What age did you face your LO forward in a car seat?

[Mamabear04]

What age did you face your LO forward in a car seat?

[Southwestrunningmum]

At the legal time/weight/age which at the time was about 15 months I think.

[MonkeyPuddle]

1. I wanted him in it longer but he’s 99th centile and had outgrown it and I couldnt afford one that went to a higher weight limit.

[Onedaysomedaynowadays]

Wow to these replies. Moved to FF at 12 mths with mine. She hated RF and screamed and puked all the time. Now thinking I'm chronically negligent 😂
We only go in the car about once/twice a month so I guess that makes it better...

[SeaTurtles92]

DS is 21 months and still RF.
We have the Joie i-Size 360 spin and recommends age 4 of when a certain weight. The car seat can go forward facing from 15m+ but I keep DS RF.

[mindutopia]

4.5 years with my first and 2nd probably about the same (just before starting school). He’s 3 now and still RF.

[ivfgottwins]

rear facing seats are really expensive once you are out of the 0+ baby one you generally get as part of your travel system - you don't tend to get one for less than £150

Also my DH is 6ft4 - we have a bog standard family car -he can't physically drive the car if he has a RF one behind his seat...:and we have twins so no can't move it to the other side

[lboogy]

2 years. D.C. is too tall to sit in a rear facing position. Shes 100cm already

[Pinkpaisley]

We turned at 2 only because dd was a real car hater. Moving to FF did help. She stopped screaming all the time and became more cooperative about getting into the car. She still didn’t love it, but it was better. I would not have switched her had she not had such a problem riding in the car and if it had not made such a difference I would have switched her back until she was 3 or 4.

[WaitingForNormality]

1 year

[ML1706]

I think my son was moved ff at around 2, my daughter was around 15 months I think as we were on a trip in she was being car sick.

[Schrutesbeets]

This might be a stupid question, but where do your children's feet go when they're 2+ if rear facing?
I moved DD FF at around 2 cos she was massive in the seat. I can't remember the specific model but it was a Joie one and the instructions stated to FF at around 2?
I didn't even realise till I read on MN, that it was so wrong!

[JeanClaudeVanDammit]

2.5 due to vomiting every time we drove further than about a mile. None since but we also try to minimise car journeys.

[JeanClaudeVanDammit]

This might be a stupid question, but where do your children's feet go when they're 2+ if rear facing?
I moved DD FF at around 2 cos she was massive in the seat. I can't remember the specific model but it was a Joie one and the instructions stated to FF at around 2?
I didn't even realise till I read on MN, that it was so wrong!

They just go in a sort of frogs legs position against the seat. DD has really long legs but I actually think she was more comfortable like that than now she’s forward facing and they dangle off the edge.

[Schrutesbeets]

Thanks JeanClaudeVanDammit

My youngest is 7m and now I am aware of this I'll try to keep him RF longer than my DD.

[Liverbird77]

My eldest is almost 2.5 and we plan on rear facing until at least four.
I cannot understand why anyone would do different? The safety advice is very clear.

[Puntastic]

For anyone wondering why we bother, I've copied this rationale from the following website:

incarsafetycentre.co.uk/blog/post/recommend-rear-facing-for-longer

'Extended rear-facing is not new. In Car Safety Centre has been supplying rear-facing seats since the 1980’s.

ECE R129 is a new European regulation for children’s car seats (CRS) which was introduced in 2013. This regulation requires babies to be transported rear-facing until they are at least 15 months. This is a step up from the older regulation ECE R44, which stated that babies could be turned forward-facing from 9kg. In pure safety terms, is it really enough? The Swedes started rear-facing their children in 1965, and transport them rear-facing until they are at least 18kg (approximately 4 years of age) and often up to 25kg (approximately 6 years of age).

