Extended rear facing??

[StaceyinLA]

Do you, or do you not? If so, what convinced you? If not, is it because you haven't found the research to be compelling??

[besroma]

Car seats?

[justamouse]

I apparently don't because I have no idea what you're talking about. :D

[StaceyinLA]

Yes, car seats.

[IsabelC]

I do believe that, all other things being equal, rear facing is safest.

 

BUT, given that 99% of little people are happier riding forward facing, you have to balance that against the theoretical safety difference. IME, a mother who can concentrate on driving because baby is content makes for more safety. But yeah, if I ever had a baby who was perfectly happy to stay rear facing I'd do it for as long as possible.

[kitten18]

My kids were both about 24 months when I turned them forward facing. I thought the research was very compelling and I didn't see any *good* reasons to turn them forward sooner.

[besroma]

My kids were both about 24 months when I turned them forward facing. I thought the research was very compelling and I didn't see any *good* reasons to turn them forward sooner.

 

:iagree: We keep ours rear facing as long as possible.

[Dinsfamily]

I do extend rear-facing and turned my now 4yo around at 34 months. I do believe that it is safer. I also extend harness FWIW. Ds8 just outgrew his harness by height a couple of months ago.

[Mom-ninja.]

I do. I think my middle ds was 4 when I turned him around. I did so because he kicked his brother in the face. That's what might happen when you have one rear facing and one forward facing on a bench seat. :glare:

 

My youngest will be 4 in Nov. He is still rear facing. My dh keeps asking when I'm going to turn him. I said when he turned 4. Now that he only has a few months to go I'm not so sure. The seat will rear face to 35 lbs and he only weighs 28. Maybe I just won't bring it up and everyone will forget I said when he was 4.

[Mom-ninja.]

I do extend rear-facing and turned my now 4yo around at 34 months. I do believe that it is safer. I also extend harness FWIW. Ds8 just outgrew his harness by height a couple of months ago.

 

My 11 yr old still fits his harness seat. :001_smile: Yes, he sits in it.

[AFwife Claire]

I don't. Partly that's because we have a big van (12 passenger), and we use most of the seats (there are 10, soon to be 11 of us). There is only one position where the carseat fits rear-facing, and that is in the middle of the bench behind the driver and passenger seats. So it is really hard for anyone to climb over that carseat to get to the seat on the other side. But it is very helpful to have kids on either side of the baby to entertain, so I don't want to never be able to use that seat. Also, we often carry an extra kid or 2 places with us, and then we definitely fill up all the seats.

 

I'll wait a few months past a year, but I've never lasted longer than 14 or 15 months. Frankly, I think doctors would rather we never drove our kids around, or put them in giant bubbles or something. They are always making more and more rules, but I'm not convinced safety goes up exponentially with each new rule. And many of the rules just don't work if you have a bunch of kids. So we do the best we can, and I feel comfortable with our decisions. So far we don't break any laws (i.e. we keep them in boosters until they are 8, etc.), but I don't know what we'd do if they mandated the extended rear facing. I would be highly annoyed, for sure, and grumble excessively about nanny state governments, even more than I currently do!

[VeganCupcake]

Yes, absolutely I believe in rear facing my kids as long as possible. My DD was RFing until just a few weeks ago and she will be 4 years old next week. She never complained--we had a seat with adequate leg room for her and she was comfortable. She's quite tall, too.

 

DS is only 17 months old and is rear facing. He doesn't love the carseat and never has, but I don't think forward facing would make any difference in his case.

 

I do think the evidence for it is compelling. I can see that some (most? :)) people won't want to rear face their children to 4 years old like I do, but to 2 years old, I think it's a pretty clear choice.

[forty-two]

I do - Dd6 until 2, dd3.5 until a few months ago, ds1 is still rear-facing. They've all been perfectly happy rear facing (until getting turned around - I don't think switching back to rear facing after a time forward facing would have worked very well, but when they didn't know any different they were fine with it). So I don't have any personal experience with kids being so upset rear facing that I switched them early to forward facing for everyone's sanity. Is it really that common? :confused:

 

(Our seats do let the kids sit high enough that they can see out of the window while rear facing, which may or may not be a factor.)

 

Eta: extended harness, too - dd6 just outgrew her convertible and we got a hbb with a five point harness.

