Question Being at peace with FF

My daughter will be 3 in a month and a half. She is still RF in a Radian with a Blvd for grandma's car now and then.

FF has come up again as 1. She is approaching the age of 3. 2. Winter is just around the corner and those darn towels just don't stay in place well in the 2nd row of a mini van. 3. My daycare baby (2y) is approaching the 35# RF weight limit on her carseat.

My concerns are RF IS safer and that I don't think she is even 30lbs yet. My darling husband is ready for her to be FF and in some ways I am too. I don't even know what y'all can say to help me with this decision. RF is safer and she has at least 5 lbs left. How do you make that decision when your child still has room to grow? What about marital peace? "But it is safer" can only go so far sometimes.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Stacy who is not married to an donkey, just someone who thinks 3yo is reasonable based on science.

PS: And I must confess to being a mom who is tired of going counter culture on everything.

I jsut went through this myself. My goal was 4, and my daughter turned 4 in September. However, she's petite, only 32-33 pounds. She has growing room in all of her seats by both height and weight. RF is safer. But she's 4. But, RF is safer for everyone. That's how it played out in my head

She spent about a month going from RF to FF and back again in my car, lol. She remained RF in everyone else's cars (she has a seat in 5 cars). I had told them all I preferred she stay RF, but it was up to them. And, they all just left her RF. I don't know what it was. But in that month of going back and forth, I became at peace with it.

My daughter prefers FF. If she preferred RF, I'd switch her back around. But, I've started selling off her convertibles for seats that'll last her longer. That's helping me too

I could have written this almost exactly. I FF'd DS for a trip (at 3 years, 1 month) where DH and I would be sharing the driving responsibility. When we got home, I turned DS back around and DH threw a fit. I reluctantly turned him FF again. It took some getting used to, and I still worry about it, but I'm okay with it now. If DH ever changed his mind, I'd flip him back, but I don't see that happening.

I totally get what you are going through. My husband is so against ERF our 2 year old who is tiny at 24 lbs and 33 3/4 inches. I just compromised with him in September and turned him FF in my husband's car with his Radian. My husband kept taking the seat out because it was installed RF in the middle of his Malibu and came up between the front seats and bumped his shoulder. My son is only in his car 3-4 times a month but usually on short notice and getting the Radian RF was a big pain and took at least 15 minutes each time. I feel better knowing that it is installed correctly FF and not removed each time my son gets out. There is no way he could install it the right way if I was not home to do it. So for me I know I did the install the right way and that seems safer than a bad install RF by him or anyone else. I get to keep him RF in my van in his EFTA which is his primary seat. He is also now FF in our truck in a Nautilus because he outgrew his other seat (AOE) by height RF and we only use the truck when we have to pull our camper. By the time he sits in there again he will probably be almost 3. My husband thinks I'm crazy when it comes to car seats and told me to find a support group It kept the peace in our house, at least on the car seat issue that is.
In the end I would do whatever works best for your family. 3 is a reasonable age to FF. However, depending on the seating arrangement with you day care kid ( I do daycare too and watch a 1 yr old whose parents insist I FF him, I know but I need the job,) it may work to keep your 3 yr old RF and the other child FF so they can see each other. I have 1 FF in the 3rd row of my van and mine RF in the 2nd row and they entertain each other. Just a thought. Sorry this was so long. Hope you figure out what works best for you!

4 was my absolute minimum for ff.......but ds hates the MT, the Radian xtsl was damaging my car & he outgrew the freeway, and we got a frontier. Its like it was made for my car, a dream to install and ds loves so. So he has been ff full time for about 3 weeks now and he loves it, I love it, I have no issues at all with him being ff even though he is not quite 4 (his birthday is in 2 months). So there you go, at 3 I couldn't turn him ff knowing that he was still so much safer rf.

