The torture bucket... When did you turn your DC forward facing in the car?

[flipflopsonfifthavenue]

I'm just curious what others did.
DS2 is almost 6mo and hates, hates HATES his car seat. I'm talking crying, screaming, coughing, choking, getting hot and sweaty and distressed. He's been like this since newborn except now he doesn't even cry himself to sleep anymore (do I have the only baby in the world who doesn't fall asleep on a long car journey? )
Anyway I've no idea what bothers him but I suspect that part of the problem is that he is so curious and nosey and he can't see or hear what's going on really. If you throw in being a bit hungry or tired and probably a bit uncomfortable - he's constantly straining his neck up to look around - then its total meltdown. I often end up in tears by the end of it too and we just avoid the car as much as possible. My family live in France and we're considering cancelling a visit in May as can't bear the thought of the drive.
I think that when he faces forward it will get better. Plus I'm hoping that he just grows out of it.....??!!
I'm conscious of course that the longer they are rear facing the safer it is, but it's also unsafe for me to be so distracted and stressed by a screaming baby.
When's the earliest you put your baby forward facing and what were the reasons?

stargirl we live near the A9 as well and I would disagree with your figure of serious crashes every week. There were a lot of accidents but since putting in the average speed cameras the rate of accidents has dropped through the floor.

Stats say 48 kids were killed in road traffic accidents in 2013 - this figure includes occupants and non-occupants. Figures Taken from the gov.uk web site.

I agree accidents have dropped since the cameras were installed but we bought the seat before then. Still a dangerous road, IMO.

I don't means fatal crash every week. Just a serious RTA once a week.

There are just over 11.1 million children living in the UK. (Census data 2011). 48 children killed a year in traffic accidents is a tiny, tiny proportion.

In fact, I've just looked at the extended documents and only 13 of those 48 were car occupants. 6 were cyclists and 26 were pedestrians, 3 were travelling in other vehicles. This is children up to 15 years. When you extend it to 17, it almost triples - 32 car occupants, suggesting to me that in the 16-17 year old group you start to get inexperienced young drivers in the mix - it follows that some other older teenagers would have been in that group too.

And I'm aware that the families of those 13 children would not feel that the numbers are relevant or small. Somebody has to be the one who it happens to. But remember that there are always going to be outliers - people who haven't used car seats at all, crashes in such conditions that the use of a car seat is irrelevant.

13 children out of 11 million children is 0.000001%.

Oh crap I messed up the decimal points there I meant 0.0001%. Still, a tiny tiny chance.

In any age group, you are much more likely to die from illness than what they call "external causes", basically accident, assault or suicide. Taking the figures from 2013 again, 7.5% of deaths of under 15 year olds were caused by accidents of any kind. 3.3% assault. 85.6% were from illness.

Thank you Bertiebotts.

It isnt just about fatalities though. It is also about injury too. If I crash at 40mph+ I am very likely to get whiplash, even with my strong adult frame and in proportion neck. Rear facing my small child prevents their neck coming under the same stress and keeps them more safe than if they were forward facing.

Ds was 9 months and we did it to help keep him occupied when we drove to France on a 14 hour journey. He was becoming very active at that age and very bored of being restrained so we wanted to interact with him, pass him toys easily and allow him to see where we were going to hopefully alleviate boredom.

Thanks everyone. I think I'm going to look into a larger more upright group 1 seat which can face both ways.
He has a mirror and toys and to be fair sometimes on short journeys he's ok. Not happy, but not screaming.
I'd not realised so many people rear faced. When I was looking for DS1 there were few retailers and my friends looked at me like I was crazy. I spent most of last night feeling awful we'd given up on DS1's rear facing and should have persevered through the travel sickness. Then again I don't think I could have dealt with one crying and covered in vomit and one crying hysterically
I have no intention of changing him to FF earlier than is legal (and am now paranoid about DS1 who's 2.9yo being FF) and I really don't want to do it until he grows out of this seat at least (group 0) but I guess I was just after some reassurance that there are others in the same boat (or car..??!!)
Will see how this trip to France goes....

oh OP - I feel your pain, DC2 was the same, she hated being rear facing, screamed, threw up, really hated the car. I stopped visiting my parents by car as it was a 2 hour drive, they came to us or we got the train.

