Rear-Facing Car Seats: The New Way Forward for Toddlers?

My dad recently forwarded me this article from the New York Times that contests the widespread notion that toddlers should move to a front-facing car seat around 20 lbs / 12 months. The article cites new advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which suggests children under two are 75% less likely to suffer severe or fatal injuries if they are rear-facing.

Chris and I have been talking about buying LLC’s next car seat. Her feet are starting to look cramped in her current Maxi Cosi seat. Many of her little contemporaries have been front-facing for some time now, and I don’t know anyone who has purchased a Group 1 (the progression from an infant seat) rear-facing car seat that accommodates a child up to 35-40 lbs.   It definitely seems to be the common impression that when children outgrow their infant carrier, they move to a forward-facing seat.

This UK site advocates rear-facing toddler seats and has information about where to purchase them; interestingly it says that many British child seat manufacturers are refusing to sell their safest, rear-facing products in the UK because British parents don’t buy them. Instead they ship them off to Sweden, where it’s common for children to remain rear-facing until around 4 years-old.

If you delve into these links, you’ll also see information that refutes that children whose legs appear cramped when rear-facing will be uncomfortable and more likely to break their legs if in a car accident. They suggest that it’s a misconception that keeping toddlers rear-facing will lead to them being unhappy and frustrated.

Baby “how to / when to” advice seems to change over the years significantly but the evidence here, to me, makes sense and is pretty compelling from a safety point of view.

LLC’s head isn’t at the top of her Maxi Cosi seat and we are waiting until it is to buy her next seat. But this advice has got me reconsidering our next purchase, and I expect LLC’s front-facing “milestone” has just been pushed further into the distance.

Let’s Hear it for the Rocking Commandos!

One of my friends described her daughter’s strong upper bodied snake-like shimmy across the floor as commando crawling. Totally apt! With that upper chest strength, this little lady will surely be great at pull-ups one day, a skill that I sadly never mastered....

At the time of this said crawl, LLC was feverishly rocking on all fours but not going anywhere aside from backwards. She’s been rocking in the “all fours” pose for some time now but whenever she attempts to move a leg forward she ends up toppling onto her side.

Fast forward one week and LLC has achieved forward movement! Between all that practice and possibly from watching her friend, she’s now sporting a half commando, half raised on knees crawling manoeuvre.

Chris first spotted this “milestone” when I called home after work and he put me on speaker phone a few feet from LLC. Naturally my voice is difficult to resist, so low and behold LLC managed to inch towards the phone and add forward crawling to her repertoire.

So she’s now on the move! She doesn’t go too far yet but she does go exactly where she shouldn’t – the fireguard under our mantel, Rico’s bed and straight to the bottle of Shout next to my foot when I was spraying some stained clothing.

Maybe this is the time to start thinking about child proofing? I wouldn’t describe our house as a danger zone but it’s not particularly child friendly. We have cold, hard slate floor through much of the downstairs. Our stairs are narrow and steep. These are not things we plan to change and I’m loathe to morph our house into Fort Knox but we are planning to get stair guards and lock for under our kitchen and bathroom sinks where there are cleaning products.

I’ve had a look around on the floor “from LLC’s level” and there are plenty of things she could make mischief with but I’ll just have to tell her what is allowed and what is not allowed. Any tips about keeping a commando crawler safe and this whole child proofing malarkey?

Child Safety - How far should we go to protect our babies?

Becoming a mother has definitely heightened my sensitivity to stories related to child safety. Fact or fiction, when I hear about a child’s wellbeing at risk it can easily reduce me to tears.

My mom taught me that the world isn’t always pretty, and that you need to be aware of this to cope. So when those tears come, I try to remind myself to toughen up and look for the lesson to be learned.

I’m pretty sure it was an episode of 'CSI Miami', that presented me with a mother’s worst nightmare. A woman was walking her baby in its stroller when a couple accosted her and made off with her child in its pram, shouting how she (the real mother) had attempted to kidnap their baby. Passers by believed the true victim to be the perpetrator. Horrible.

Yes, this is very CSI, but it’s also very scary and not beyond the realm of possibility in this crazy world. It made me wonder what I would do if, god forbid, I ever faced a similar situation.

Particularly in this great weather, LLC and I head out to crowded places almost daily and I don’t live in fear of nutters. Still, I always make sure I stay by her pram’s side and also keep my wits about should anyone start to invade our personal space. I’ve never seriously considered taking any additional proactive measures. Should I or would that be bordering on paranoia?

GPS gadgets and child safety tattoos are now available for small children lest they stray from their parents’ side. Should similar measures be taken for small babies who don’t understand stranger danger and would be less likely to protest than an older child if in jeopardy? Such measures would serve as a link between parent and child, rebutting the claims of a CSI-like maniac. But is this a step too far? I’m interested in your thoughts.

This post was written for the Babyrambles Keeping Children Safe Carnival, sponsored by PleaseCallMum.