How do people feel about this campaign to make kids under 4 sit rear facing?

[RareTiger]

Don't get me wrong I understand it's safer, but I also know sometimes it's impractical, for mine there are both fast growers and big kids my just turn 3 year old has been in a high backed booster seat for over 6 months now she 17kg wears 4-5 going into 5-6 clothes, but if the law changed I woundnt be able to use the car for her, now for preschool and shopping? fine a incontinence at times but I would just walk or get the bus I do half the time anyway, but for her speech therapy I would have to stop it the travel would mean if something even a bus is 10mins late I don't get home for my son after school or we don't get to speech therapy (3 hour bus, 2.5 hour train ride one way)
I like the current rules both sets, both sets are for different types of car seats why change something that works?
Even with my son we couldn't find a size 0+ to fit in are car we were struggling to fit him in the size 0 at 6 months old he was the size of a 18month old we had no choice but buy a size 1 forward face, he's now 5 been in a high back booster for 2 years

Loads of people just assume kids will be unhappy and uncomfortable rear facing. Mine rear faced until 4 at a time when it was practically impossible to even buy ERF seats. They could see out of the back and side windows and were perfectly comfortable. I've seen photos of very long legged kids happily sitting with legs crossed or bent up. Kids are flexible and can sit like that fine. Also in the case of an accident a broken leg is way better than a broken neck.

As others have saud, the UK is way behind other countries on this and in the future people will be appalled at the fact 2 year olds used to travel front facing, just like people talk with amazement now about unrestrained carrycots in the 70s.

Mine were RFing for as long as possible - until around 5 iirc - because safety is the most important thing. Imagine if the worst happened and your kids ended up seriously injured or dead just because they didn't want to face backwards and/or you found it somehow inconvenient.

In the past 15 years or so our knowledge of car seat safety has grown massively, so we need the laws to change to keep up with that. The aim is to keep children as safe as possible.

ds is 15, I was deemed mad for keeping him rear facing until 18 months. Now that is thankfully accepted as the minimum generally, if I had a young child now I would have without doubt stuck rear facing a lot longer.

moving through car seat stages isn’t a race!

Did you also fit someone in the seat in front of it?

Surely it depends a bit on the child?

If the child is happy enough rear facing then obviously that’s safer, but if you have a child (as a friend of mine did) who would literally scream all the time they were in a rear facing car seat, right from a tiny baby, I think it’s probably safer to forward face them and be less distracted so less chance of an accident in the first place!

@Needspaceforlego yes, my DH sat in the seat in front of it. He can't drive due to medical reasons so is always in the front passenger seat.

Hooray! It's about time! It's massively safer.

OP's daughter sounds very like my nearly 5 year old, who is very tall and slim. She happily sits in her extended rear-facing seats. I have a BeSafe Stretch in my Ford Fiesta. My DH has a Britax Romer Max-Safe Pro, which is very reasonably priced. She sits with knees bent. We intend to keep her in them for as long as possible, which should be around age 6 or 6.5 judging by her height. I wish we'd known about the benefits of rear-facing sooner, so we could have bought fewer car seats. The BeSafe Stretch also has a version suitable from birth, the Stretch B.

My friends also put their son, who is the same age, in an extended rear facing car seat. They researched independently and we all reached the same conclusion.

Both of our car seats have passed the Swedish Plus Test, which is far more stringent than the testing on standard UK car seats. We are concerned about the strain on our young child's neck caused by the forces in a potential crash, which could result in internal decapitation if the spinal cord is stretched too much, because young children's bones take quite a long time to harden (ossify). For us, it is a no-brainer as rear-facing is so much safer.

Rear faced til 4 anyway. Locally someone's toddler was left quadriplegic due to front facing so we always had them in mind. Their heads are bigger and heavier proportionally, so their neck would take too much force in a crash.
Yes it's an inconvenience having the front passenger squashed to accommodate it but still.

In 2010 it was difficult to find RF seat after the baby seat. I managed to order one online but it was bulky. In my home country it was normal to have RF seat back then. But after that got too small it was FF.

I've got two ERF seats in a Hyundai i10. As PPs have mentioned, leg room for the children is not really a problem. My 4yo mostly crosses his legs. He's on the tall side but I reckon he will fit in his current seat till at least 6. However, height of adults is an issue - we get away with it because DP and I are both short.

Oh - and just editing to add that DS1 can def see more out of the window than he would in a HBB as he can see the whole of the back windscreen.

We rear faced DD until 5 - the safety data is just so much better. DP is a personal injury lawyer and has seen some horrendous outcomes of car accidents so it was a no-brainer for us.

We also had DD in a high back booster until she was 11. Many of her friends were not using any car seats any more after about 7 or 8, when they didn’t actually fit the adult seatbelts properly. It’s taking a really huge risk with their safety in an accident.

I think this is going to be the equivalent of back-to-sleep campaign for our generation. Our children's children will be rear facing as standard and our children will be rolling their eyes at us grandparents muttering about how uncomfortable our grandchildren look and how our children all survived.

I think it's a really good idea. My DC is fairly tall and just turned 4 and is FF now for various reasons but originally wanted to RF for longer. She often sits cross legged FF now so I'm sure would be fine in terms of leg space RF. Kids are bendier than us!

What made me decide to do it was a friend who was in a high speed RTA describing how relieved the first paramedic on the scene was when he saw that the toddlers were rear facing.

We managed it with DS until he was 4 and he was tall for his age. Tall but light. DD is 3 now and matching DS for height at a similar age but heavier. I will probably get to 4 again before turning her around.

I though it was all based on height and weight now not age. My car seats at least are.

I'd rather a screaming child than a dead child, but some have different priorities I suppose.

Always boggles my head that people are willing to drop a grand + on a pram but don't want to fork out the coin for rear facing car seats.

Internal decapitation is a real thing. I'd have all passenger seats in cars rear facing if it was possible me.

This is so passive aggressive. And it misses the fact that you’re far more likely to be in a car accident if your child is screaming and therefore you’re distracted.

I’d like to see some actual statistics on how many children under 4 are killed every year in car accidents and how many of those are FF.

I completely understand it's ultimately safer, but DD was awful in the car. She would scream murders whenever we drove anywhere and having her forward facing as soon as it was possible helped with that. We made the decision to turn her around as it was more likely that we were going to crash as a result of her hysterics. And I am not being dramatic here, it was very very, very stressful.

Parental choice and responsibility as to what they consider best for their DC’s. We moved to front facing early as DT’s were more comfortable and we were happy with the very low risk

How is it passive aggressive? It's true that in that situation you are choosing not screaming over facing the safest possible way.

This. With bells on.

Edited because I misread the title as kids under 7 yrs old!

You've obviously never driven anywhere with a child who screams the whole time in the car, it totally puts you on edge, takes your mind of the road and what you are meant to be concentrating on.

Or one who gets travel sick.

I also know someone who was involved in a crash because a child was throwing up in the back seat. The mum was driving was distracted by the kid and hit the car in front. Luckily only damage to the cars not to the people but I can't imagine how hard it would be to drive with a child who's throwing up on the motorway.

We had ti forward face at 2 years and 3 months as our child was 20kg and 100cm tall. We couldn't find a rear facing car seat for 20kg+ kids, so we had to forward face.