How Old Should a Baby Be to Face Forward in the Car Seat

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Many parents ask how long their child should stay in a rear-facing car seat. Really, there's not an verbal timeline. The dominion of pollex is that children should be in rear-facing car seats for as long as possible, to the meridian or weight limits of the car seat (once one limit is reached, the child is too big for the seat; it is dangerous to exceed one limit even if the child is yet within the other limit).

Riding rear-facing until the limit allowed past your kid's convertible seat has large safety advantages that parents should strongly consider. Turning a car seat effectually isn't a milestone to rush. It'southward actually a step downwardly in safe, so don't exist in a hurry to brand the large switch.

Current Advice From Pediatricians

From 2011 to 2018, the recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) was to keep children rear-facing until they were at least two years quondam, but ideally longer—until reaching the rear-facing height or weight limit for their convertible seat.

Current Recommendations

The current recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics is to keep children rear-facing until they achieve the maximum height or weight for their convertible seat. This is usually at iii to five years old, depending on the seat and the child'southward growth.

One-third of states in the U.S. have updated their child passenger safety laws to crave rear-facing seats until age two.

Some state laws and some convertible car seats say that kids can ride forward facing if they are at to the lowest degree ane twelvemonth old. This can easily fool a parent into thinking that it is safe for a one-year-old to ride forward facing, when the evidence is clear that 1-twelvemonth-olds are safer rear-facing. Seeing "one-twelvemonth-old" in impress aslope "forward-facing car seat" leads many families to believe information technology is safe for their picayune 1 to switch to forward-facing far too immature.

New parents also naturally turn to their family and friends with parenting experience when information technology comes to car seat safety advice. If your family and friends are a few years out from having newborns and toddlers, though, it's possible, and fifty-fifty probable, that their car seat advice is outdated.

Rear-Facing Ameliorate

• Age: Whatever age, so long as the child is within the pinnacle and weight limits for their rear-facing car seat

• Weight: Depends on the car seat, but most convertible seats have rear-facing weight limits of 40 to fifty pounds

• Summit: Depends on the car seat, merely most convertible seats take rear-facing height limits that require the child'southward head to exist at least 1 inch below the top (the child's legs touching the vehicle seat back is non an indication that they are besides tall)

Forrard-Facing Allowed

• Age: Depends on state law and the car seat your child will be using

• Weight: Depends on state law and the car seat your child will be using

• Height: Depends on country law and the auto seat your child will be using

Why Rear-Facing Is Safer

Automobile seats are designed to absorb some crash forces and spread the remaining crash forces over a larger expanse of the body. For adults, seat belts distribute force to the strongest parts of the torso—the hips, breast bone, and collarbone.

When a kid is in a forward-facing seat, the head pulls frontward, which puts stress on the neck. When rear-facing, the head, neck, and dorsum all movement in unison and are cradled by the trounce of the rear-facing car seat. This video helps explicate.

The bones running downwards a immature child's cervix and back are not yet solid bone (they still have a lot of stretchy cartilage). A young child'due south head is also much heavier, in proportion to the torso, than that of an older kid or developed. And then the head pulls forrard with proportionately much more than force on bones that are stretchier.

As the bones stretch, they tin can force the spinal cord to stretch. Afterwards it is stretched more than one-quarter of an inch, the spinal cord breaks. Riding in a rear-facing machine seat helps reduce that take chances past supporting the child's caput.

The incidence of astringent head and neck injuries for babies and toddlers is greatly reduced in rear-facing car seats.

The additional support the rear-facing automobile seat provides to the head and cervix reduces your child'southward take a chance of being injured or worse in a crash. The rear-facing machine seat is arresting some of the free energy of the crash, and and then distributing the remaining energy along the child'southward head, neck and back.

With the forrad-facing kid, the car seat isn't able to absorb as much of the energy, and more of it is transferred to the kid—in item to the head and neck as they pull away from the breast. The difference tin be seen in a video comparing rear-facing and forward-facing machine seats in a crash test.

