Rear-facing til 2 years old now recommended in America as well as here.

[FrozenNorthPole]

Two years after the BMJ [[http://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.b1994.full recommended rear-facing car seats for toddler to two years, American doctors finally make the same recommendation:
Article in Pediatrics

Of course, until shops and carset manufacturers make the seats more available, and affordable it's not going to be a good option to many parents

PS - if you scroll down this page there's some photos of children in rear-facing seats. They demonstrate the leg positions better than I can describe

Silverfrog - can't you fill an old holdall with books or whatever, and put it beneath her feet?

This kind of car seat is available most places
www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_802567_langId_-1_categoryId_165763#dtab

It is not isofix, but is suitable for rear facing to 13kg

Unwind - that is possible but we prefer not to as wouldn't want anyhting large and heavy flying around in the event of a crash (yes, i know how neurotic that makes me sound, but I really am that anal about car safety )

well I was one of 5 kids and my parents had a volvo which had a rear facing bench seat in boot I still vividly remember keep having to stop and swap over on long journeys as travelling backwards made us all feel so sick evwen though good view out of windows etc, I hate travelling backwards even though |I knowe in a train its safer I would never choose to face backwards so am a bit reluctant to make DD though at 16 months she is FF now though only just 9 kg

I think you need to know the information and decide for yourself because travelling by car is the riskiest way to travel anyhow safer but no where near as convienent to take your child on bus everywhere Safety is very important but its not the only consideration

Sarahtigh - that is an important consideration, obviously, but not everyone - nor everyone's children - will experience rear-facing like that. Mine certainly don't, and if they did get ridiculously car sick I don't think I'd make them rear-face ! Was your DD car sick when she was rear facing as a baby? If not, it's fairly unlikely that she would be as a toddler although not impossible as you point out.

The point of this thread has really been, as far as I can tell, that lots of us would like the chance to make the choice about rear-facing with a) reasonable information coming from mainstream sources about the safety benefits and b) more affordable seats on the market. So, in that sense, we are utterly in accord with you: it should be up to people to decide for themselves, not car seat manufacturers deciding that British people are just not interested in buying the seats. As this thread shows, that view is simply not true.

My 4 yr old is a big 4 yr old and if he was to sit with his knees bent on a journey to my mums he would get cramp. i think they are ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with the forward facing car seats imo. Just ''Because'' isnt a good enough reason. My car seats are in via isofix - is that not safe no more?!

Forward facing is safe, but rear facing is safer (about 5 times safer in a serious crash I think). I don't think it is ridiculous, but of course we are talking about fairly small figures so obviously things such as comfort and cost come into it too.

CheekyLittleSox - could you perhaps clarify? I don't know what you mean by:
"just 'because' isn't a good enough reason".

Nobody on this thread has said anything like that. Nobody has said that isofix isn't safe any more.

Sadly, there can be a tendency towards defensiveness on this subject: some people perceive it as a criticism of their choices or an accusation of neglect. I guess all I can do is re-state my assertion that that retaillers should consider stocking them to provide a choice to those who would like it, the information should be out there so that people are aware that it's a choice and has proven safety benefits although alternatives remain very safe.

It isn't really a choice though is it, because of cost. We couldn't afford one, and very few will fit in our car, which we have tried to.change but would lose too much money.

I think people get defensive because some other threads on this topic have insinuated that you are a bad parent for not doing it.

I was horribly travelsick as a child as well - my mum said she had a nightmare when I was in a rear facing baby seat and couldn't wait to turn me around. Once I was turned around though it got a lot better.

However DS has never had this problem and neither have most children I know. It doesn't rule out that it could happen of course, but I think car sickness is less prevalent now also since parents have stopped routinely smoking in cars with their children. I am barely ever carsick any more but if ever I'm in a car with a smoker I feel awful - and I do smoke, so it's weird that it affects me in that way. Someone smoked a cigarette on the bus the other day and I wanted to be sick! Was too British to say anything though so I just went around and opened all the windows while coughing loudly.

I do think some children would be uncomfortable RF, but not all.

Sometimes I think it would be nicer for DS to be rearfacing, if I point out something out the window, he has about a 0.5 second chance to spot it before it's whizzed past due to not being able to move his head that far out of his seat. If he was RF he'd probably be able to see the sheep or whatever it was out of the back window!

Practicallyperfect, I've said several times that cost is prohibitive to many but if they were stocked more widely prices would likely come down. Or at least, they bloody should !

Leonie, I'm not sure why you say "it's not worth laying out £500, sorry". The average price of a rf seat is £220-£270. Why the 'sorry'? No-one here is even implying that you should buy one. I'm sorry if you've got that from anything I've written.

