8 month old too long for rear facing car seat

I think my son may need to switch to a front facing car seat. He
weighs 20 pounds and is a good 30 inches long. He is so long that his
legs are bending against the back seat of the car. I bought a new
front facing car seat for 20-40 lbs and 40-100 however it is
recommened in the mannual that he is one year old before being front
facing in the car... My son is standing on his own.... if I wait
until he is a year.... anyway you get my concern....

thanks
lori-anne

On Oct 16, 4:17 pm, wrote:
I think my son may need to switch to a front facing car seat. He
weighs 20 pounds and is a good 30 inches long. He is so long that his
legs are bending against the back seat of the car. I bought a new
front facing car seat for 20-40 lbs and 40-100 however it is
recommened in the mannual that he is one year old before being front
facing in the car... My son is standing on his own.... if I wait
until he is a year.... anyway you get my concern....

thanks
lori-anne

You need a convertible car seat. My first outgrew the infant seat at
about 6 months. We kept her rear facing in a convertible car seat
until she was a year old. Maybe you already have one. It is OK for
their legs to bend.

Some convertible seats don't do very well at certain heights due to a
large gap between shoulder slots in the section where the metal bar
goes through the frame. If possible you will want to try your baby in
them before buying one.

--Betsy

wrote:
I think my son may need to switch to a front facing car seat. He
weighs 20 pounds and is a good 30 inches long. He is so long that his
legs are bending against the back seat of the car.

It is absolutely not a problem for his feet to touch
or bend against the back seat of the car. If his head is not
too high against the back of the seat and the shoulder harness
fits properly and he has not exceeded the rear-facing weight
limit for the seat, then there is not a problem with keeping
him rear-facing in this seat.

I bought a new
front facing car seat for 20-40 lbs and 40-100 however it is
recommened in the mannual that he is one year old before being front
facing in the car... My son is standing on his own.... if I wait
until he is a year.... anyway you get my concern....

You *really* need to wait until he's 20 lbs *and*
a year old. Before then, his upper body isn't strong enough
to do well in the most common sorts of crashes while facing
forward. He needs the support from the seat.

There are plenty of convertible carseats that can
handle a child more than 30 inches tall rear-facing. We have
a Britax Marathon, and it takes kids rear-facing up to 33 lbs.
and as tall as the seat accommodates (meaning ears at the
top of the seat).

Best wishes,
Ericka

wrote in message
oups.com...
I think my son may need to switch to a front facing car seat. He
weighs 20 pounds and is a good 30 inches long. He is so long that his
legs are bending against the back seat of the car. I bought a new
front facing car seat for 20-40 lbs and 40-100 however it is
recommened in the mannual that he is one year old before being front
facing in the car... My son is standing on his own.... if I wait
until he is a year.... anyway you get my concern....

thanks
lori-anne


I had a similar problem with my dd and I consulted with a couple of carseat
companies and I basically found out that the age recommendation is really
just there as a rough guideline. What they are really worried about is
strength of holding neck and so on (which your son sounds like he's pretty
strong, so that wouldn't be a problem) and weight - and 9 kilos (about 20
pounds) was the minimum for a forward facing seat, but not recommended.
If you can hold off for at least another month it would probably be better,
but of course only you know your situation. Another idea - I don't know
what car you are using, or where the carseat is placed, but if he's touching
the back of seats it sounds like he's on the side. Could you move him into
the middle seat, still rear facing but so his feet have a little more room?
For us, we decided our dd could handle being a bit uncomfortable but safer
for a little while.
hth

Linda wrote:

I had a similar problem with my dd and I consulted with a couple of carseat
companies and I basically found out that the age recommendation is really
just there as a rough guideline.

No one can gauge precisely when a child will do fine
forward facing, but it seems pretty clear that countries that
require kids to be rear facing much longer than 1 year have
better safety statistics, so I really wouldn't want to be
cutting down from what already seems to be a fairly minimal
standard.