Edited September 6, 2012 by forty-two

[cornelia9805]

My 3rd DD was rear facing until she maxed out the rear facing weight at 22 months. My 2nd DD was in a harnessed booster until she was 7 and we had to move her seat to the back of the van. She is also still in a booster at almost 9. My DS is still rear facing and will be until he maxes out the weight in his seat. I imagine that will be at 2-2 1/2.

 

It is embarrassing to admit, but I turned my 18lb 11 month old forward facing before I knew better.

[Annie Laurie]

My 22 months (in about a week) toddler rides rear facing and doesn't seem to mind at all. I do think it's safest, as far as stress to their neck and spine in an accident. :auto::auto::auto:

 

:auto::auto:

 

He's in my lap and is obsessed with these car smilies, so I had to click on them for him. And they go with the topic!

 

ETA: He is a peanut, and only about 25 lb, his seat goes to 35 lb rear facing, so he will probably stay rear facing for another year if he's not overly scrunched or protesting.

[happyhomemaker25]

My baby is 28m and still small enough to rear face, so rear face she does. Thankfully she has a backseat full of brothers and sisters to stare at so she does ok with it. Once DH put her in forward facing by mistake and she was amazed at all there was to see. I almost kept her that way, but in the end decided to go with my gut and turn her back around.

[ktgrok]

We just turned my daughter forward at 2 1/2, and only because the seat fit better than way now that we have a second seat in the car for the baby on the way. It also makes my life easier now that she can climb in herself. But I would NEVER forward face before 2 years old.

[Kathryn]

Mine made it 18m before DH wouldn't take the screaming anymore and turned them. ODS was harnessed until after his sixth birthday, but the crotch strap was causing him a lot of pain, so he's HBBed now.

[Joker]

My oldest was very content rear facing, but my youngest was a terror. Her screaming was so terrible we avoided everything we could until she was just over a year, then we turned her around. She was a completely different passenger when forward facing.

[LibraryLover]

I got my youngest to 28 months, but the crying/unhappiness started much earlier. I found myself so distracted by her cries. My dh was the one who turned the Marathon around. I didn't know until I put the toddler in the seat. I was a bit angry, but the baby was not.

 

She was 100% happier, and I could concentrate better as I was driving, as she was ( much more ) content.

 

Not that she ever liked the car. ;)

[the4Rs]

Just after a year I turned both kids around. We had long distance car rides to see family and it was not easy to get to them when they were rear facing. Plus they got grouchy when rear facing. I know there is compelling evidence should you be in an accident but we were happy we turned them around and would do it again in a heartbeat if we ever had the need to again.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Before two seems too early. But honestly, I doubt we'd wait much past 3.

 

I also don't have an issue with my littles climbing under the babies' carseats to get into their own.

[FO4UR]

The youtube crash-test video's are compelling. Internal-decapitation is the reason to rear-face as long as possible.

 

 

I didn't even think anything about with baby#1.

 

With #2 and #3, I extended-rear-faced. and I kept all 3 of them in 5pt harnesses for a very long time. My 7yo and 6yo are in high-back boosters, and 9yo is in a regular booster.

 

 

This baby I'm expecting will rear-face and 5pt harness until she outgrows her carseats.

 

 

FWIW - it isn't about following the law or anyone else's rules. The law is much more lax than I am.;) I get some eye-rolls about it when people offer to drive my dc somewhere...my kids, my rules.

[justamouse]

I turned mine around as soon as I could because we had a huge 15 passenger van and NOT seeing my kid in the mirror freaked me out.

[Jpoy85]

we turned them all after 1yr old.

[SKL]

The "research" for rear-facing is misreported.

 

Kids are safer forward-facing if they're in an accident where their car is rear-ended. Most of the accidents involving kids, where the parents weren't drinking/impaired nor speeding, involve being rear-ended. The "research" is often cited as saying that front-end collisions are the most common kind, but that's because they are including the idiot who rear-ended you (while texting) as having *his* front end involved. If you really research it, you can find evidence debunking the "extended RF is far safer" argument.

 

If you actually look into the numbers behind what they call "the research," there is negligible or no benefit to having children rear-facing past the age when they can sit up well. True, there have been a tiny number of cases where rear-facing would have prevented serious injury/death, but there have also been cases where rear-facing would have been worse for the child. Every accident I've been in in decades involved my being rear-ended. (I admit, I rear-ended someone else when I was 18, but it was at a slow speed and nobody was hurt.) If my rear-facing kids had been in the car when I was hit by a semi jackknifing on the freeway ice, they would have been in serious trouble.

