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I think we turned them around at 9 months, per the law at the time...and the fact that they kept trying to get out to turn around. I think my daughter we did 8.5 months because she was so thin she could squeeze out because she wanted to be like her brother
man both my kids were small but I couldn't picture how they could be rear facing until 3.5 unless they were folded up like a pretzel.
When my 8 year old was a baby, her carseat could rear-face up to 33 pounds, which was the highest you could get at that time. Not too long before that, seats didn't rear-face that long. It was the norm for people to turn babies at 20 pounds. Nowadays, you can buy seats that rear-face up to 40 or even 45 pounds, which I think is great! My kids are 5 and 8 now, and neither one of them weighs 45 pounds yet! Of course, lots of people still turn their kids at 20 pounds, but it's much more common for people to wait longer now than it used to be.
My oldest is/was small for her age. Here she is rear-facing at 3.5 years old:
My youngest is/was average size for her age. Here she is rear-facing at 3 years old:
my kids couldn't put their feet in their mouth until they were 4...
It kind of depends on your kid and their tolerance to staring at the back of the seat and feeling smashed. I respect people who do things safely, I think for me, and my kids, it wouldn't have worked. My kids were involved in family convos by 3 years in the car.
I admit to being old and not having my kids rear facing when they were older because when my kids grew up (early 70s), they did not have car seats that worked for those ages that faced rear. OTOH, my kids were just much happier when they could see out the window in the side or front. They even dislike the headrests that kept them from seeing out the sides.
Where I live, that's actually illegal. Children under one MUST be rear-faced or you can be pulled over and fined.
To answer OP's question... If I could change anything, it would probably be making the car seat laws stricter, maybe even require a brief class before leaving the hospital on how to properly put your child in the car seat.
It is illegal now everywhere, but was not when my kids were car seat age. I do wonder how the second sentence would be enforced. If someone had a 10 month old facing forward and a police officer pulled them over for it... how would the officer prove or disprove your child's age? How would you road-side?
I do remember with my one and only child born in a hospital, we had to escorted to our car and show that we knew had a proper car seat and knew how to use it. It was a policy for the hospital at that time.
Back when my two children were babies, there was no such thing as the car seats required today. We could put a baby on the floor if we wanted to. When my daughter was 5 months old, I propped her against my body while I drove. This was fine until one day I had to slam on the brakes and she went tumbling into the floor of the passenger side. She broke her collar bone and fortunately it caused no problems for her. She wore an ace bandage which held her arms back and the break healed quickly.
Children stood in the seat if they wanted to and no one thought much about it.
I think the safety seats currently in use are an improvement. Would you change anything?
Change any current laws? We travel a lot and through various way (trains, planes , automobiles) . Often times, public transport doesn't have the same laws as private.
Many places, I am not required to use the car seat for my little one if they are in a cab or limo/shuttle - drivers generally are a little grumpy when I want to install my car seat. Some will even try to discourage it saying it isn't necessary since it's not "the law" . To this I always replay that - the law in "x" doesn't matter, the laws of physic are pretty much the same everywhere.....
Not with my kids though. We are very stringent on our carseat rules in our home. My oldest rear-faced until 3.5 years old, stayed in a harness until 7, and now at 8 is still in a high-back booster for the foreseeable future, in the backseat. My youngest also rear-faced until 3 and is still in a harness now at age 5.
That poor child. Does he have to wear a helmet when he goes outside to play? Is he even allowed outside to play?
my kids couldn't put their feet in their mouth until they were 4...
It kind of depends on your kid and their tolerance to staring at the back of the seat and feeling smashed. I respect people who do things safely, I think for me, and my kids, it wouldn't have worked. My kids were involved in family convos by 3 years in the car.
This is similar to my thinking on it. My 3 kids were all faced forward at about 1 year of age, and that was a compromise on my part. At that point I told my wife it was about time the poor kid got to join the family. My 1 1/2 year old daughter may not be saying too many actual words but she loves to jabber away as if she is a part of the conversation.
That poor child. Does he have to wear a helmet when he goes outside to play? Is he even allowed outside to play?
Yes, at age 8, she is still in a booster. She is, and always has been, very small for her age. She is 43.5 pounds and 48 inches, which is less than the 5th percentile for her age. She weighs the same as my average-sized 5 year old. According to best practices, most kids should use a booster until they are around 4'9", so she is way under that.
She does wear a helmet when she rides her bike or roller skates or ice skates, but I'm guessing you weren't actually wondering about her helmet usage.
Yes, at age 8, she is still in a booster. She is, and always has been, very small for her age. She is 43.5 pounds and 48 inches, which is less than the 5th percentile for her age. She weighs the same as my average-sized 5 year old. According to best practices, most kids should use a booster until they are around 4'9", so she is way under that.
She does wear a helmet when she rides her bike or roller skates or ice skates, but I'm guessing you weren't actually wondering about her helmet usage.
4'-9"? Heck I remember in my freshman year of high school there were a few girls who wouldn't have cleared that threshold even then! Surely you wouldn't make a kid show up for the first day of high school, or even middle school, in a booster seat.
4'9" would be under the 3rd percentile for height at age 13. It would be an average height at age 11. It would be 90th percentile at age 9.5. Meaning that most kids should probably still be in a booster until age 10, or around the end of 5th grade, and will grow out of it some time during middle school. Obviously, most people quit the booster when their kid turns 8, or even sooner (state law where I live says 8 years or 80 pounds is the minimum). And my daughter's best friend is the size of a teenager, so some kids are obviously big enough. But my kid, being as small as she is, will probably be on the later side of that, though I do expect that she will be out of a booster by high school. She can switch from a high back booster to a backless any time she wants, but at this time she finds the high back to be more comfortable to sit in.
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