Thursday, April 2, 2009

Rear Facing Until at Least Age 2

Go here for the full story, but the AAP has just changed its guidelines on child carseat safety.

We've always heard to turn our kids around from rear-facing to forward-facing when they are 20 pounds and at least one year old. Well, here is an excerpt from the AAP's release:

New research indicates that toddlers are more than five times safer riding rear-facing in a car safety seat up to their second birthday....

Toddlers should remain rear-facing in a convertible car seat until they have reached the maximum height and weight recommended for the model, or at least the age of 2.

There a great post here by El, who is a child passenger safety technician. She has several helpful links off of her post.

We had just turned Isaac around last week (at 14 months) and were thinking we were conservative to wait so long. I will be telling Scott that he's going to have to turn that thing back around now!

3 comments:

some chick said...

wait, you mean I can't let them run around in the back of the car anymore?

so now everyone has to buy a convertible seat? all we ever had was the baby bucket, and then the regular booster. we never had a convertible.

I have a 32-year-old friend who still doesn't satisfy the height and weight requirements to not need a booster. she's TINY.

Tiffany said...

K--

My kids outgrew their infant car seats by about 7 months (there's a 20-pound weight limit on the one we have--Graco SnugRide).

Kids ARE much safer in a 5-point harness for as long as you can keep them in there. Caleb's car seat is a convertible, designed to last until 80 pounds, I believe (Britax Frontier). We'll keep him in it for at least a couple more years.

You can see lots of simulated crashes on youtube.

ally said...

I turned my son at a year, and then turned him back around at 18 months. I jsut wrote a blog about it today!!