 

I see good reasons to turn kids before they outgrow the ability to rear-face. For me, it was going on long rides and having my clueless kids staring at the sky out the back window, because that's all they could see. I couldn't converse with them about whatever was going on around us as we drove. I decided it was time to talk to my kids (then 2.5) about stuff like traffic lights etc. It was later that I learned they really weren't safer RF anyway. Thank goodness they were forward-facing the time we got rear-ended hard when they were 4.

 

My kids were content to rear-face, but many kids are not. For them, parents have to weigh the miniscule possible net benefit against the risks of having a screaming, tantruming, possibly puking child distracting the driver. To me, it's a no-brainer.

[Ravin]

I turned DD once she hit 20 lbs (before age 2, older than 1, she was small for age) largely because I couldn't get the seat we had to secure rear facing properly in our vehicle ( new to us after a period without a car). Properly installed forward seemed safer to me than improperly rear facing.

 

She's still in a booster and almost 9. DS will stay rear facing in our vehicles until he reaches the seat limits, I plan. He has ridden in a friend's car a few times forward, as she has a 2 yo. not with her/forward installed seat and offered us a ride that saved us an hour bus ride/walk.

[Mandy in TN]

The "research" for rear-facing is misreported.

 

Kids are safer forward-facing if they're in an accident where their car is rear-ended. Most of the accidents involving kids, where the parents weren't drinking/impaired nor speeding, involve being rear-ended. The "research" is often cited as saying that front-end collisions are the most common kind, but that's because they are including the idiot who rear-ended you (while texting) as having *his* front end involved. If you really research it, you can find evidence debunking the "extended RF is far safer" argument.

 

If you actually look into the numbers behind what they call "the research," there is negligible or no benefit to having children rear-facing past the age when they can sit up well. True, there have been a tiny number of cases where rear-facing would have prevented serious injury/death, but there have also been cases where rear-facing would have been worse for the child. Every accident I've been in in decades involved my being rear-ended. (I admit, I rear-ended someone else when I was 18, but it was at a slow speed and nobody was hurt.) If my rear-facing kids had been in the car when I was hit by a semi jackknifing on the freeway ice, they would have been in serious trouble.

 

I see good reasons to turn kids before they outgrow the ability to rear-face. For me, it was going on long rides and having my clueless kids staring at the sky out the back window, because that's all they could see. I couldn't converse with them about whatever was going on around us as we drove. I decided it was time to talk to my kids (then 2.5) about stuff like traffic lights etc. It was later that I learned they really weren't safer RF anyway. Thank goodness they were forward-facing the time we got rear-ended hard when they were 4.

 

My kids were content to rear-face, but many kids are not. For them, parents have to weigh the miniscule possible net benefit against the risks of having a screaming, tantruming, possibly puking child distracting the driver. To me, it's a no-brainer. .

:iagree:

[Mandy in TN]

I also agree with the poster who talked about the "nanny state." lol

 

Mandy

[swellmomma]

I extended rear facing with my youngest. Most people I knew when I did that thought I was nuts. I kept her rear facing until 19 months. Had I known I could keep her rear facing even longer than that I would have. But I was already the only one in my circle rearfacing that long. I also keep in the harness past the 40lbs mark. It was doing so that kept dd4 safe in our recent accident.

[macmacmoo]

Our eldest was born a year after his cousins. They were given the advice to year face till one year, and they lasted time 9 months. By the time DS was a year they had bumped the advice to two years. We went what felt right for us, and for him we turned him around 18 months.

 

Our youngest is a little over a year, and we have no set plans on when we will turn him around. I think its a personal thing. Each child and parent is different.

[Starr]

Where do their legs go when they face the back? Mine are grown. When they were little I found them crunched by a year. Are the seats different now?

[AngieW in Texas]

My kids didn't reach 20 pounds until just after they turned 2yo, so I didn't turn them around until then. My kids were pretty tiny. They were also in booster seats with backs until they were about 10yo.

 

What's funny is that my middle dd was the one who outgrew the booster at the youngest age even though she was actually the shortest at that age. She just had (and still has) a very long torso. At 5', she is taller than my 5'6" dh sitting down. She is the same height as our 5'9" friend when sitting down.

[VeganCupcake]

Where do their legs go when they face the back? Mine are grown. When they were little I found them crunched by a year. Are the seats different now?

