly, which is more likely than for an isofix seat. But for example for infant carriers when they are fitted with base (isofix) vs belted, they often perform almost exactly the same, even without the base is often slightly better. As long as you get it right, belt fitted is just as good.

So if you buy a Swedish type ERF seat like the Axkids, most people buy them from specialised vendors that only or largely sell ERF seats, and the seller will generally talk you through fitting and teach you how to do it properly, or in some cases do it for you. That isn't always possible if you buy it online so you definitely want to watch some videos, read the manual and basically ensure that it's definitely installed correctly without the ease of isofix.

And for the second point the ERF seats are quite unusual for belt fitted seats, in that in addition to the seatbelt they also have a support leg (like isofix seats) and they have tethers which go down and secure under the seat in front. All of this makes the seat very stable and secure, much more so than your average belt fitted car seat, and even more stable than some isofix fitted car seats.

So in this case, no it's not a problem that it's belt fitted, but you should make extra sure that you are fitting it correctly.

My DD1 has just stopped rear facing at 4.5. She never complained about being uncomfy (and believe me she complains about enough else ). My DD2 is lower centile so will probably RF for longer, but DD1 is tall and heavy and wasn't far from outgrowing the 25kg seats we have, so we have moved DD2 into them and DD1 into a HBB as she can sit sensibly in one.

We have a Maxway Plus and a Move (two cars) and both were around the £200 mark.

All the babies in my antenatal group with DD1 have rear faced up until 4, so I think it just depends. It's becoming more well known and common now.

It's not the same because the rear seat does not have airbags in it. It's the airbags that make the dashboard a bad place to rest your legs.

The forces in a crash when rear-facing are different too. You are pushed back into the seat in a collision and your legs don't get pushed forward at high force into the seat like they would the dashboard.

And this:

is it better to rear face without isofix than it is to forward face with isofix?

Absolutely yes. Even if you were comparing a "worse" rear facing, seatbelt seat like one of the cheaper Joie ones which don't have a support leg, this is still safer than the best possible FF seat with support leg or top tether.

There is the possible exception of the Cybex Anoris T which annoyingly messes up my comparison - but this is very niche and if you're going to spend £700 on a seat then you might as well RF really.

I think people worry about rear shunts with the legs on the back seat thing. But anyway with the Swedish type seats, you can fit them slightly away from the seat so the children have space to rest their legs normally.

Some info.

Thanks for both replies, really comprehensive and helpful.

I'm planning to go to a place which says it's got car seat specialists so they can fit it as I must admit I feel quite nervous about fitting a seatbelt one properly.

The Axkid Move I think is on special offer at around £200 at the moment.

This is about right from my understanding - it's about relative risk and the older they get, the risk goes down. The risk is much higher for very young children and babies. 4 seems to be a popular age around the world (Sweden, Australia, ERF advocates generally), 2 is another one (USA, some Sweden vs Germany stats). You obviously have 15 months which is the i-size limit, and then there's 3 which is when the majority of Swedish parents turn their children (most commonly at 3y3m or 3y9m, but mostly between age 3 and 4). 3 is also an age which is historically considered the minimum age to move to a seatbelt/booster seat, although most experts lean later than 3 for booster use today. It likely depends where you draw the individual risk tolerance line. Someone up the thread talked about age 5 and bones fusing, but I'm not aware of any research which states this specifically in relation to car crashes, so I wonder if it is someone's personal theory? I am happy to be corrected.

If they stock Axkid and have specialists, that's fine. If you are going to any old random place that sells car seats (cough) Halfords (cough) the word "specialist" might be a red herring.

All Axkid sellers are trained by the brand reps and will be good.

My DD is 4 and RFing in one car in the axkid move, she is tall and has loads of room for her legs. She will stay in it until DS is too big for his infant seat so she will be around 5, then will get a HBB.

She now has a HBB in the other car which we hardly use and I do think 4 is ok to FF but obviously the longer they RF the better.

Can’t believe people FF at 1 or 2 though, so dangerous.

https://axkid.com/uk/product/axkid-move/?utm_term=&utm_campaign=Amanda+AI+-+Axkid+-+PERFORMANCE+MAX+-+GBR&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8421572282&hsa_cam=17669219252&hsa_grp=&hsa_ad=&hsa_src=x&hsa_tgt=&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=CjwKCAjw6p-oBhAYEiwAgg2Pgo265DvS70lkgxlpDLtXMOY1pk0YPqc6x2449tzrCqYdRiBWeJySehoC9gkQAvD_BwE

I had this seat, my daughter is very tall and has just gone into a HBB at 6.5 and I sold the seat for £75! Rear facing is significantly safer but ultimately it's your decision

FWIW I’ve had my Axkid Minikid fitted professionally once, and have done it myself ever since, and it’s a complete piece of cake once you’ve got the idea. I’ve had it in and out of multiple cars multiple times without issue.

Also FWIW, my 91st centile eldest rear faced till just shy of 5, could have gone a few months longer but needed the seat for her sibling. My 50th centile youngest is still in the Axkid at just short of 4 and will be for ages yet. Both had/have plenty of room, legs go wherever they decide to put them, usually just flopped out to the side, it’s a complete non-issue, can never understand the hand-wringing over legs, especially when compared to, well, necks, which are infinitely more important and safer rear-facing.

If we lived in Scandinavia, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, as there is so much more enlightenment about the undeniable, evidence based benefits of extended rear facing. Even a brief look at actual facts and basic physics shows that it’s a no-brainer.

Anyway, I digress OP. At 4 you could go either way, HBB with crotch strap and low ADAC score, or a 25/36kg ERF seat. You’ve done a great job getting this far.

I think the axkid minikid 2 is on offer atm for £265, we have one in each car and its a great seat. We have a joie stages for grandma's car and the minikid is so much easier to get her in. She'll be rf until she outgrows it.
Also, as others have said, isofix is only safer if the seatbelt fitted sit is fitted in correctly. If the seat belt fitted seat is fitted correctly both are just as safe. Isofix is more foolproof, however if you are buying an ERF seat you also get free fitting and checks from your retailer so this would eliminate the risk as you know it will be correctly installed. We even returned to our retailer for them to fit it back in when we got a new car.

Yep, still looks uncomfortable to me! My kid wouldn’t last 10 minutes and she’s only 2. If it works for other peoples children then great

Now THIS looks 100 times more better than my screenshots above. This makes a lot more sense to me

Oh you’re right! I got mine for £180 in last years Black Friday sale they must have discontinued it.

The next cheapest is axkid move £215
https://www.safejourneycarseats.co.uk/products/axkid-move-grey

Our car seat was rear facing until 6 ds out grew it at around 5.5. So we went forward facing them. I believe you can get seats that go up to age 7.

Not common where I'm from, got a lot of pfb comments from family etc. Genuinely people think that its cruel to have a child sitting crossed legged, facing backwards. I'd argue it's more cruel to put a young child in a forward facing seat where they are five times more likely to have a serious injury or die than if they were rear faced.

Completely personal choice.

4 is much better than 2 but six is even better.

Too young for me personally but everyone else's survivor bias will tell you it's fine.

Axkid move is a cheaper option if you did want to continue rear facing. If you do FF look at something like the kidfix with a crotch guard.

Same, my joie rear facing is up to 18k. Definitely wasn't £500 for that seat! Just had a google and ickle bubba (boak) do a rear facing seat that can be spun at anytime that goes to age 12 for £130?

Please reconsider this. 17 months is too young to forward face.

This. We have the Britax Kidfix I-size which has a crotch strap.

How long do you all use booster seats for?