Carseat safety, revisited

With Orren's 3rd birthday approaching in just a few weeks, we revisit the topic of carseat safety, as we always seem to on his birthdays. It was the day after his first birthday that we installed our Britax Diplomat rear-facing in Thak's brother's car, when we went to Minnesota Children's Museum, and were officially "extended rear-facing", because although we could have turned him forward-facing by law and by product specs, we chose not to. On his second birthday, again, we chose to keep him rear-facing, thus exceeding the American Academy of Pediatrics minimum guideline for rear-facing. On each of these occasions, we knew that the choice was ours, but we chose to keep Orren rear-facing because it is 5x safer than forward-facing, and he's not at all unhappy that way, so we saw no reason to turn him forward-facing, and many compelling reasons to leave him rear-facing.

As we approach his third birthday, we also approach the age when we had said we would consider forward facing him. Our rear-facing goal was 3, and we're going to make it, in one of our vehicles anyway. In the car, which he rides in well over 95% of the time, he is still rear-facing in his Radian. He outgrew the rear-facing height limit of his Britax, which is in the truck, when he was 2.5 years old, and has been forward-facing on the rare occasions he rides in the truck, ever since. This has allowed us to sort of ease into the concept of him forward-facing, so it's not as scary, even though we still don't take the decision lightly. The fact is, he will be forward-facing full time one of these days, and since he's already doing it on occasion when he rides in the truck, it's forced us not to be in denial about the fact that we're going to have to turn him eventually.

I think a lot of carseat safety conscious parents psych themselves out so much about the benefits of extended rear-facing, that forward-facing gets demonized to the point that it's really scary to turn the carseat around when it's time. Watch enough crash test videos, hear enough stories about kids who have died of injuries that would never have happened if they were rear-facing, and learn every statistic about how much safer rear-facing is, and see if the thought of your kid forward-facing doesn't scare you just a bit. We arm ourselves with this knowledge so that we can correct the people who tell us we're crazy for going beyond a year and 20 pounds, and so that we can inform people who are in need of better information. We all know, beyond a doubt, that a step up in carseats is a step down in safety, and I don't think any of us look forward to taking that step down when we have to.

So, the million dollar question is, will we be turning Orren forward-facing after his third birthday?

And the answer is..................

No.

We will not be turning Orren forward-facing when he turns three. He still has about an inch left to grow in torso height before he will have to go forward-facing in his Radian, and he's still comfortable enough rear-facing, that we see no compelling reason to turn him around just yet. Sure, we're starting to have a few little issues, like him kicking Erin when he gets mad, and if this stuff worsens, then we will consider forward-facing for practicality (It's rather hard to kick your sister in the face when you're both facing the same direction). If it doesn't worsen, though, we plan to keep Orren rear-facing in his Radian until he outgrows the height limit. (I would say weight limit, but he's a skinny butt! He'll outgrow the height limit long before he even comes near the weight limit.)

If you told me three years ago that I would be keeping Orren rear-facing until the age of three, I would have told you that you were crazy. We had no intention on keeping him rear-facing past a year until I saw this video, which compelled me to do more research on the subject, and before I knew it, I was buying a Radian XTSL, so I could keep Orren rear-facing to at least age three. Then before I knew it, it was right now, and Orren is almost three, and we have no intention of turning him forward-facing just yet. Will we make four years? I don't know! I know a lot of people who do. I'm not doing this to win any kind of competition with friends, or anything like that. THE reason Orren is rear-facing is because it's the safest way for him to ride in the car, and I'm really happy about making it to three, and however much beyond we are able to get.