 

My almost 4 year old draped her legs over the sides of the carseat, crossed her legs, or put her feet up on the seat. Some seats have more legroom than others.

[blondeviolin]

Ellie rear-faced until just before 2. Probably the next long car trip we have to take (will be a while), we'll turn Hyrum. I'm not sure I'd call that extended, though, since it's fairly common in my neck of the woods.

[Dory]

My dd stayed rear facing until about 18 months. Both my boys were turned around as soon as they were 12 months though. They hated being crammed up against the seat. They all have (or will) stay in harness until they are at least 6. My 8 year old was tall enough that we gave him the option of getting out of his booster seat, but he actually asked to stay in it. He says it's more comfortable and he can see better.

[Shamzanne]

My very tall daughter hated facing the rear. We lived in the middle of nowhere and had to drive half an hour just to get to a tiny grocery store. She screamed in misery for the entire duration of every car trip. I was tired of arriving places completely frazzled, so I turned her around at 10 months. I don't regret it.

[rgrin]

We did, and everyone on both sides of the family thought we were nuts. They're all for not following the crowd with homeschooling, but by all means, don't mess with the car seats! :svengo:

 

Anyway, we turned the boys FF somewhere between 2.5 and 3 years old. We bought them Britax Decathlon seats, and my older DS outgrew his (height-wise) at about 6.25-years-old. Younger DS (5) is happily FF is his Decathlon, and since he has a shorter torso, will probably be able to use his for another two years. :D

[nertsmommy]

I did extended rear facing on all mine. They are all tiny and weren't 20lbs at 1 yr. Youngest DD is still rear facing and she turned 2 in May. Her car seat will hold her rear facing until 35 lbs and she's not there yet.

 

DS (6) is still in a 5 pt harness. His seat will hold him in that until 50lbs.

 

I go by what I feel is safest for my kids. They are all on the low side for weight.

[mom2jjka]

As a former CPST, my children rode rear-facing until they were between three and four years old.

We extended harness and booster,too, because in my CPST class we were taught that every step 'up' in carseats is a step down in safety.

My almost 8 yr old DD is still in a 5 pt harness, and my 12 yr old DS is still in a booster (and probably will be for awhile, as he is small for his age.)

[somo_chickenlady]

My son was not extended rear faced, mainly b/c I had no idea what that was when he was a baby. I think I kept him rear facing until he was 16 months old, or so, though.

 

I then became a CPST when he was 6yrs old, so he remained in a high back booster seat until he was 9. At the time the only carseat that would harness a 9 year old was the Britax Regent, which was GIGANTIC, not to mention expensive. I still think we did great keeping him in a booster that long. I kept him in it until the seat belt fit him properly and he was mature enough to stay put in his seat during the whole ride.

 

If we ever have another baby he/she will definitely be extended rear faced to the limits of the seat and harness longer than recommended.

[AdventureMoms]

My DD rode RF until she was nearly 4, when she hit 40 lbs and couldnt anymore. My twins are still rearfacing at nearly 22 months. I will absolutely get them to 2yo, and I'd love to go as long as sister but they are bigger and will probably hit 40lbs by around 2.5yo. I'll keep them RF as long as I can. DD and boys are 2.5y apart, so I had three RFing for over a year. It was actually easier than after I turned DD and had to deal with the boys harassing her because they could reach more easily.

 

All three are very tall, they cross legs or fling them over the sides or prop them up on the seatback. Kids are bendy, I don't get why folks get freaked out by the legs being bent. Compared to the weird positions I find kids sleeping in, the carseat is downright comfy looking. Last trip one of the twins was chewing on his toes for half the drive. Clearly he had enough room. We do drive long distances regularly - my parents are a 5 hr drive and we drove 12 hours down to OBX this past spring. I pass stuff back to them all the time. I purposely chose tall convertible seats so they could fit for a long time - I spend money there rather than on the fancy infant seats because I knew that a convertible would get a lot more use.

 

ETA - and my 4yo is harnessed too.

[phathui5]

Baby ds will be rear facing until he's at least two and then we'll go from there.

