Best explanation for ERF?

tarheelborn · May 14, 2013

I have a group of mommy friends who have children aged similarly to mine or younger. My older son recently turned 3, and my younger son is 16 mos. Every single mom I know turned their child FF at exactly 1. The topic came up today at playgroup (I don't think most of them knew I just changed my DS1 FF after his most recent birthday) and most of them had the "usual" sort of reasons for turning their kids (legs look cramped, they can see better, it's easier to hand them things, etc.).

I did mention that DS1 just recently started FF, and that DS2 is still RF. However, I would like to have the best place to send someone to convince them of the benefits of ERF should the need arise again. A few of these women have young infants and will be presented with the decision to turn their second children soon, so I'd like to be able to give them a website to help make their decision. I don't want to "scare" them, since they all turned their older children at 1. Plus, I tend to keep opinions like this to myself, and I don't know anyone else at all in real life who doesn't turn their child FF at 1.

Thanks in advance!

bree · May 14, 2013

tarheelborn said:
I have a group of mommy friends who have children aged similarly to mine or younger. My older son recently turned 3, and my younger son is 16 mos. Every single mom I know turned their child FF at exactly 1. The topic came up today at playgroup (I don't think most of them knew I just changed my DS1 FF after his most recent birthday) and most of them had the "usual" sort of reasons for turning their kids (legs look cramped, they can see better, it's easier to hand them things, etc.).

I did mention that DS1 just recently started FF, and that DS2 is still RF. However, I would like to have the best place to send someone to convince them of the benefits of ERF should the need arise again. A few of these women have young infants and will be presented with the decision to turn their second children soon, so I'd like to be able to give them a website to help make their decision. I don't want to "scare" them, since they all turned their older children at 1. Plus, I tend to keep opinions like this to myself, and I don't know anyone else at all in real life who doesn't turn their child FF at 1.

Thanks in advance!

The best explanation for rear-facing that I've seen (in terms of being concise and really explaining why kids need to be RF) is this 1 minute long video:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssIsceKd6U"]Rear facing vs forward facing position in the car - YouTube[/ame]

For a place to get the links to research and articles, this blog post at CarSeatBlog.com is pretty thorough: http://carseatblog.com/5168/why-rear-facing-is-better-your-rf-link-guide/

For guidelines, the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) has some pretty decent ones: http://www.safercar.gov/parents/RightSeat.htm.

If anyone had specific questions or needed more explanations, then suggesting that someone start a thread here at Car-Seat.org is a good way to get opinions and explanations, too.

tarheelborn · May 14, 2013

Thank you. That first video is really great, I am definitely looking for brevity here. I doubt I am going to convert anyone but I'd like to show one thing that may grab their attention (and *hopefully* get them to do some more research) and that should work.

If nothing else, I'd at least like to get people to stop looking at me so weird when they find out my kids RF well past 1.

Thanks again!