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?

DD is a small 2.5 and still fits in her infant seat (only just edged over the iSize height limit) and we've just got her a new seat that should last her till 4 by height I think. At which point the next baby will need it if they haven't already outgrown the infant seat, she is quite short in the body so I am dreading her needed to use the belt.

We don't have a car so it's taken a bit of work too find a RF seat that's actually transportable (not strapping a chair to my back!), but there aren't really good transportable FF options to my mind anyway.

Btw her loooong legs just bend to fit in the infant seat but she hates the lap belt on her knees (not a problem with isofix) and in the new seat there's a gap for her feet to rest on the cars seat while the sides touch the back rest.

17 months when sibling arrived. With both DH and I over 6 ft, we couldn’t get the driver’s seat back far enough to drive safely with 2 RF seats in the back.

DS is 3.5 and rear facing in a Klippan century - I don’t expect him to outgrow it until he is 5-6 years old.

He does have a forward facing seat in my mum and mother in laws cars. He doesn’t actually go in their cars, the seats are there more as a “in case of emergency” when they look after him (we are all local to each other and everything is walking distance so no need for them to drive him anywhere)

FIL has erf in his car though, as if they ever take DS in the car, it’s always FIL car.

We are going to try moving our just turned 3 year old to FF soon to see if it helps as he’s just started getting travel sick. He weighs 18.6kg and is 91st centile for height. He’s very comfy in his seat still - no issue with legs at all. If not for the travel sickness I’d ERF up to the seat weight limit.

15 months, DD would scream and make herself sick and it felt safer to FF.

DS is 3 in august and still Rf in his Joie every stage, as long as he's happy to get in and doesn't kick off then he can stay. I have a tiny car so I can imagine it will get more difficult to put him in soon but I will be happy if we get to 3. After that I won't be too fussed about it.

Never did because baby is only safe if the car is hit from the back. Whatvifvi got hit in front? Plus i liked to see my baby and my baby liked to seevthe world around him

It surprises me how many people are using, 'I/my DP are over 6 foot' as a reason to not rear-face. I presume Sweden has its fair share of tall people and they all manage it until 3. Why's is different here?

For context, we're a tall couple and have had no problems with two RF seats behind us, in either of our cars (standard family car size).

@Puntastic we did RF to 3, but couldn’t have gone longer - DS is over the 99th centile for height, most of which is leg, and has autism and SEN so having his knees practically by his eyes a. Gave him way too much leverage for meltdown kicking and b. was causing him distress.

4.5 here, I’m 6ft and DH is 6ft5.........

Mine is 3.5 and recently moved into a seat that rear faces to 25kg, so until she outgrows that.

RF til 3, sold the car and she's not been in a car again. Thinking of buying a booster seat now for occasional use as I don't think a 25kg ERF Seat is easy to move between cars.

@puntastic, I actually love the Minikid. We got it straight after the baby carrier seat and we'll keep using it until she goes into a high back booster now. It has a brace leg that rests on the floor of the car, and tether straps that go through the rails of the seat in front (I couldn't access mine so they go through the seat itself).

I'm 5'11 and so is my DH, and DD is pretty tall, it's worked really well. Her legs are totally fine. The only issue is there isn't much room left in our front seat of our Picasso, but we can all fit in it! It's only temporary so we can deal with it. Hope that helps!

Thanks @Nomorescreentime. It does help- you can only read so much online and if it's not comfortable for the child it's a non-starter!

@LunaLula83 RF is safer in a head on collision (hitting an oncoming car or a wall) because instead of their head and limbs being throw into the air in front they are forced into the seat, as in there's no where to go. In a collision where someone hits you from behind then their head and limbs would be left behind while their body is pulled forward in the seat.

Head on collisions are more likely and are at a higher speed so there is greater force for example

• Car A is doing 30mph and hits Car B doing 20mph, the total speed to decelerate is 50mph (way higher than the minimum car seat testing). Essentially coming to a sudden stop from 50 mph.

• Car A is doing 20mph and Car B hits it from behind doing 30mph, Car A just suddenly accelerated 10mph and then hopefully coming to a controlled stop (and not hitting a tree).

Same speeds, very different forces.

#1 - 9m
#2 - 3y 9m

There's 7 years between them and we didn't drive first time around so just went with the standard advice and bought the best seat we could afford. Second time around I knew better.

Eight months (nearly 20 years ago now though).

@LunaLula83

Never did because baby is only safe if the car is hit from the back. Whatvifvi got hit in front? Plus i liked to see my baby and my baby liked to seevthe world around him

Other way around. Imagine braking sharply in your car- you are thrown forward because the car slows down faster than your body. Same in a frontal impact collision- car occupants are thrown forwards, putting pressure on the neck and spine. Babies and young children's spines aren't like adult ones and their heads are heavier in proportion to their bodies. A FF baby or young toddler in a frontal impact may have their neck snapped by the force of their head being thrown forwards unsupported- internal decapitation. This would kill them.

@olderthanyouthink
Head on collisions are the least common type of accident. They are the most dangerous, but they are not common. The most common are rear impact and side impact and RF has less difference to FF.
But in a head on collision (which tend to be high speed), RF makes a huge difference to fatality and serious injury.

[quote Megan2018]@olderthanyouthink
Head on collisions are the least common type of accident. They are the most dangerous, but they are not common. The most common are rear impact and side impact and RF has less difference to FF.
But in a head on collision (which tend to be high speed), RF makes a huge difference to fatality and serious injury.[/quote]
According to incarsafetycentre.co.uk:

'Head-on collisions also make up approximately 47% of collisions, while 6% are rear-end collisions.'

The thing is for any collision there are normally 2 cars involved. So for any rear end shunt it's still a frontal impact for the car behind. Same for a side impact if you're T-boned (less so if you're side swiped e.g. on motorway).

But anyway, regardless of which crash types are most common, if you look at everything:

Frontal collisions - RF vastly safer due to holding the head, spine and neck in alignment.

Side impacts - RF actually performs slightly better in real world due to pre-crash braking, which pushes a FF child out of the seat and outside but in a lab where the side impact test is a bench with the car seat on it and a solid metal panel coming towards it, RF/FF makes no difference. You find old sites saying RF seats have less side impact protection than FF seats - that was true about 10/15 years ago when SIP was a new thing. It's not really true now, most companies making RF seats have caught up. Older design RF seats still have poor SIP, but so do cheaper FF seats.

Rear impacts - RF very slightly safer still - as even in a rear shunt you're being pushed towards the front of the car, not the back of it. Not as big a difference as a frontal impact, I believe.

Reverse impact (e.g. reversing into another car/post/barrier) - FF is safer, but as these accidents tend to be at very low speeds it doesn't really matter.

Rollovers - RF/FF doesn't matter but you want your DC in a harness and not in an impact shield.

About 3 years old. She outgrew the seat we had and getting another that rear faced for a bit longer was pricey. If I had her now I'd get a seat that lasted rf a bit longer (not an option at the time). She is fairly big compared to others though. The seat we had would have lasted most to 4, we just have a giant child.

@BertieBotts has expressed what I spent about 10 minutes trying to type cohesively yesterday and then gave up!! Hit the nail on the head 👍🏻

He is almost two and still rf but is 99th percentile so probably until he is over 25kg