when should i turn my baby's car seat around?

Question

when should my baby face foward in her car seat?

Answer 1

Rear-facing is the safest position the child can ride in. It is strongly recommended that all children stay rear-facing beyond the minimum requirements of 1 year and 20 lbs. Children should not be turned forward-facing until they reach the maximum rear-facing limits of a convertible seat (that allows rear-facing to at least 30 lbs). These limits are either the maximum rear-facing weight limit or when the top of their head is within one inch of the top of the seat shell, whichever comes first. While most parents are aware that they must keep their children rear-facing "until they are AT LEAST 1 year old AND 20 lbs", very few are told that there are significant safety benefits when a child remains rear-facing as long as the seat allows. For most children, rear-facing can and should continue well into the second year of life.

Answer 2

Many parents get confused about the carseat thing. They think because their child is 20 lbs, that the seat can be turned around. Wrong.

The child MUST be atleast 1 year of age AND 20 lbs. So if a child is 8 months old and weighs more then 20 lbs - they still need to be rear-facing. A child that is younger then a year old doesn't have the neck muscles yet to help support their head if in an accident - their head will whip forward.

If you are pulled over, and you're child doesn't meet the specific requirements, it is a large ticket.

Here is a site:
http://www.saferchild.com/carseat.htm

Also, as far as carseat safety - may I suggest using a Mighty Tite. It helps keep the seat belt tight (I have found in older cars, you have to tighten up the seatbelts once a week because the belt slips and loosens itself), and it is a quick install - cuts a 30 minute hassle of installing a carseat down to a 5 minute job. You can get them at Toys R' Us.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2267437&cp

Answer 3

The law says the child should be at least 1yr old AND weigh 20 lbs. But if he can still fit in the rear-facing carseat (check weight and height limits for you model), keep him that way as long as possible. My rear facing infant seat goes up to 30 lbs. My 1yr old is only 19 lbs 4oz. I'll probably get use out of this seat till she's 18months old! (She's no where near the height limit either)
If God forbid you are in an accident, an older child would know to brace himself. The young toddler does not yet know how to do this. Forward facing seats are at more risk of whiplash or worse, a broken neck. With rear facing seats, you have a risk of a broken arm(s) and leg(s). I'd rather my daughter break her arm/leg than her neck.

Answer 4

I think that this question just poses a lot of different opinions. I often wonder how on earth we all grew up safely without the laws that there are now for car seats.

My son is 19lbs and 13 months and is 31.5 inches long. Needless to say he was crammed in rear facing position. We chose to turn him around after talking with the DR. Yes the car seat says 22 lbs for forward facing and up to 35 lbs rear facing but seriously if you keep your child facing backwards til they reach 35 lbs they will be 3/4 years old! My neice is 40 lbs and 6 so if my son follows those footsteps which seems to be the case with his low weight now, then it will be when he's 6 according to the seat he can still face backwards.

Do what you feel is safest for your child..they all say 20lbs and one year old, no longer just one year old.

Answer 5

The law is 1 year AND 20lbs. But, pediatricians are encouraging parents to keep them rear facing as long as possible if it is safe. My daughter was only 20lbs at 1yr, and her feet came no where near the seat. They said it was safer to keep her rear facing for a while. I just recently turned her around at 16 months. She is 23lbs and her tippy toes were starting to touch the seat. Remember, if you get into a collision and they are rear facing, the seat holds them like a baseball glove. If you turn them around to soon their necks aren't strong enough.

Answer 6

First - know the law in your state... and second, know the guidelines of your particular car seat.

My state laws allowed me to turn my baby around before the carseat manufacturer's guide, so I just left my baby rear facing longer.

I finaly turned her front facing when her feet were really pushing on the back of the backseat and her legs looked like they were uncomfortable. I think it was somewhere around 14 months of age.

Answer 7

at least 20 pounds and a year old. If your one year old isn't 20 pounds yet then you'll have to wait until they are heavy enough. If your 20 lb isn't quite a year old yet then you'll have to wait until they are a year old.
My son is 23 lbs but won't be a year old until August 8th, but I'm going to wait until his year checkup on the 9th to see what they say because I hear now that waiting even longer to turn them forward facing is safer. But my son is pretty long and hardly has room for his legs so most likely we'll turn him around right after the pediatrician says to!

Answer 8

It is ALWAYS safest to be rearfacing, so you should keep your child rear-facing until they have exceeded the weight or height restriction of the rear-facing seat. Most convertible seats can remain rear-facing until 35lbs (the heights vary a lot between manufacturer, consult the manual).