Dangers of Forwards-Facing Too Early on

Fifty-fifty if your child's legs are touching the seat back, or they weep when rear-facing, you should withal go along your child rear-facing until they achieve the rear-facing weight or height limit of the automobile seat. Well-nigh convertible car seats take rear-facing weight limits of 35 to 50 pounds, and then most kids can ride rear-facing until age three to 5.

Some children never like sitting in a machine seat, and they may cry. However, being properly restrained makes it more than likely that a child will survive a crash to cry another day.

Many parents worry that their child volition suffer broken legs or hips in a crash because the kid's legs affect the seat back or expect cramped when rear-facing. In fact, in that location are more leg injuries when frontwards-facing, as the legs wing up and the feet get into the back of the front seat. Every bit everything moves forward, compression forces into the hip and femur tin intermission the leg of the frontward-facing child.

Studies of real kids in real crashes shows that leg and hip injuries in rear-facing kids are very uncommon. When they do happen, it is in side impacts where another vehicle hits the kid right where their leg is, breaking the leg. Rear-facing kids exercise not get hip or leg injuries from beingness scrunched up. In fact, during the instant of the crash, rear-facing kids become even more scrunched, with their legs pulling up into a cannonball position. This is not a cause of injury.

If Your Child Is Fussy in the Car Seat

Kids often fuss considering they are strapped in, not because they are rear-facing. To reduce fussiness in a rear-facing child:

• If your child tin sit upright unsupported, sit the car seat more upright (if the machine seat allows) to give the child a better view out the window.
• Remove the vehicle caput restraint to allow the rear-facing child a meliorate view out the window.
• Use music to help entertain and calm the child.
• Use toys that are condom for travel to distract and entertain the child.

Motorcar Seats for Ane-Year-Olds

When babies plough one, many parents think about moving past the babe motorcar seat with the carrier handle. In that location are lots of options if you need a new motorcar seat for a one-twelvemonth-old!

Think, advocates recommend that toddlers and preschoolers ride rear-facing until reaching the maximum weight or elevation for rear-facing in their convertible machine seat, which for most kids is between three and five years of age. So y'all'll want to find a car seat that can work both rear-facing and forrard-facing. Look for a convertible car seat with a high rear-facing weight limit and tall vanquish, and and so employ it rear-facing every bit long as possible.

Several motorcar seats today have rear-facing weight limits upward to 50 pounds, which should suit almost every child through age 5 (unless they achieve the maximum rear-facing height for the seat). You should check the manufacturer'south rear-facing height limit to be sure your child is non too tall to safely stay rear-facing to the weight limit.

About children should exist able to remain rear-facing far beyond age 2.

A Word From Verywell

Crash data shows united states that anybody is safer in a crash when riding rear-facing for the reasons outlined higher up. Young children are improve protected in a rear-facing car seat because that seat distributes the force of a crash over a greater body area and gives better support to young heads and necks.

A rear-facing automobile seat offers the best protection for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and fifty-fifty young school-age kids and should be properly used for every bit long as possible, to the limits of the car seat. Keeping your child rear-facing to the limit of the seat is the safest selection. Y'all tin can check your car seat pedagogy book or the labels on the auto seat sides to find the rear-facing weight and height limits.

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Verywell Family uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to back up the facts within our manufactures. Read our editorial process to learn more almost how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Durbin DR, Hoffman BD. Child passenger safety. Policy statement. Pediatrics. 2018;142(5) doi:10.1542/peds.2018-2460

2. American University of Pediatrics. Rear–facing car seats for infants and toddlers.

3. Insurance Found for Highway Safety. Seat belt and kid seat laws by country.

4. Durbin DR, Hoffman BD. Child passenger safety. Technical report. Pediatrics. 2018;142(5) doi:10.1542/peds.2018-2461

5. American Academy of Pediatrics. How long should my child ride rear–facing?.

6. Arbogast KB, Durbin DR. Epidemiology of child motor vehicle crash injuries and fatalities. In: Crandall J, Myers B, Meaney D, Zellers Schmidtke S (eds). Pediatric Injury Biomechanics. Springer, 2013.

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Source: https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-long-rear-facing-car-seat-293731

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