Why should a child be 20lbs before the using a forward facing car seat?

[LauraKB]

If they are the correct size - i.e. the harness fits in the correct position etc what is the reason a forward facing car seat should not be used beore 20lbs? What changes between 18lbs and 20lbs?

Opinions please.

Also what age were your DCs when you started using a forward facing car seat?

Thanks in advance, x.

I'm not sure of the conversion, but DS went into the forward facing car seat at 8-months because he was too fat to fit in the baby one any longer and screamed every time he saw it. He was about 9.5kg I think.

Thanks TurtleAnn, I think 20lbs is about 9kg.

It's all to do with safety.

I guessed that BuzzingNoise but what exactly are the safety implications?

I've googled but can't seem to find anything.

rear-facing is safer, for as long as you possibly can

a baby's head is very heavy in proportion to the rest of it, and its neck is not particularly strong

in the event of a crash the baby gets flung forward, the head whips forward and they are at risk (in the worst case) of internal decapitation

you're highly unlikely to have a high speed rear-impact collision and so it doesn't work the other way round.

there is a lot of information here

and this is the risk joel's journey

the weight limit is fairly arbitrary... they had to set it somewhere and 9 months/9kg is where it was set. the EU are currently proposing raising this to 13kg

good info here

My DCs will be in rear-facing til 3-4 (whenever they outgrow the seats).

After reading the serious injury/death comparisons for rear and forward-facing seats we didn't think twice about buying the rear-facing ones.

ds moved up when he was too tall for the rear one. (he's a very long bodied boy) his head was starting to poke out the top. he was only 9mo but was about 10kg ish.

Our DD is still in a rear-facing seat at 2.3. It;s a britax one. We bought it because she is our PFB and the research (quoted in a PP) indicates it's safer to be rear-facing. Rear-facing seats up to the age of 4 are much more common in scandi countries than here in the UK.

I do have to say though that the seat we have partially obscures the driver's rear visibilty on one side and so extra mirrors/ neck-craning is necessary.....