I'm not trying to insinuate that everyone should use one. I just think they should be more widely available, and consequently probably cheaper. Okay, I'm sounding like a broken record now - I should probably stop

we did spend about £500 on dd2's seat.

but that was because we wanted that seat (a Besafe isofix one) before it was available here, so we shipped it form Sweden.

but,a s i pointed out in my ost earlier - there are plenty of people buying the top of the range infant seat followed by the top of the range FF toddler seat.

which, if you look at the isofix models, comes to £400+. and the seat we have for dd2 is now available for less than that, and goes form birth to 18kg. so is actually cheaper than what a lot of people are already spending over the same period of time.

BUt completely agree with FrozenNorthPOle: what should be happening is that both RF anf FF seats are widely available, together with the relevant information on their safety and efficiency in the event of a crash. and then let the parents decide.

I hate the fact that for eg, Which? said that RF seats are "too complicated" for most parents to install - wtf? really? and that the seat manufacturers are dictating what we can choose form - Britax manufacture RF seats here in the UK, and then export them, only for retailers/parents to re-import them if wanted. and they say there is no market for these seats here... madness.

Out of interest Leonie, what is the maximum you would pay for a car seat?

My two are still rear facing and they are three and six.My six year old is very slim and doesn't weigh much,but she will be too tall for the seat soon. They like looking out of the back window, I think they have more of a view than they would forward facing.(volvo estate)

Silverfrog, I agree re: the lunacy of Britax exporting seats that I think there is a market for here in the UK. I'd love to get involved in a campaign to get them to offer the seats here, but haven't been able to find one that is ongoing. I'd also love to organise a campaign but fear that my PhD would suffer

As Silverfrog demonstrates, a lot of people spend more than the price of a birth - 4 years rf seat on a series of car seats over their child's life. People also spend considerable sums on cots, pushchairs, wardrobes, changing tables that greatly exceed the price of a rf seat - so I don't buy into the argument that no-one would be willing to pay for them. Some people would be.

Same here as another non-driver. I was happy to pay I think £139 about a year ago for the Kiddy Infinity Pro because of the convenience of it, the fact it is so light and easy to fit as well. I don't think I'd have paid much over that. It was a stretch as it was, as I was thinking a max of about £100, maybe slightly over. If I'd have gone for a standard FF seat I think I'd have picked whichever Mothercare have as their own branded one, as I had their infant seat and it was good quality. (Made by Dorel who manufacture Maxi Cosi). At a complete guess I'd imagine that costs about £80 or £90. Nowhere near £200+.

BUt Bertie, my point is that if you add together your £80 for the infant seat, and £140 for the stage 1 seat - you're at £200+

and you can get a RF birth-18kg seat (so covers the infant and stage 1 seat range) for the same money or a little more.

so it is not as simple as comparing a single £80 seat to a £200+ seat, or the cost of a FF stage one seat to a RF stage 1 seat.

silverfrog - i feel for your daughter. i use a wheelchair occasionally and to get it in my car i need to remove the footplates. on one occasion - and i will never repeat it - i told son not to bother putting footplates on when he got wheelchair out as we were only popping into a shop quickly. it was incredibly uncomfortable with my legs dangling. i was surprised how uncomfortable it was. i wish i had a suggestion to help you but anything you put on the floor unsecured would be a potential hazard. ds also has asd so i understand re the language delay and also perception of pain in his case

sorry, didnt want to make you feel worse by my posting! just wanted to let you know how your dd may be feeling

No, you misunderstood me. I paid £40 for an infant seat, and £140 for the group 1. If I hadn't have heard about the Kiddy seats I would probably have spent £80 on the group 1.

So a total of either £120 or £180.

I could have got a seat for both stages for £100 (The Britax First Class) and DS could still be rear facing in that now at 2.5 (I'd imagine - he hasn't been weighed for a while but last time he was a way off 13kg). But I liked being able to carry DS into the house in the baby seat if he was asleep. It didn't go on the pushchair so I didn't use it like that, but the portability was good as a non-driver. And when getting lifts it was good to be able to fit it in 2 minutes as opposed to 10.

Once DS outgrows the Kiddy, and he'll use that until he physically can't, I'll probably just get him a booster cushion type seat. We drive so infrequently that storage space and practicality is the most important consideration.

I do see your point - that most parents pay £100+ for an infant seat (I think this is obscene how much they charge) and then £150-200 for a group 1 seat, and they could easily afford a RF seat for the same amount overall.

Oh - unless at that point I'm driving or living with BF by then and he has a car. Then we'd get a HBB I expect. Probably a Graco one as they seem sturdy but still reasonably priced.

Interestingly, we were in Australia last year and while fitting the car seat for DS, the lady said that in Australia, Isofix is regarded as not being very safe at all. They have a different system - I can't remember what it was - which they think is much better.