When did you FF your carseat? - Page 3

[hollytheteacher]

My son is only 3 months, but he'll def be at least 20 lbs by 1 so i;ll have no prob FrontF it then. It says in my car seat manual it's safe at 1 year and 20 lbs. HTH

[eclipse]

Originally Posted by hollytheteacher

My son is only 3 months, but he'll def be at least 20 lbs by 1 so i;ll have no prob FrontF it then. It says in my car seat manual it's safe at 1 year and 20 lbs. HTH

holly, these are the minimum legal guidelines to turn a carseat. It is so, so, SO much safer that you should rear face as long as possible - most carseats these days are approved to rearface until at least 33 lbs.

[mommy_e]

To the OP: Have you tried moving the seat to the side?

Being more upright, as a PP mentioned, and closer to the window may help him. I could see where being center in a Boulevard in a Forester might mean that he couldn't see out very well. Rear-facing on the side in a seat with side impact protection is safer than forward facing in the center.

[wombatclay]

Hmmm...we turned dd1 when she was around 21mo. We couldn't fit two rf seats in our vehicle (well, not without the seat tech shaking her head) and we wanted to prepare for dd2's arrival. DD1 was never horrible with being rf but she was a lot happier ff.

I don't know what we'll do with dd2. She HATES the seat and always has. She screams till she chokes and/or vomits, arches her back, thrashes, and is obviously "not amused". Eventually she falls asleep, but it can take an hour or more. The crying upsets dd1 too so she usually starts crying too and begging dd2 to stop crying. There is no room for an adult in back due to the two seats, she is already rf next to the window (can't install rf in center seat due to other car seat), and we are moving to a more rural location which means dd2 will have to be in the car at least twice a day. She is almost 6mo and has been like this since birth. If she continues like this we may turn her a heck of a lot sooner than we did with dd1 (though not before one, obviously...she is already just shy of 20 lbs)... if turning ff helps then we'd keep it like that. If it doesn't help we'll put her back rf.

There just isn't a good solution to this... hugs mama.

[Tapioca]

We turned the seat when she was 1.

[fawny]

Here are some videos of the two car seat positions:

Forward facing - http://babyproducts.about.com/gi/dyn...cosipriori.mpg

Rear facing - http://babyproducts.about.com/gi/dyn.../TWside240.AVI

Definitely makes me want to keep DD rear facing as long as possible but again if she still screams bloody murder at 1 yr while rear facing I am going to have to make a tough decision.

I am thinking of getting something like this http://www.babyant.com/bt550259.html maybe that'll help keep DD entertained...

[janellesmommy]

I turned it around when my daughter was 3 years and 1 month, because that's when she was 33 pounds, the limit for rearfacing in her carseat. She never minded being rearfacing, so that was never an issue for us. Well, actually, she did hate the carseat when she was a baby, but under 1 year forward facing wasn't an option.

[the_lissa]

My daughter was 22 months because she had outgrown it by height and I didn't realize that different car seats had different shell heights.

[annettemarie]

Moving to family safety

[Anastasiya]

Originally Posted by hollytheteacher

My son is only 3 months, but he'll def be at least 20 lbs by 1 so i;ll have no prob FrontF it then. It says in my car seat manual it's safe at 1 year and 20 lbs. HTH

It's so "safe", in fact, that in the US the number ONE killer of children age one and up is auto accidents - exactly because they are turned forward facing when it's "legal" and supposedly safe. But no, it's not safe. Forward facing costs lives. Even adults would be safer riding backwards...but that isn't really an option right now.

Before the age of one, the number one killer of children is birth defects.

Interestingly, in Sweden where children rear face to age 5, only NINE...count them...NINE children died in five years in auto accidents.

You might want to do some looking into this.

[LizaBear]

DS1 - about 22 or 23 months & 28 lbs

DD - about 27 months & 28 lbs

DS2 - RF currently at 11 months & 27 lbs

[lucky_mia]

Still RF at 23 months. I might have to turn them soon as they are nearing 33 lbs. but I wish they could last a bit longer.

[Roxswood]

We turned dd forwards facing at 9 months (the legal minimum in England) which was when she outgrew her infant carrier and there just weren't any rearfacing seats that go past about 14 months for an average child in England at the time.

So no choice, but I also was incredibly relieved because dd was also a scream until you vomit and stop breathing type of baby when she was rearfacing. She was instantly fine in the car once forwards facing even though I had always been sitting with her in the back until then when I possibly could. Every journey was a 5 min drive with her screaming, until she puked and choked when we had to pullover, get her out quick to allow her to breathe and cough up the vomit, then clean her up, then calm her down, then back in the seat for another 3-4 min drive before we would have to stop because she was choking on her own saliva and vomit she was so hysterical.

