Car seat techs usually have a difficult time convincing parents to stay rear-facing longer. When children reach the traditional bare minimum of "20 lbs & 1 year" which the AAP has recommended for years, parents often rush to turn baby forward. There are many reasons why parents want baby to be forward-facing, but few trump being 5x safer.
That AAP's recommendation that starts with "1 & 20" went on "..use the seat rear-facing to the highest weight allowed..". This part was widely ignored by parents.
Furthermore, it wasn't clear that the AAP actually meant the rear-facing max of the convertible seat, not the infant carrier. The result was that parents using carriers that maxed out at 22 lbs were more likely to move forward-facing sooner, because they had out grown the highest weight of their seat and also reached the 1 & 20 recommendation.
Ironically, while most parents move from carriers to convertible seats that are meant to initially go rear-facing longer, they never use that feature. We refer to this as the 22 pound danger zone. We always recommend a 30 lbs infant carrier to avoid having going rear-facing too soon.
Now the AAP has new advice to avoid confusion. We must note that this is advice and they have not yet formally changed their recommendation.
- Toddlers are more than 5x safer riding rear-facing until their second birthday
- Infants riding in a rear-facing infant carrier should be switched to a rear-facing convertible once the maximum height and weight for that seat is reached.
- Toddlers should remain rear-facing in a convertible car seat until they have reached the maximum height and weight of that model, or at least the age of 2.
We say, "thanks AAP". We hope that you quickly adopt this as your formal recommendation. This language is clear and it helps parents make the safest decision. It's also a great tool for seat techs to be able to discuss this hot issue with moms and dads.
Click here to see a best practice advice summary from the AAP News.
Download Rear-facing to see the closely related article by the same author which delves into the research. This is a good piece as it addresses parents concerns about their childrens' feet touching the vehicle seat back.
Here are some of our previous posts on the subject:
Bringing Safety Back: Rear-facing is hot
Today we changed the post slightly to reflect follow-up communications from the AAP. They want to be clear that this new information, although best practice, does not change their formal recommendation.
Posted by: Safety Squad | April 03, 2009 at 04:12 PM