What age did you put your baby in front facing push chair?

[ThatTwinklyEagle]

Just wondering what age you put your baby in a front facing push chair? We are currently using our car seat (facing me as I push) on an uppa baby frame. The car seat is feeling a bit small now (ds is almost 8 months and a big boy!) we don’t have a push chair that will allow ds to face me, only to face forwards, and I worry it is too soon for him and he’ll wonder where we’ve gone! Thank you 😊

I didn't. We bought the Stokke Xplory so both DC were always parent facing. I knew the importance of it from being an infant teacher and working with SaLT.

She was definitely in it by 8 months. However, this was during COVID, so most of the day consisted of conversation with me, walks were the only opportunity to see outside. I think she probably still would have been in normal times though.

You shouldn't be using a car seat as a main pushchair-it's bad for spines and breathing.

DD was around 8 months when we bought a forward facing one. She was mostly in a sling though so she could interact with and see more of the world from high. DH carried her in the sling until she was 3 and a half years old.

DS was about 1 month. It was a big 3 wheeler.
DD was around 5 months when she went into the forward facing part of the Bill & Ted's.

Don't use the car seat as a push chair that's really bad for their development.

@ThatTwinklyEagle mines got a Joie Chrome which is parent or outward facing. He's 19mo and still faces me most of the time

My son was about 10 months when we switched to forward facing. This was because he was always craning his neck to see ahead in the direction of travel.

It was still possible to chat and point out things of interest.

About 5 months because mine was small, my friends with bigger babies did it at around 3-4 months. Mine were clingy babies but they didn't seem fussed by forward facing.

Keep him facing you for as long as possible. It's much better for him, allows for lots of eye contact and shared conversation which is brilliant for language development and bonding. Ideally you want to stay with parent facing until they don't rely on a buggy anymore.

Thanks everyone! To those saying don’t use a car seat, he’s only in it for my one walk a day around the town. It’s not as if he’s spending the day in it or any longer than a typical car journey.

Newborn, maclaren techno

One walk around town per day would be 1-2 hours? That's 7-14 hours per week he's in it, not including the time when he's actually in the car.

I had no idea keeping babies parent facing was thought to be better, I’ll need to read up more on this.

My DS hated the pram in general, so was in the sling until he was around 4 months, and then parent facing until 7 months when we turned him world facing.

I have to say between 4-7 months when he was parent facing he would only tolerate the pram for a nap, but would scream and scream if he needed to spend any time there awake, so I would then pop him in the sling. So really any benefits of being parents facing in my case were redundant. As soon as we turned him world facing that changed and he was very happy watching the world go by, it was a revelation.

The first photos I have of him forward facing are when he was six months old. We kept him mostly parent facing for the next two months or so (unless we were going somewhere he'd enjoy looking at) then kept him forward facing.

Doesn’t the Uppababy Vista pushchair seat parent face? I thought it worked both ways?

we moved my son to forward facing at one in our main pram, but from 6m in our travel pram

Yes, it does. It's a great choice because they can parent face for ages because the seat is so big, plus it's really easy to switch so if you are somewhere with really good stuff to look at you can turn them outwards very easily.

For our second they were in it from birth as was a lay flat double pushchair 🤷‍♀️ I've got the best bond with him out of all my kids.

From birth with youngest 3. Due to space in boot and cost we went for zeta vooom strollers with twins and singleton, better habit to not pop carseats on pram like we did with older 3.

@Hermittrismegistus You really don’t know anything about my life, and your mum shaming comments aren’t welcome. Move on to another thread, your advice isn’t needed!

'Mum shaming' because I pointed out the risks to your baby? Risks you don't seem to have taken account of.

Crazy that a parent would be upset about someone pointing out unsafe practices.

Read my comment again. And go elsewhere! 👋

With you on this. My daughter had bad reflux as a baby so we were advised to have her in the car seat to combat that, she wasn't in it often but it did make a big difference. Fast forward 3 years and she's developing well and no physical problems. We turned her forward facing at 6 months. My son is approaching 6 months but is quite happy in the bassinet (no reflux) so will keep him there for a while. Take no notice of people who think they know better and put you down. There's always (at least) one who knows best and is the perfect parent 🙄

We have a YoYo so mine were forward facing from about 4-5 months old when they outgrew the bassinet. I don’t think it matters so long as DC is happy. Nearly everyone uses a YoYo as their main pram around here and there doesn’t seem to be any resulting issues that stop DC from getting to an oversubscribed pre-prep or whatever! Whilst it’s no doubt lovely to see them and chat if parent facing, I think claiming it does anything for speech or bonding is such nonsense, unless they’re spending hours and hours in the pram and being ignored the rest of the day.

As for using a car seat on your pram frame really can’t see how that’s an issue with an 8MO on short trips. One of mine was standing and cruising round the furniture at that age, they don’t need to be flat like a newborn does and surely the carseat is better supported than a traditional pram/stroller seat?? It’s more the heaviness of the seat + baby that would be putting me off!

The Vista forward and rear faces, at least ours did a few years ago. They also sell an insert that makes the pushchair seat suitable for younger babies. I think we rear faces until about 9 months or so but even after that they faced us sometimes, if ill or in very cold windy weather if I was pushing them in to it (I didn't drive and had great guiltabout some of the weather they had to be out in!)

Thank you so much for backing me up! I really didn’t expect to receive such judgment over a simple question, especially when they don’t know my situation. Anyway I’m really glad that helped your little ones reflux issue! I’m sure it didn’t cause any issues at all, car seats aren’t the devil or else they would have to change their design. 😊 thank you again.