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?

And yet you are neither smug nor superior. ...

Yes , if it is law you comply. If it is not, you have choice. And you have every right to make it based on your own family.

The incessant comparisons between erf and not using a seat or not using a seat belt are ridiculous. Not the same league at all.

I am all for the option of erf. I am anti the judgemental attitude it brings out.

Sirvix here have a

Thanks for the info about Swedish car seats, will remember for the next child. We had to turn DD before 1, as her feet were squashed against the backrest of the seat (very long baby, well over the weight threshold even by that age). She was born with positional talipes in both feet due to being very long of limb, & we were advised by the physio to avoid her legs being restricted until they had completely straightened out. I wasn't happy about it though & would have loved to be able to find a roomier rear facing car seat.

DH has just looked up the i-seats (the ones where the threshold for turning the child are based on height) & they all seem to clip onto a base. So it wouldn't suit us in any case as we don't have a car & it would be completely impractical to fit the clip for every journey in someone else's car.

My first biscuit...
And HOW am I smug? Or superior? I don't think I am sitting here smugly, feeling better than anyone with a toddler who is in a forward facing seat. Rear facing children are safer. That is a fact, not a status symbol to feel smug about, and treating it as a style choice rather than a safety choice is ridiculous. We have spent time in Sweden as a family, and it bothers me greatly that our laws regarding this are not in line with theirs. The law here is particularly lax in fact. I really hope it changes, partly as the reason rf seats are seen as a status thing is because they are really expensive, and if the law changed then i think that would quickly change too. I don't think child safety should be dependant on budget. The swedes I've talked to about this are genuinely horrified that our laws are so outdated. The seatbelt analogy os a reasonable one. For many years after front seatbelts became law, people didn't use seatbelts in back seats because they were optional, so parents made a choice, and often thought (wrongly) that if they were so important they would be compulsary. The fact that they weren't lulled us as into a false sense of security. And people died. The child car seat issue is just the same. People feel safe, because they are within the law, but the law needs changing, because a very young child in a forward facing seat is not anywhere near as safe as one in a rear facing seat.

If you really can't see how smug and superior you are coming across there isn't much point explaining

And you really truly see it as the same as the quantum leap in safety offered by seatbelts.

We've always been erf (before I had even heard of mumsnet can you believe) but I've never been so grateful for our decision as on the day three weeks ago when a lorry hit our car on the motorway and destroyed our car and shut the motorway for 2 hours.

I had whiplash and cuts and my toddlers were unharmed. Internal decapitation would have been a possibility.

All the proof I need.

No I don't think I'm smug or superior. And yes I do think that as it means the difference between a child getting seriously injured, or not, that it is comparable to a seat belt. The law in the UK does not go far enough, and children are getting injured as a direct result of that. That doesn't make me smug. It makes me angry.

It's a really hard decision I think OP when you have a baby that is hysterical within minutes. Both my dc were exactly the same from birth. It was incredibly distracting and distressing for everyone. We forward faced at approx 10-11 mths once they hit 9kg and the hysteria disappeared.
I know that RF is safest, but we made a decision as s family that it was the safest option for us at the time (safe driving etc). I still
Agonise over it now and hope our next child will be ok in their car seat. We had big RF ones that were high up too and it didn't change things.

I sympathise OP, my dc have all gone through phases of screaming incessantly in the car and it really is awful. Even worse when you can do absolutely nothing about it if you're the only adult in the car.

I would still rear face though. Its really likely to just be a phase he will grow out of in time. You could try changing the seat position or trying him in a higher ERF seat, new / interesting toys / a mirror / a song cd? I mentally prepare myself for a long journey with ds2 now and just focus on the driving and its not too bad. If i zone out I can avoid becoming stressed, its only if I'm actively worrying or trying to stop him that I get upset (I used to end up in tears in a layby somewhere!)

I think the new isize guidelines are now in force, so its rearfacing to 15 months by law. It really is so much safer - when you compare our child road safety record to swedens you see how much safer it is!

He wont scream forever! This too shall pass.

It isn't law to rear face to 15 months unless you choose to buy an isize seat and follow those rules. For now, the two sets of regulations run side by side. In fact, isize isn't just about direction of travel and not all erf seats are compliant.

I'm not seeing smug or superior. I'm seeing people who feel strongly about an issue explaining how they feel and why. Of course every family have to take all their circumstances into consideration. Stating that "Rear facing is safer in a crash and I prioritised that factor when I decided what to buy for my kids" is not the same as insisting "no matter what other factors come into play, EVERY parent MUST have their child rear facing", (which nobody here has done". The OP asked what others have done. If more parents with RF post on the thread than is representative of society, OP will have to judge for themselves.

Just for the record: yes almost all children in Sweden are rear facing until around 4 years of age. But it's not by law. It's by culture. In Sweden, saying "my under 4 child sits forward facing" gets a reaction very similar to what I imagine would happen if you were to say "I let my child play with my loaded pistol."

The law states that:

• Children who are shorter than 135 centimeters must also use special protective, carrycot, car seat or booster seat / cushion.
• The protective device shall be type approved.
• The protection device should be appropriate for the child and mounted and used as it was intended.

The RECOMMENDATION from the authorities is that children are rear-facing until around 4 years of age.

(See, for example: translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ntf.se%2Fkonsument%2Fdefault.asp%3FRecID%3D10111)

Due to common practise and the accompanying market demand, the seats available in Swedish stores are all rear-facing for kids this size. Just as, due to market demand and common practise in other countries, it can be really hard to find RF seats to fit children over 12 months.