We always recommend that children travel rear-facing for as long as possible because it offers greater protection to your child. A baby/child is not a little adult. Their developing bone structure is not sufficient to protect the organs. A child’s head may be up to 4 times heavier than the rest of its body, and the muscles in the neck and back are not strong enough to support this weight. In a head -on collision in a forward-facing seat, your child’s head will be thrown forward causing severe injuries to the neck and spine. Whereas, in a rear-facing seat, their head, neck and back are supported by the CRS, reducing the force on the neck.

Britax Dualfix i-Size installed in car

We refer to head-on collisions rather than rear-end collisions as in a head-on collision, two cars are travelling in opposite directions and when they make contact, there is extreme deceleration. This means the seat belt or harness will stop the body but the head will continue moving forward at the same speed in which the car was originally moving, causing severe strain on the neck and spine. However, in a rear-end collision, even if your child were to be in a rear-facing seat, although the head would still be thrown forward, the two cars are moving in the same direction so there is not the same extreme deceleration meaning less strain on the neck and spine. Head-on collisions also make up approximately 47% of collisions, while 6% are rear-end collisions. We should be more concerned about the physical impact of frontal collisions.'

[Squidgling]

My eldest was rear facing until she was almost 6. Youngest will hopefully rear face for a similar amount of time. With regards to legs we have an axkid minikid which can be installed further back on the seat so that they have more space between them and the back seat for their legs. It means we are quite cramped in the front seat though. My daughter actually found it a bit uncomfortable when she moved to forward facing in her high back booster as she had nowhere to put her feet!

[bluechameleon]

DS1 was 4.5 but he is very tall. The same seat should last DS2 until 6 (he is currently 3)

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

DD1 was about 14 months I think. (Now nearly 10, and still using a booster despite being 145cm as it's more comfortable than having a seatbelt across the neck)
DD2 was 2.5years. She took to screaming the whole time in the car as she couldn't see us and to talk to us... Before that she had her sister for company. It was supposed to be just temporary in the hire car where her seat didn't fit RF, but it didn't work out that way. She was harnessed until 5. She's now 8 for context.

Between DD1 and DD2 becoming toddlers (less than two years) saw the first rear fact seat become available at an affordable price in a high street shop, not a specialist shop. It's good to see the bigger range now.

[GreenLeafTurnip]

About 18 months maybe a bit less. I specifically bought a rear facing to 4.5 years car seat but he gets travel sick going backwards so it's just not practical.

[HandforthParishCouncilClerk]

3, purely because DS is super-tall and we stopped being able to cram his long spider legs into the seat. We’d been hoping to RF to 5.

[sherrystrull]

Dc 1 was 10 months. He hated the car and screamed. He turned ff and changed overnight to living the car. I then drove without stress.

Dc2 was 12 months and just moved into the next size up car seat.

Most people I know ff from about a year.

[SomeCatsLikeCheese]

We did FF DC1 at 2.5 although we didn’t have our own car then so it was just with grandparents. He got to the point where he was so busy trying to see what was going on tat he wouldn’t sit properly in the seat and the harness kept slipping over his shoulders. Regardless of adjustments. So I put him FF.

Am hoping to keep DC2 RF for longer but it will depend on things like whether he gets travelsick.

[NatalieH2220]

@Schrutesbeets

This might be a stupid question, but where do your children's feet go when they're 2+ if rear facing?
I moved DD FF at around 2 cos she was massive in the seat. I can't remember the specific model but it was a Joie one and the instructions stated to FF at around 2?
I didn't even realise till I read on MN, that it was so wrong!

However they like. Children are very flexible and don't usually sit the same as adults do, often with legs crossed so can sit this way in the car. My son is 4 and either has his legs crossed, frog leg position or sometimes rests them straight up against the headrest. He's a tall boy too.

[HercwasanEnemyofEducation]

I cannot understand why anyone would do different? The safety advice is very clear.

Judgemental comments like this don't help though.

ERF seats are another expense. The joie every stages was the cheapest all through ERF seat I could find (and not the safest) and that was still £200.

Lots of people have also said their children were sick. The chance of an accident is so small that I'd FF if it stopped my child being sick every journey.