She stopped hating travelling once she was forward facing, which we did at 12 months. (We also moved her into a forward facing buggy, and again, she stopped being so grumpy on long walks once she was forward facing.)

I also get very bad travel sickness, and I can't be rear facing on trains, buses or boats without feeling very ill still. I think DC2 is just the same, it's quite well known that rear facing travel increases travel sickness (I believe that's one of the reasons it was rejected for air travel, even though rear facing is safer for planes, they didn't want flights full of people spewing).

6 months is very early though, can you avoid long travel in the car? Look at train routes for long trips.

We can't put him in front seat as Ford Focus has airbag you can't disable yourself and if you do then it becomes unsafe for any adult.
I think one of us will have to sit in between the boys in the bag and keep him company. We did this the other day, DP climbed into back which kept DS2 happy for an extra 30mins but he was screaming by the end of the journey regardless.

Thanks again for all your sympathies. One poster mentioned you thought your baby had a severed spine - that made me chuckle. I've sat in the car thinking "he's dying. The only explanation is that he's actuallu being murdered back there!!!" When I go and get him he sometimes stops crying and is all smiles and coos. Other times he carries on crying for a while and takes a while to calm down. I just wish he'd at least fall asleep eventually. When he was really little I basically felt I was doing controlled crying every car journey. Was horrid.

Not many people do erf. Look around you at other people and their cars. On the school run, I see three siblings who are younger than my DS (about to turn one) who have all been ffing for months (probably well before 9).

However, those who erf tend to feel very strongly about it and tend to post on threads. That isn't a bad thing, but it's not a representative sample.

As has been said, the number of children killed or seriously injured when passengers in a car in an appropriate car seat is very small. It is small enough that it is totally legitimate to weigh other factors - like travel sickness, cost of seats, suitability for your car, etc- into the decision what to do.

For example, I think the number of children travelling in snow suits (and therefore not properly restrained by their straps) is a far scarier worry than people who turn their child ffing at a legal age and weight.

The thing is rear facing is not for those that have been killed, but those badly injured. They come under a different statistic

In 2013 - 15,700 child injured, 1,800 serious or fatal. Assuming only 13 ish fatal from above that's still 1787 children seriously injured each year

Seriously - life changing injuries or at least 2 weeks in hospital

We have the Britax Dualfix erf seat so DD is still rear facing at 17 months. It's supposed to be ok up to 3-4yrs but I just can't see how her legs will be comfortable as she's very tall but as long as we get past 2yrs I'll be happy with that.

Also agree with a basket of toys and a mirror. DD has had her moments but is fine with travelling now. She has a singing bear which we keep in the car that keeps her amused!

Art- that is all road users though. Only some of those will be car occupants . Only some of those car occupants in a suitable restraint. (And, as an aside, obviously in some crashes the type of car seat will have made no difference ). So the figures do have to be taken in context.

I am not disputing that erf is safer. I am disputing the weird hegemony that has developed on these MN threads that you are not allowed to question whether they are the right option for your family.

Fair enough - but again to put it in perspective.

15,700 out of 11 million is still a 0.14% chance - 1 in 700. One child out of a large primary school each year.

1,787 is 0.016% - just under 1 in 6000. One child out of the population (corrected for age groups) of a town the size of Eccles, Great Yarmouth, Abingdon, Great Malvern, Bletchley or Skelmersdale. Ten in a city the size of Bradford.

And those figures are combining passengers, cyclists and pedestrians. The vast, vast majority are "slightly injured". 6,243 in cars and 5,038 as pedestrians. Seriously injured: 273 in cars and 1,332 as pedestrians. 1,881 when cyclists are taken into account too - I'm not sure why the discrepancy between that and 1,787, but these are the numbers I'm looking at.

