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

I would love to get DD a RF and I am currently looking to buy, however my problem is that it has to fit in about three different cars as we don't have our own.
So it looks like I will have to get a Maxi cosi Tobi as they are the most universal.
DD still fits in her first car seat as she is so small at nearly 23 months.

If you know of one that is good at fitting in most cars then I would love to hear. Although I am baulking a bit at the price as it will be hardly used!

Bertie - yes, sorry, I did understand. But thank you for "getting" my point - that thousands of parents do pay those prices for 2 seats to cover that age/weight range, which to me shows that if the RF seats were available and marketed, there would be people wanting to buy them.

Balloonslayer: there are 2 schols of thought re: isofix. it does mean that teh seat is correctly installed in the car, with no room for error (and in the UK a stupidly high number of non-isofix seats are incorrectly installed). BUt it also means the seat is fixed to the chassis of the car, and therefore subject to greater stress and strain in the event of an accident. I would assume that is taken into account when testing these seats (and the RF toddler seats, on the whole, are subject to the most rigorous testing around - the Swedish tests).

I am not sure why it would be any different to the Australian system though, which also anchors infant seats to the chassis of the car. I would be interested to hear/read what the differences are, and what the different thoughts on the systems are.

Not all rear facing seats are Isofix. Our car doesn't even have Isofix, but we have a RF seat.

We have a Britax 2-way Elite which in theory should last up to age 4 (I expect it won't as DS is 98th centile for height & weight). It cost £197. We didn't buy DS any Christmas presents or first birthday presents so we felt we could justify spending a bit more.

The retailer said that the only two cars which they'd come across which the seat didn't fit was one tiny Peugot (can't remember the model, but she said it was no bigger than our Ford KA) and one model of either BMW or Mercedes (can't remember which).

We got it from the In-Car Safety Centre in Milton Keynes.

HTH

We got a rear facing car seat in January. It's a Besafe Izi Combi X3 Belted, it was £250, we got it from Winstanley's Pramworld & had it fitted. My Dad gave us £200 towards it as an Xmas Present.

When I told other parents with children of a similar age we were getting a rear facing car seat, the general reaction was, "I want X to be able to see me / face forwards", with the odd, "is it safer?" comment. So in my experience, most people don't know that they exist, never mind there are safer seats. I make a point of telling people we have RF, not to brag, but just to put the word out, to enable others to make their decision knowing there is an alternative to forward facing.

AngelDog - are you me? We have the same seat, bought at the same place, also for DS's Christmas and first birthday presents!

AngelDog, so that fits OK in your Ford Ka does it? What's the front passenger legroom like? We have just about decided not to get a RF group 1 seat now for a combination of reasons, but when researching it I decided the 2-Way Elite would be the only seat which would fit in our Fiesta (no Isofix). With our current seat the front passenger has to sit with their legs scrunched up under their chin and we imagined it would be even worse with a larger RF seat.

DS (8 months, 10kg+) is currently in a Graco group 0+ seat which is supposed to do up to 13kg, though I think it's the height which will be a problem first. I believe he can stay in the seat until the top of the back reaches the top of his ears, is that right?

Aha me too!!! We have a Britax TWE - dd's birthday present - and she LOVES it. It's very spacious, lovely and wide, lots of room for her legs.

People have commented "poor girl she can't see out the front". Well, she's used to looking backwards or sideways as she's never had anything else, can see perfectly clearly outside, and is much safer...

The seat was twice as expensive as a ff seat, but frankly it is possible for most people to save in other areas and spend this on their children's safety.

Woodlands, we have fitted the TWE in both a Ka and a tiny peugeot. Not a huge amount of leg room in the front, and you wouldn't want to be in the front on a long journey if you're tall, but it wasn't at all bad for short journeys.

I'd agree with sheffies - we don't have a problem with space in the front passenger seat in the Ka, but neither DH nor I is overly tall (I'm 5'7'') and on long journeys whoever isn't driving sits in the back with DS.

I did just go and check now - I'd say there's quite a bit of legroom in the front: definitely lots more than in the back seat.

Interesting. I really can't sit in the back next to DS when DH is driving, at least not on a long journey, there's just no legroom at all. It's marginally better in the passenger seat but DH (6'2") finds it very uncomfortable (unless we've been somewhere where alcohol was on offer, strangely, when he's all too happy to arrange for me to drive).

Basically we need a bigger car...

We are both over 6' tall and were told by the in car Saftey centre that the only practical option for us was the TWE.
They did warn us that because we were both tall and DS was likely to be tall we may find that he will need to go FF before 4 however as it we can turn it round we thought at least we can keep him read fAcing for as long as possible.
With regard to spreading the word we jut tell people that reseasrch suggests that it is 5 times safer however you xo need to get one that fits your car. A badly fitted RF may well be less safe than a well fitted FF. (well it seems to stop peoplethink we are preaching/ questioning their choices)

P.s. We have a golf

im a bit confussed i ahve a new born and bought the maxi cosi pebble + isofix base - c.£300 for both because i thought they were the 'best'
he is RF in the seat,is this different to the RF seats you mention above at £500?
please excuse my ignorance im totally new
thanks

I completely understand that rear-facing is safer. Doesn't that apply to everyone though? So back seats in cars should be rear-facing really shouldn't they? And passenger seats perhaps?

Have there been any accidents where it's thought a child wouldn't have been hurt if they'd been in a rear-facing seat instead of a front-facing seat?

MrsK It is all to with head size.

We bought a Recaro Polaric and it fits fine in our megane. It is currently £230 at John Lewis (but I have to say that when we bought it last year even the staff in John Lewis didn't know they stocked it - was new in and they'd received no training about it at that time). I was astonished how few stockists there are for rear facing seats.

sleepdodger - the MaxiCosi Pebble is a Group 0+ seat - suitable for babies up to 13kg / about 9 months. The RF car seats being discussed here are Group 1 seats, suitable for toddlers/pre-schoolers - usually with an upper weight limit of 18kg, but some go to 25kg. There are very very few with a price tag of £500 - the selection at the In Car Safety Centre in Milton Keynes ranges from

Where are people getting the idea that a RF seat is 5 times safer than a FF one for older children?

From the BMJ article linked at the beginning of this thread: "Effectiveness estimates compared with no restraint were 93% for rear facing seats and 78% for forward facing seats"

Which would make the RF seats about one fifth safer, not five times.

Not quibbling that they are safer, just that the five times claim seemed rather excessive in comparison. Is that was from other research or just a misreading of the stats?

suchprospects

I got quite a bit of information from here

www.rearfacing.co.uk

MrsK - Joel is a little boy who suffered internal decapitation (what Tangle described very nicely!) and survived, which is rare tbh, but he has a long period of treatment and recuperation a head of him.

The latest update at Xmas 2010 says 'After a follow up visit of Joel's shoulder surgery, bypassing the pinched nerves, the doctors said 80 -90% of the nerves have attached correctly!! Movement of his right arm has greatly improved. Could be another year or so, but progress is steady.' His accident happened in Aug 2008.

There are other children who have survived because of rfing seats here and here and here.