Best wishes,
Ericka

wrote:
I think my son may need to switch to a front facing car seat. He
weighs 20 pounds and is a good 30 inches long. He is so long that his
legs are bending against the back seat of the car. I bought a new
front facing car seat for 20-40 lbs and 40-100 however it is
recommened in the mannual that he is one year old before being front
facing in the car... My son is standing on his own.... if I wait
until he is a year.... anyway you get my concern....

I do understand your concern, he is a pretty big child for his age, but
with car seats it's their heads and backs that are far more important,
the legs touching the back is considered ok. It may mean you need a car
seat that can face both ways rather than an infant one that only rear
faces to have it fit his top end properly and it might not give you an
extra space at the back. It may even be against the law wherever you are
to have him forward facing at this age, though the recommendations in
the manual are often in line with the strictest state law. The age one
thing is to do with how their bones mature, he won't come to any harm
developmentally facing backwards. Our first was small, we had to keep
him rear facing until 18 months to reach the weight limit for facing
forwards, we had no issues at all with it.

Cheers
Anne

No one can gauge precisely when a child will do fine
forward facing, but it seems pretty clear that countries that
require kids to be rear facing much longer than 1 year have
better safety statistics, so I really wouldn't want to be
cutting down from what already seems to be a fairly minimal
standard.

we switched DD the weekend before her 1st birthday, she was the required
weight and a week isn't going to make much difference. I spent the next
6months or so anxiously checking she was ok in the seat, we kept it
fully reclined the whole time. No one had ever made any comment about
her having anything other than normal muscle tone, yet she did not seem
ready to support herself. If the seat had been convertible, I'd have
rear faced it, I think we only got away with it because it had a
significant recline facility. We now have a seat that happens to be
convertible, same rules for forward facing it, but it doesn't recline
once in position, no way would I forward face a one year old in it. We
had a potentially serious accident 3 months ago, after seeing the the
abrasions DS had from the straps of his 5 point harness, I know they
save him from serious injury, these days I see the rules as absolute
lower limits for moving to the next stage, I'll be keeping my kids in 5
point harnesses as long as is possible, some state laws would have
allowed DS to have been in a belt positioning booster, I'm thankfully
ours doesn't and I obey the rules!

Anne


--
Cheers

Anne
http://baltimorealbum.blogspot.com/

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
. ..
Linda wrote:

I had a similar problem with my dd and I consulted with a couple of
carseat companies and I basically found out that the age recommendation
is really just there as a rough guideline.

No one can gauge precisely when a child will do fine
forward facing, but it seems pretty clear that countries that
require kids to be rear facing much longer than 1 year have
better safety statistics, so I really wouldn't want to be
cutting down from what already seems to be a fairly minimal
standard.

You're absolutely right - you don't want to cut down the standard - but here
(Australia) the recommendation is keep them rearfacing till 6 months, and
depending on the carseat - only 8 kilos. So quite different in terms of in
the US, maybe we have different carseat designs?
So we were going overboard (comparitively) keeping our DD rearfacing as long
as we did - but I read a lot of groups, and articles from other countries so
I am somewhat influenced by that.

Lori-anne wrote:
I think my son may need to switch to a front facing car seat. He
weighs 20 pounds and is a good 30 inches long.

I understand your problem. However, your son is only 8 months old.
In my opinion, such a young baby, ESPECIALLY one as long as he
is, should stay rear facing.

I had a somewhat related problem with my son, except that he was
almost 2 and well over 30 inches long but still not 20 pounds. I put
off facing him forward as long as possible precisely because he was
so long for his weight and strength.

Pologirl

Having read here that the latest standard in at least some European
countries is rear facing to age two, we kept our most recent baby
reversed until then. She is quite tall and her legs were bent pretty
far. IF I were you, I would keep him rear facing until a year for
sure, and as much longer after that as he seems comfortable.

Leslie