 

Here's a good link about toddlers and car safety:

 

http://www.safekids.org/safety-basics/little-kids/on-the-way/car-seats-and-booster-seats.html

[Seeking Squirrels]

Yes, I fully believe in rear facing. DD turned 4 in June and went forward facing in July. She does still fit rf, but we drive a two door car and baby's seat had to go in. She's asking to go back rf, though, so I'm teaching her to buckle herself in and will turn her around. I'll still be double checking her work for some time but that will be easier to do from an odd angle than fully buckling her. oh and she's forward in DH's car because it's outgrown and rf in grandma's car.

 

 

The "research" for rear-facing is misreported.

 

Kids are safer forward-facing if they're in an accident where their car is rear-ended. Most of the accidents involving kids, where the parents weren't drinking/impaired nor speeding, involve being rear-ended. The "research" is often cited as saying that front-end collisions are the most common kind, but that's because they are including the idiot who rear-ended you (while texting) as having *his* front end involved. If you really research it, you can find evidence debunking the "extended RF is far safer" argument.

 

If you actually look into the numbers behind what they call "the research," there is negligible or no benefit to having children rear-facing past the age when they can sit up well. True, there have been a tiny number of cases where rear-facing would have prevented serious injury/death, but there have also been cases where rear-facing would have been worse for the child. Every accident I've been in in decades involved my being rear-ended. (I admit, I rear-ended someone else when I was 18, but it was at a slow speed and nobody was hurt.) If my rear-facing kids had been in the car when I was hit by a semi jackknifing on the freeway ice, they would have been in serious trouble.

 

....

 

This is not true. Rear facing has been shown to be safe even when rear-ended. Being rear ended is not the opposite of being in a front end collision, crash dynamics-wise. It's not that front end collisions are the most common, it is that they are more dangerous than being rear ended. (generally speaking. There are exceptions to everything). The most dangerous type of accident is side impact. Rear facing has been shown to be safer in these collisions as well.

 

Being able to sit up well has nothing to do with being safe forward facing. What's important is a child's bones. Until they have ossified they are much more vulnerable in a forward facing position.

 

I'm a tech and have devoted countless hours to the subject of child passenger safety. There's a reason why guidelines are changing. We know better, we do better.

[Soror]

:iagree:

I'm a tech and have devoted countless hours to the subject of child passenger safety. There's a reason why guidelines are changing. We know better, we do better.

 

:iagree: And we all could say as well, why bother with carseats as we survived just fine.

 

Ds1 was 2, dd1 was 4, dd2 is 2.5 and still rf'ing.

[EducationX2]

I turned DD at just over a year, because I didn't know any better. I found out about ERF.... about the time she hit the weight limit on all the rear facing seats. (Way back when rear facing stopped at 35 pounds because we didn't have the fancy-schmancy seats we do now. :D)

 

She was harnessed until after her 6th birthday, when she hit the limit on her car seat. She's about 65 pounds now, and rode in a Britax Frontier, which needs to be tethered to use harnessed over 65 pounds. I don't have tethers in my vehicle, so now she rides in a booster (a Graco high back). I'd love to have her back in a harness, because she is so uncomfortable in the booster and complains all the time about it, plus she's a car-sleeper, which ends up with her leaning all over the place. :glare: If only I could win the lottery tomorrow to buy a new seat.... (Oh, and a new vehicle... :lol:)

[HelenNotOfTroy]

I had no choice but to turn my DS forward facing at 1 because, like the previous poster mentioned, seats only rear faced to 35 pounds. I wanted to keep him rear facing and if I have another, he or she will remain rear facing as long as possible.

[Hoot]

DS was so tiny as a baby that we kept him rear-facing for longer than suggested; however, I don't remember how long.

[Zuzu822]

Yes, each boy has RFed longer than the one before. All the boys are very tall, but the seat we have should allow my DS (nearly) 22 months to RF until 3 by height.

 

He has been able to climb in and out if his own seat (van has captain's chairs in the middle row) for ages and can buckle his chest clip and he's outgrown his distress in the car. We use a mirror to see him while driving, but if he kicks it down there are two sentries in the third row happy to report what he's up to. :D

[Mom in High Heels]

Indy rd' until he was around 3.5. He didn't mind because he didn't know any different. He was in the Britax Regent(HUGE and super comfy) until he was almost 7. He outgrew it in height and is still in a booster (not high back) at 10. In Germany though it required until age 11 or 4'10, whichever comes sooner.

Han Solo will likely be rf until he's around 3.5 as well. With him, Indy is sitting there so he has someone to talk to an entertain him. I think he'll be sad when we eventually do turn him as he won't be able to see Indy straight forward any longer.