You see, regardless of what goals people set, and circumstances thay have- what I don't understand is why someone would be "against" ERF.
I turned DD FF at 12 months because I thought I was supposed to (it was 2004) and when I finally found this board in 2006, it was too late- she was already 34 lbs and there were no 40lb RF seats then. IF there were, I would have RF'd her again. If it is proven safer, I follow that guideline. Same with booster use past legal age (8 in my state) or any other minimum guideline. IE: teen drivers- the later they start and the more hours they have behind the wheel- the less accidents they have.
If you really feel strongly, you could just pull rank on this one and say- "I've done the research, and I feel that it is a choice I will make":twocents:
But if you feel like you just can't fight the fight anymore, you certainly made it farther than most. Remember- just because RF is safer- that does not mean FF is UNSAFE.

I turned my son at 3 years & 3 months. I turned him for a number of reasons. 1 of them being that it was killing me putting him in RF in my tiny 2 door car. I felt bad for it, but I was hurting climbing into the back seat to buckle him everyday. Another reason I turned him was b/c 3 was my goal, we made it to 3 & I felt pretty good about it. The last reason I turned him was because he was begging me to turn him. He rode FF in DH's & my MIL's car, & he much preferred it.

In the end I got used to it. He now only has FF seats. He still had seats at the time that he could RF in with room to grow. However it was getting to be a battle to get him into his seat b/c he wanted to be FF. I feel like he is safe FF. His seats are properly installed, properly used & top tethered.

We recently turned my almost 2.5 yr old DS FF in one vehicle. I don't know what the issue was, but we were having screaming fits to the point of barfing. I tried everything I could think of, but nothing stopped it. So, now he's FF in one car and RF in the other and seems to be okay. DH has been very supportive of my desire to ERF, but the screaming, etc. was getting to him (it was his car where DS has the issue). Also, DS has just barely more than 1" of growing room left in his MR65s (DH says I can't buy more seats right now, especially since I can't seem to sell my MA and about the only thing that would gain us more RF time is a Radian). The kid has a freakishly long torso & short legs.

Do I love it? No. I wish he was still RF in both cars. I'd feel better about him being RF. That's why he's still RF in my car, which is where I have more concerns about his safety in an accident. (DH drives a Regal where DS sits in the middle. I can't get a convertible installed well in the middle seat of my Monte Carlo, so he has to ride outboard there.) I'm hoping to get him back RF in the near future. For now though, I just deal with it. He is past both suggested minimums. He's in properly installed and used seats. I'm doing the best I can with what I have right now.

Yoshi said:

You see, regardless of what goals people set, and circumstances thay have- what I don't understand is why someone would be "against" ERF. .

Click to expand...

I don't either, but DH is. He is very much a mainstream, don't stand out kind of guy, so I suspect this is just another thing that he sees as "different just for the sake of being different."

We recently flipped my DD1 FF in our cars for 2 reasons, my dad drives our cars on a regular basis and can't fit in front of a RF seat, so when DD2's seat was installed, we had a problem. Also, with my curretn health issues, lifting DD1 in and out of the car has become a problem for me and for some reason she has major issues climbing into a RFing seat. So she's been FF for about a month now. She still RF in my MIL's car because there are no Tether anchors in her car.

I was really bothered by it at first, but she'll be 3 in February, is 28lbs now and is riding in well installed, very safe seats.

My dh is similar to jess's and ds has been ff his truck since he was 2.5y/o. But in my van he's still rf in his Radian and he's 3.5y/o now. If for some reason I couldn't rf him I wouldn't blink once at turning him ff :twocents:

i was actually just getting on to post the same thing! and my title would have been "being at peace with FF"! haha!

our car was hit, so insurance paid for a new seat...i got a GN since DS is 3.5. even since it came, he CANNOT stop talking about it...how cool it is, how he'll be able to face the other way, how comfie it looks, how he'll be able to spot letters easier (we play "find an A, now find a B" on drives)...anyway, it's so sweet and i love him being so excited about his new seat that i just want to go ahead and switch him. he's in a RF boulevard right now and still has 2 pounds left on it. when the seat came, i told him we'd install it when he turned 4, but now i so want to switch him...but i don't want to switch him. i know i'll be doing what someone else said - going back and forth with seats until i finally come to terms with it.