When I had to drive anywhere alone with her I would be shaking and crying and unable to think about anything other than the torture I was putting her through.

Here now you can get rearfacing seats that go up to a higher weight but only a choice of 2 or 3 different ones and they still only go up to about 28lb (which dd reached at less than 18 months) I think, and they get lower safety ratings than the more expensive forward facing ones

[thepeach80]

AJ went ffing for good at 34 mos and 34#. Evan is still rfing and will be 3 next week and will probably be rfing for at least another year. We have a DVD permanantly installed in our van and Evan can see it when rfing.

[an_aurora]

DD1 was a car screamer--she would scream the entire trip every time we went anywhere, be it 5 minutes or 5 hours. She outgrew it. We turned her FF at 19 pounds and 11.5 months because we thought she was "close enough" to 1 yr and 20 pounds. I didn't know better at the time. I learned about ERF later and at 18 months old she went back to RF. At 29 months she is happily RF.

ETA: I completely agree with Angela. Knowing what I know now, there is no way I would turn a child FF before the limits, no matter what their behavior in the car is. I'm not willing to risk my child's life to maybe make them happier.

[alegna]

Originally Posted by Sancta

Maybe alegna's looking at it from the perspective of:
If she was in an accident with her crying rear facing baby now (like rear-ending someone or something), chances are he would be fine, because he's rear facing. It's THAT safe. But if her child is forward facing, an accident as minor as a 10mph collision could internally decapitate that child, killing him immediately. I think it's less her being insensitive and more her realizing the vulnerability of the child's neck/spine.

No matter how much my child cried, day in and day out, I would NOT let him play in the street. I would NOT let him jump off the roof. I would NOT let him stand in the rollercoaster ride. There are some things that are always safer options, and rear facing is always the safer option - for the child.

And yeah - CIO sucks in the car. But sometimes you've got to allow it for the greater good of the child's safety. Mom can get earmuffs.

That's it exactly. to the OP and everyone struggling with this. There are a lot of ideas here. More than I could come up with. I would start a list and try a bunch.

good luck!

-Angela

[eclipse]

Originally Posted by an_aurora

I'm not willing to risk my child's life to maybe make them happier.

Again, it's not only about making the child happier. I rear ended someone because of my son's screaming. It was lucky that it was a fender bender, or I would have put someone else's life at risk that day, as well. I woudln't have turned him then - he was only 6 weeks old. But it gets to the point that you have to weigh the evils, and I understand why parents of car screaming kids sometimes decide that the best decision is to turn their child around earlier than is ideal. Believe me, I'm a ERF advocate - I even have a 26 month old who is still rearfacing (though he's exactly the size my oldest was at one year old. Not relevant to the thread, really, but the thread made me think about that and it made me go all , I just get why a mother, weighing it out, would choose to turn her toddler around.

[littlemizflava]

my ds hated his seat his face would turn red and he many times stoped breathing. he was young when this was happening till he was 6m. when i bought a convertable carseat it was like night and day. i am thankful he reached 20lb fast because after i changed his seat he was happy.

after reading these post i am wondering about the older kids that hate their seats if a dvd player would calm them down yes yes i know saftey issues but if it was attached to the seat that was beside them or not just directly in front of them. i would of tried this if i had of thought of it, i have some nice baby movies

just thinking it would be even more speical for the family's that are tv free or limited

[fawny]

My Mom never had car seats for my brothers back in the early 70's because no one used them, I was put one of those weird bucket seats that probably wouldn't have saved me anyways. She said people used to just lay their babies in the back or front seat and hope they didn't roll off... makes you wonder how anyone survived

[hottmama]

I turned my oldest (now almost 5) at 15 mos., when he hit 20 lbs. I am SO thankful that I wasn't in any wrecks and he is alive today despite my ignorance. Seriously, it is almost enough to give me a panic attack just thinking about what could have happened.
My youngest will be 2 in a couple weeks and is 31 lbs. and rear-facing. I am freaked out thinking he might have to be turned in a couple of months (our carseat only RFs to 33 lbs).
I would do absolutely anything to avoid turning a young toddler FFing. My toddler does okay in the car most of the time, but we travel a lot and he does get really upset after a couple of hours and will cry for 20-45 minutes before falling asleep. Also, my kids will fight in the backseat which involves screaming and crying, but usually only for 5-10 minutes.
When they are fighting or crying very loudly, I first remind them that it is dangerous for them to yell/cry when I'm driving (this works for my older son, less so for my little guy but some now that he's really verbal and understands what I'm talking about). If that fails, I crank the radio up really loud so that I'm not distracted by the crying. It's certainly not AP to ignore a screaming toddler, but in a car, you just have to. It's not safe to pay attention to the crying child when you should be paying attention to the road. You could try earplugs if you don't like loud music.