rear facing car seat articles

[~clover~]

I didn't know that. I know that the US its 12 months.
I still have DD rear facing at over 7kgs. I'm waiting as long as I can, but all mine got so frusterated that I turned all the others between 5 & 7 months.

[Feijoa Mum]

I kept mine rear facing for as long as I could and Lady is now almost 13 months and still rear facing.
I heard on the news the other night that they are recommending till at least two for here in Australia now too.
I cant remember what channel it was on but I guess it was either 7 or 9

[STARRYSKY]

There is also a you tube video that clearly demonstrates (with crash test dummies) the differences as to what happens on impact with rear or forward facing seats its quite scary really! There is alink to it on BB somewhere...

[~clover~]

So it'd be ok if you got pulled over now with them rear facing when older? My kids all have really long legs, I'm not sure how long they could sit like that?

[Liz]

They still need to be within the limits of the car seat. Pretty sure all the car seats available here are only rear facing til 12kg. Length of their legs isn't a factor, but fitting in the restraints and their weight is We stayed rear facing for a long time quite easily because my kids were fairly lightweight. DS still fits in the 5 point harness of his maxi rider at the age of 5! We haven't converted it to booster seat yet We'll keep this next bub rear facing as long as possible too. It's just too dangerous to have them facing forwards

[CrazyLady]

So it'd be ok if you got pulled over now with them rear facing when older? My kids all have really long legs, I'm not sure how long they could sit like that?

Pixie ended up getting ill because her legs were squished up and squashing her tummy. We turned her at 7 months but living in a country town it's a little safer.

[ladybirdflies]

My LO is almost one and still rear facing we plan on keeping her that way for a while yet. My sister is in Norway they keep them rear facing until four. So you could look up Scandinavian countries for articles. They have the lowest infant mortality rate in car accidents.
Volvo recently releases their own article and recommendations. They talked about the reasons why it was safer to be rear facing for a child in an accident and one of the reasons was because their head is much heavier then their body until about 4 years of age and the support of being rear facing until 4 reduces the impact on the head and neck. There were other things too. I think if you go to the volvo website they have a section on child safety.Safe Child Restraint in Modern Cars: Australia V Europe - Cadoges.com Blog - this is Cadoges.com watch this film about why Australia is lacking so badly in child safety!

[nickle730]

Perhaps we need to lobby for rear-facing child restraints for larger children (and appropriate education and law changes) to be made available here in Australia? The seats would need to comply to Aus/NZ safety standards. I'm not sure how to go about that...? There is a bucket-load of evidence that rear-facing reduces the incidence of head and spinal injuries to an infant/small child in a crash. There is a slightly higher incidence of leg injuries (fractured femurs are more common) but which would you rather - a broken leg or a spinal injury?

[RainbowBrite]

Here in Australia you can only keep them rear facing until they reach the carseat's weight limit...for most seats that is either 9 or 12kg...then you have to turn them around.
Unfortunately you can't buy seats here that have a higher rear facing weight limit...hopefully as more people realise how much safer it is they will start to produce hight limit seats.

My DS is 15mths but only 6kg so he will be rear facing till at least two.