Am I silly to be upset with mil for pitting child front faceing in car seat when I asked her to rearrange face?

[Sophie1029734]

Hi everyone my lo is 2. I've asked her since the beginning of time to do rear faceing and have explained how it's safer, prevents death and severity of injury during crashes. She seems hell bent on the idea that it hurts her legs when I've said multiple times it does not after lots if time researching it.

Everytime she has come to give me a lift somewhere it's always front faceing. Whenever she takes lo to the car she goes quick and seems to not one to go there to say bye. A new front faceing seats appaeard in her car, saying it was just another family child's car seat (it isn't) she slipped and said she hasn't used the other one for a while.

Am I silly to be upset after realising shes been ignoring my requests to rear face lo? And knowing she is ignoring my requests and actively trying to hide it Car? Car safety is a huge thing for me and I feel my trusts gone a bit. It just makes me wonder what else other requests are disrespected. I know this may not seem a huge issue for some, so am i being silly.

Just to add to this, my parents respect my parenting decisions and those of my partner/child's father. They would gently advise us if they thought we were wrong but would still respect our wishes. I know with absolute certainty that there is no way on this Earth my parents would take my 2 year old in a FF seat because a) we've explained we want her to RF because the latest guidance says it's safest for her and b) they are perfectly capable of looking up that guidance if they wanted to and would come to the same conclusion. Also c) they would never do anything to compromise their grandchild's safety just because a different way is more convenient for them.

What a proud moment for you 🙄.

SharpLily · Today 07:58
MrsSkylerWhite
SharpLily

Would be or is?

was, actually. If you’re that into semantics. He was. No longer is though because he’s now FF.

What a proud moment for you 🙄.

jesus, what’s with the rolly eyes? What exactly is your beef? A 2 year old in a ff Isofix is perfectly well protected. Stop being ridiculous.

I don't have a beef. I worked for years in car safety. The information is all out there and yet someone who clearly hasn't bothered to look at any of it is telling me the evidence I spent years studying is all wrong. Would you not get a bit eye rolly?

All the seats are perfectly safe. Until something happens. That's when you see the difference.

@SharpLily

”what a proud moment for you” was a ridiculous thing to say.

when our adult kids were little, we researched exhaustively, I assure you. Now that we have a grandchild, his parents followed advice from the manufacturer of his isofix car seat and turned ff when he reached the recommended weight. I follow their instructions for their child.

You were unnecessarily rude, totally uncalled for.

Join 'extended rear facing car seats' on Facebook- they will understand and have suggestions as to how to proceed

Once you get to the point of joining FB groups about it, you've turned it into an aspect of your personality and you've gone cultish.

Really? Yet I didn't at any point call you anything like ridiculous. Who was the rude one here?

Researching things when your adult kids were little is not pertinent here - an awful lot of advice about children has changed since then! Your original comment pointed out that you don't know where children would put their legs, showing complete ignorance of the subject. Whatever your grandchild's issues were, being squashed due to rear facing as you insist was not the problem. Children up to age six fit perfectly comfortable in correctly used rear facing car seats, including my own tall, lanky daughter. How do you think they all manage it if it's such a bad idea?

Our DS is 4 and 99th centile in height and perfectly comfortable, not at all squashed in his RF car seat, so I am sceptical about the posters with much smaller children who can’t RF comfortably.

RF was important to us because we use the car rarely and when we do it’s for long journeys, usually on motorways etc, so higher risk of more dangerous crashes.

In general I agree that FF in a good seat, correctly installed, is good enough, especially for short local journeys.

But tbh my opinion is irrelevant and like
pps have said it’s not about the car seat question but about the fact that the OP’s MIL has gone out of her way to disregard her wishes in an underhand way. If there was a reason she wanted the child to FF - eg if she got very distressed RF, or if MIL found it distracting not being able to see her - then she should have had an open discussion with the OP about it, not sneaked around behind her back. It’s a breach of trust and I’d find it v hard to trust her on anything to do with my child after this.

This post sums up the ridiculousness of the entire thread. Motorway driving is safer than other types of driving. You have less chance of a fatality on the motorway than on other types of roads. The whole thread is people taking a position as to risk based on completely misunderstanding the data.

Agreed. Hardly anyone does it actually. You constantly see forward facing toddlers out and about. Everyone I've ever spoken to about it forward faced their toddlers from about 2.

I'm not saying it's right, but it does seem to be a bit of a MN thing.

Other countries think RF is better, so not just MN thing

Ah right. I don't regularly visit Tesco's in other countries so I wouldn't know.

It's not just an MN thing - in fact I don't think I've ever come across such resistance to it as I see here!

In Sweden (and other Scandinavian countries) for example, children are not put forward facing until at least age four. FF for babies and toddlers just isn't a thing there. All report far better car crash fatality statistics than the UK.

Your post sums up the ridiculousness of the entire thread imo - it’s not about what you think about car safety; it’s nothing to do with car safety at all. It’s about whether the OP can trust her MIL in circumstances where she has deliberately disregarded her wishes and lied to her about it.

In Sweden (and other Scandinavian countries) for example, children are not put forward facing until at least age four. FF for babies and toddlers just isn't a thing there. All report far better car crash fatality statistics than the UK

Still don't get why children need to sit facing the back of the car, but adults are OK, apparently, facing front. Is it something to do with their size or weight?

It is about skeletal development - proportionally a child's head is larger and heavier than an adult's and therefore exerts different pressure on the spine in an accident. The rest of the skeleton is also less developed, the pelvis for example.

However adults actually are safer when rear facing also! Obviously we don't because we drive the car so are automatically forward and when our current format of car was developed we didn't know any of this. Maybe if cars were invented now, with the knowledge we have then we would have come up with a completely different system.

I wouldn't be letting my LO go out with them from now on

If they don't take your concerns about car seat safety seriously what else are they willing to do to put LO in danger

Proportional size of the head on an adult Vs Child.

If you put your arm above your head, the top of your head will roughly reach your elbow. On a child younger than 7, it'll reach about the wrist. This is because a child's head is proportionally much larger compared with their body. This means the neck, which is proportionally the same as an adults in comparison with the body is carrying a much bigger weight. This increases the force put on the neck and can result in internal decapitation. Rear facing reduces the force in all accidents (including Rear end) due to the motion of the car. Rear facing is safer for everyone (safest position is rear facing in a vertical position against a firm surface).

TLDR: kids have big heads and the weight of the big head increases the likelihood of them snapping their necks. This risk is reduced rear facing.

This is also why spaces for wheelchair users on trains and buses are arranged so that the wheelchair is backed up against something and the user is travelling backwards.

It's much safer for everyone to rear face but it would be impractical(!!) for drivers to do so and because forward facing has been the norm for so long most people don't think about it.

Actually that is not true- a toddler's head is heavier proportionally to their body than ours. Thst is why they recommend rear facing until 4.

I don't know for sure but seems to me that it is designed for wheelchairs to have their backs up against something because of their strong propensity to flip backwards on moving transport.

This.

I presume it’s free grandparent childcare that all this ferrying around is for?

Your diamond tiara feeling a little tight OP?

That’s absolute rubbish. An adults skeleton and size is a much greater protection than a toddlers

Try reading the thread. It's not for free childcare.

Rear facing is safer for everyone, but much, much safer for under 7s (the age at which head becomes in proportion).

I really can't imagine a 6 year old in a rear facing seat. My DD is quite tall, I'm not sure what she would do with her legs tbh.