From the seriously injured + killed stats, car occupants, under 16, you're looking at chances of 0.00006% or 1 in 36,666 - about one child out of all the children living in an area the size of Reading, Northampton or Brighton and Hove.

Artandco the number of kids seriously injured as car occupants was only 1932, this figure fell 13% if compared the the previous year. The figure of 15000 you are quoting is for all child casualties across the board.

I agree with Bertie that the number of kids seriously injured or fatalities is a tiny number of the whole population and people here seem a bit hysterical given the figures.

At the end of the day it's what you want to do yourself. I won't change what I do as I'm happy with my kids being in ff seats. No one I know has a erf seat - I have never seen one being used in real life in the town I live in either.

What the stats don't tell you is how many journies are made which involve kids in car seats. Once you start multiplying the number of journies by the number of children then look at the numbers again they only get smaller and smaller...

I think if you compare our stats though, to those of Sweden, where rf is law until 4, then you see a big difference. There is no doubt that rf massively reduces the risk of serious injury. I absolutely do not understand why anyone would take that extra risk. My dds both hated car journeys when they were small, I could have assumed it was the rf seat, but they were both fine as they got older. Possibly the move to a higher seat helped, but I didn't consider moving them ff . When I was a child there were no car seats at all, most of us survived this, that doesn't mean that seats aren't far safer, and it doesn't mean that choosing the safest form of seat is somehow competitive smug parenting. We had just bought a new ff seat when I read up on rf, having just visited some friends in Sweden. I looked at the crash test dummy films. I bought a rf seat. It is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. Yes they are more expensive, hopefully the price will come down as the laws shift. But they are significantly safer, and that is all I care about. It isn't a tiny risk if you compare the child in a ff facing seat in an accident to the rf child. The ff seat is far less safe. All children should be rf until at least 4, we should be in line with Sweden on this. I am not a smuh holier than though parent. i am a mother whoe has read up on this, and the difference is so clear that I think it is mad to take that risk. Driving down a quiet road with a child not in a car seat at all is a low risk activity, yet if that was posted here you would be rightly flamed. The chances of a crash would be ridiculously low. But crashes happen. Rear facing is safer than forward facing. There is no aurgument with that, it is a fact.

That post is exactly the kind of evangelical, accept no dissent position I was talking about.

Some children do indeed hate rear facing. It may be safer in a crash to be erf, but if erf makes a crash exponentially more likely because of the screaming, or if the child is vomiting all over themselves, that doesn't mean erf is the best option for the family.

No one is saying erf isn't safest. They're just saying it's not always best.

Not putting our kids in cars at all is technically safest.... But it's not realistic or practical for many families. And so we do the next safest thing within the realms of practicability/cost etc. Guess that's rf for some and not for others.

Well in Sweden, whether your child "hates being rear facing" or not is not an issue. In the same way that although my children would have been far happier not in a car seat at all is not an issue. It isn't an option, because it is clear that children do die and suffer life changing injuries, who would survive or be far less hurt, in a rear facing seat. I am old enough to remember the push for seat belts to become law. My father would have died when I was two, in 1966, if he hadn't gone beyond what was the law at the time and chosen to wear a seat belt. He was in a very serious accident where two other men died. I am evangelical about rear facing seats yes. Because I have seen at first hand that going for the best researched safest option in cars saves lives, and I grew up with a father because of that. No-one in Sweden says things like "oh my child doesn't like being rear facing so I'm putting them ff at 18m old". It is the law, so everyone gets on with it, and as a result they have very very low rates of young child fatalities in accidents. My youngest dd would scream at full volume on any journey over about 15 minutes as a baby. So for about a year, unless it was essential, we didn't go on any long journeys in the car. She would have been perfectly happy on my knee. Would i have taken her out of her seat? No of course not. I am perfectly happy to be labelled evangelical and criticised on here, because if at any point someone reads my posts and chooses a rf seat, and that seat saves a child from serious injury, then it will have been worth it. I remember women complaining that they could no longer put their babies on the back seat of the car in a carry cot. No-one in their right mind would do that now. I think in the future the laws will change here regarding rf seats.