Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a big stickler for vehicle safety. I'd say that passenger safety is even more important now that we'll be on the road a lot, but honestly, the frequency and duration of trips make little difference.
If parents did only one thing to increase their children's safety in the car, I would hope for them to keep their kids rear-facing as long as possible. This is a brief but excellent video demonstrating the enhanced safety of riding backwards.
Anna is almost 16 months old and will remain rear-facing for at least another two years. She's getting close to outgrowing her current seat (my much-beloved Combi Coccoro), so we'll get a new seat for her soon. Most likely it will be a Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL, which rear-faces to 45 pounds.
Pretty soon it will be rare to find convertible car seats that don't rear-face to at least 40 pounds. Might as well take advantage of that extra time and keep the kiddo facing backwards!
We love our XTSL :) I turned my first daughter at a year because I did not know better but I learned and my second daughter rear faced till a little past 3. Our son will rear face for at least another year, he will be two next month. The kids love it and so do I :)
ReplyDeleteI was just talking to my SIL today on the phone and she was surprised to find out that my little boy is "still" rear-facing!! Um, he JUST turned one less than two weeks ago. I swear she sounded disapproving or something!! Yeah, sure it is a pain to ride in the front passenger seat when we go somewhere as a family because we just have a Ford Fusion and he's in a big convertible seat, but it's all about safety. She was trying to convince me that since he was so tall it wasn't good for his legs to bend while riding.
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