Rear Facing vs Forward Facing carseat

[mamatalks]

Just curious at what age everyone turned around their LOs car seats. I keep hearing that "they"re saying not to turn the carseats around now until your LO turns 2! Any advice?

[sosurreal09]

Definately not until age 2! *We* won't be FF until at least 3 y/o

[samstress]

we just turned our four-year-old around to forward facing because she reached 33 pounds (the rear-facing weight limit for her car seat).

rear-facing is safest.  if you're not convinced, watch this.

[prothyraia]

My little guy turns 3 in July and is rear facing.  He's on the small side, so he's nowhere near the weight limit for his seat yet and we won't turn him forward until we need to.  :)

[mama2soren]

My DS is 3 years old and RF.  I'll keep him that way until he's at least 4.  He has lots of room to grow in his Sunshine Kids Radian!  Less room in his Britax Boulevard, but we'll switch him out of that into a roomier True Fit in about 6 months (when our new baby will fit in the Boulevard.)

[katelove]

Our car seat allows rear-facing until 12kg. At this rate our LO will be rear-facing until after she is 2.

[new2this]

At the earliest 2. But we will go to the weight/height of the seat. I am hoping to buy one for my car that will RF longer and move the current one she is in to DH's vehicle. 

[TheGirls]

My oldest is 3, and rear-facing.  She will stay that way until she hits about 40lbs (limit of her seat).  I hope she makes it to her 4th birthday, but I dont think it will happen.  She's 37lbs, 38".  

[bobandjess99]

2 is now the recommended *minimum* for turning forward facing.  And since most moms want much more for their kid than the bare minimum, hopefully most parents will choose to follow the best practice recommendation of "as long as they can", which can be 3, 4, 5 years old :)   My 3.5 year old probably has another year left in his rearfacing convertible seat  :) 

[Katie T]

With DD1 (who is 11yo) I didn't know any better and turned her at a yr. With DS he was rear facing till 3 1/2yrs when he maxed out his seat for weight. DD2 will be 3yo in 1 weeks and is still rear facing and will be till she maxes out her seat. 

It is 5times safer to have them rfing and unless my child out grew there seat I would not turn at 2.

[Agatha_Ann]

My youngest is still RFing at almost 2 1/2, and he has 4 more pounds to go in his true fit. My others I turned at 2. DS2 because at that time he had outgrown the seat rf-ing, and with DS1 and DD that was pretty extreme!

[cinderella08]

My 29m old is rear-facing and still has about 3" and 11lbs of growth in her seat before she'll turn FF.

[butterflylover]

I turned my DC around at age 3. I wish I had left her rf a bit longer though.

[galincognito]

dd1 turned 4 last Friday; she's still rear facing and will until she asks to be turned. her seat rear faces to 45 lbs but she's only about 35 currently. at this rate, she'll be ten before she maxes out her seat! I wanted to keep her rear facing until she wad at least 4, then when(if?) she asks, we'll talk about it. honestly though, she loves it. she's only asked once (about a year ago) to turn forwards.

[Marissamom]

My DD is 2, and she won't be turning around for at least a couple more years. Ideally I would like to get my kids to booster age rearfacing, and skip forwardfacing and harnessed. rearfacing is so much safer, especially because my kids have 80th percentile heads and DD has a 5th percentile body. 

[MJB]

I RF'd my 5 yr. old until he outgrew his seat at 2.5, and my little one will be RFing until 3 or 4. 

[ecoteat]

DD was rear-faced until 2.5.

[jeminijad]

I turned her around a little while ago (a few months past her 2nd birthday.) I had planned to go till 3, but didn't for several reasons. I would not, however, FF before 2 if I could avoid it.

[Skippy918]

DS is still RFing at almost 3.  I plan to keep him there until he either maxes out the height or weight or until his baby sister moves out of the bucket next year and then we'll get him another harness seat that converts to a booster.

[Drummer's Wife]

Rear-facing is always going to be safer, so of course, the longer, the better!  The two year recommendation should be a minimum - but it's something to at least shoot for (even if it means buying a new car seat if it's outgrown by height or weight).  After two years, I'd say it depends on individual situations.  Hopefully more and more car seat manufacturers will get on board and design their seats to accommodate older riders, then it shouldn't even be an issue.  Ideally, kids could rear-face until closer to 4 years of age.