There is NO evidence that if the toddler's legs touch the seat back or they have to cross their legs increases the risks of leg injury in a crash. And even if it did a broken leg is easier to fix than a broken neck.

20lbs AND one year is just the bare minimum required by law.

This is from the manual used to train car seat installation technicians:
http://www.carseat.org/Technical/tech_update.htm#rearfacFF
Safety experts and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children remain rear-facing as long as possible and never travel forward-facing before they are 1 year old and also weigh at least 20 pounds to reduce the risk of serious neck injury and lifelong disability. All new convertible seats available today allow a child to remain rear-facing until they weigh up to 30 or 35 lb, depending on the model.

When the child is rear-facing, the head, neck, and thorax are restrained together by the back of the CR in a frontal crash. There is little or no relative motion between the head and torso that could load the neck. If the same child were facing forward, the harness would restrain the torso, but the head and neck would pull and rotate forward, leading to the potential for serious upper spinal injury.

There are many misunderstandings and misconceptions about rear-facing vs. forward-facing that lead even the best intentioned parent or pediatrician to believe a child is "safe" facing forward when he is still very young. These come from obsolete ideas and advice that may still appear in older pamphlets and pediatric literature and are not the current recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Real-world experience has also shown that a young child's skull can be literally ripped from her spine by the force of a crash. The body is being held in place, but the head is not. When a child is facing rearward, the head is cradled and moves in unison with the body, so that there is little or no relative motion that might pull on the connecting neck.

The most common misunderstanding is that a child is ready to travel facing forward when his neck muscles are strong enough to support and control his head. However, when a car hits something at 25 to 30 mph, it will come to a stop at a negative acceleration rate of from 20 to 30 G. Because of the time lag between when the vehicle stops and an occupant stops, and the fact that the head of a forward-facing adult or child is still free to move relative to the restrained torso, the head may experience as much as 60 or 70 Gs acceleration for a brief moment. Even the strong neck muscles of military volunteers cannot counteract such forces. Instead, the rigidity of the bones in the neck and strength of the connecting ligaments (not the muscles) hold the adult spine together and keep the spinal cord intact within the confines of the vertebral column.

Very young children, however, have immature vertebrae that are still partly made of cartilage. These are soft and will deform and/or separate under tension, leaving just the spinal cord as the last link between the head and the torso. According to documented research, autopsy specimens of infant spines and ligaments allow for spinal column elongation of up to two inches, but the spinal cord ruptures if stretched more than 1/4 inch. Real-world experience has shown that a young child's skull can be literally ripped from her spine by the force of a crash.

Another aspect of the facing-direction issue that is often overlooked is the additional benefit a child gains in a side impact. Crash testing and field experience have both shown that the head of a child facing rearward is captured by the child restraint shell in side and frontal-oblique crashes, while that of a forward-facing child may be thrown forward, around, and outside the confines of the side wings. Field data show better outcomes for rear-facing children than forward-facing children, even though most CRs are not specifically designed to protect children in side impact.

Some older convertible CRs indicated in their instructions that a child should face forward when her feet touch the vehicle seatback or when the legs must be bent due to lack of space. This prohibition is not justified by any crash experience or any laboratory evidence, and these instructions have now been revised. There have not been any crashes documented in which rear-facing children sustained leg injuries because they were rear-facing. Even if this were the case, broken legs are easier to fix than broken necks. The only physical limit on rear-facing use is when the child's head approaches the top of the restraint shell (see Height and weight limits). At this point, she should be moved to a rear-facing convertible restraint, or, if the child is already using one and is over one year, to its forward-facing configuration.

There are no magical or visible signals to tell parents, pediatricians, or technicians when the risk of facing forward in a crash is sufficiently low to turn the child around. In an international research and crash review conducted several years ago, the data seemed to show a change in outcome at about 12 months between severe consequences and more moderate consequences for the rare events of injury to young children facing forward in a CR. At the time, one year old was useful as a simple benchmark, but now the message is to keep the child facing rearward as long as possible within the weight and height limits of the CR. This may be as long as 18 to 24 months.

Parents and pediatricians need to know what the real reasons for extending the rear-facing period, in order to be able to make an informed judgment. For research documentation, see Weber, 2000. See also Rear-facing child restraint. (7/06)

Answer 9

1 y/o or 20 pounds.
my son was 9 mths old, 27 inches long and 22 pounds when the dr told me to do it. check w/ the dr. 1st

Answer 10

at least 1 year old AND 20 lbs.