Car seat safety.

I'm a big fan of extended rear facing car seats. I've done the research, and I've watched the crash test videos showing it is obviously safer to keep kids rear facing.

Last week when the American Academy of Pediatrics released their recommendation that children should be rear facing until at least 2 years of age, I expected to hear more discussion on the issue. I was surprised to see that message boards and news articles hardly had any response to this. It made me wonder - do people just not care? At least 50% of the people I know with kids have chosen to flip their kids car seat at the minimum recommendation of 1 year/20 lbs.

One friend who was eager to flip her child's car seat forward facing had complained that she was sick of listening to her kid whine from their rear facing car seat. I just cringe when I hear people give excuses for why their kids are forward facing after the age of 1 ("they want to see mom and dad up front" or "their legs were getting cramped into the seat" or "the risk of getting in an accident is really low"). Isn't the safety of your child/children the most important thing? Sure, M2 would probably be really happy if we flipped her around, but for one she doesn't know any different, and secondly I will not compromise her safety. Both she and P5 will remain rear facing until they have reached the height and weight maximum for rear facing in their car seats.

In response to people saying that the kids legs get cramped - that is a total fallacy. Kids are super flexible and it is not uncomfortable for them to bend their legs or cross them. The risk of injuring their legs in an accident is low, and even if they did get injured a broken leg is much easier to fix than a broken neck. I really hope that the new guideline set out by the AAP will lead to new legislation requiring parents to rear face their children longer. This would result in fewer injuries and deaths among young children in motor vehicle accidents.