Moving small weight baby into forward facing seat

[dorisbonkers]

We're planning a drive from London to France when my baby is 1 year old. She is however on a low centile and probably won't weigh the required 9kg then, more like 8.5 kg. She's not awfully short though, just slenderish.

But she's really outgrown her MaxiCosi and her legs are bunched up and her head is scraping the back of my seat (erm, should explain that the interior of the sportscar is quite small...)

Her development in terms of holding her head, sitting, pulling up to stand, cruising is early or on target, so her small size hasn't affected any of this.

I'm unsure of whether to move her to a forward facer for this journey or just persist with the rear one (I understand some advise continuing with a rear seat until much older, but our car won't fit a rear facer for an older child.

Rear facing car seats are 5 times safer then ff car seats, she must stay rear facing for as long as poss, dont worry about legs children in rear facing car seats do not break their legs in crashes, or their necks, where ff children do.

I bought a Britax First Class SI which does rearward facing until 13kg, then you have to turn them around (but using the same seat so should work even for a long, light baby) FF. Then I changed my mind and decided I wanted the Kiddy Infinity Pro instead, so I have a Britax First Class sitting brand new and unused (but unreturnable) in my spare room. If you are interested you are welcome to email me at onehandclapping at hotmail dot co.uk.

I am not sure about the head thing. I always thought it was when their head is level with the top, you need to move them. I have heard when their eyes are level, now on this thread it is when their ears are level... I would play it safe by moving to a larger RF seat (ie a Group 0/1 seat such as the Britax First Class or a bigger Group 0+ seat if one exists) at least until she hits 9kg.

HTH

Doris enjoy your car and ignore all the 'sensible family car' police. I have a MX5 and have never had a problem getting a car seat to fit, or a pushchair (we had a big three wheeler). Ds was a prem and tiny too and he loved (and still loves) the car.