Comfort level with forward facing a 3 year old?

Pixelated said:

There's a difference between what is reasonable and what is practicable. We do not have the vehicles nor the restraints to rear-face an average sized 8 year old. I don't believe anyone is suggesting that specifically.

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Exactly. There is no doubt rear-facing would be safer than forward facing for any passenger, but that requires a suitable vehicles seat or carseat. The only real question for kids above 2 years old is how much safer. When the next study on the topic is published, maybe we will know. It could be that older kids gain even more benefit because they are taller and heavier and have greater risk of head excursion related injury. Or maybe not? Correctly installed and used front facing seats provide considerable protection as well.

katymyers said:

What about the rear facing seats in one of those Teslas? Aren't they big enough for an older kid to sit in? And weren't they made rear facing because it's so much safer?

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Some Volvo wagons had rear facing seats for older kids too.

My Ds got turned just before three. We were living in Miami and my younger two were in Cco and there was a recall and I needed the convertible he and dd2 were in for them. We were moving in a matter of weeks and didn't have the time to get the recall fixed. I put him in maestro and have never looked back.

I think a 3yo in a properly used forward-facing harnessed seat is very safe and I would support a parent who made that decision.

What I take issue with is the idea that rear-facing older kids has no benefit. Rear-facing is always safer, at age 3 or 7 or 47. (And no, I'm not suggesting that a typical 47yo should be in a rear-facing harnessed carseat.)

CPSDarren said:

Exactly. There is no doubt rear-facing would be safer than forward facing for any passenger, but that requires a suitable vehicles seat or carseat. The only real question for kids above 2 years old is how much safer. When the next study on the topic is published, maybe we will know. It could be that older kids gain even more benefit because they are taller and heavier and have greater risk of head excursion related injury. Or maybe not? Correctly installed and used front facing seats provide considerable protection as well.

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Does anyone know of an instance of internal decapitation or severe cervical injury in a child 3 or older? Obviously there are other added safety factors for RF vs FF, and there's a lot of variables involved in real life accidents vs a controlled test setting such as misuse etc, so it wouldn't proove anything, I'm just curious more than anything. All of the real life stories I know of involve smaller children.

There's a case study for just about everything out there, but of course there are freak crashes with huge vehicles that are simply not survivable and may not reflect the vast majority of crashes.

The bigger problem is that even the one major study we have on the topic is very limited.

The data it used is now over 10 years old. Vehicles and carseats have improved a lot in that time, and perhaps education too.

That study had some issues with sample sizes. Some findings simply were not statistically significant. Too few infants under 12 months old were in the group of front-facing occupants, and too few toddlers over 12 months old were in the group of rear-facing occupants.

There is an assumption, included in the discussion of this paper, that injury tolerance increases with the age and development of the child. It was always assumed that in frontal crashes, it was the youngest and least developed children most at risk. When the authors presented this paper originally, they were not able to explain why babies under 1 year old had lower risk of injury in frontal crashes, other than the sample size for the comparison group was too small to make a valid conclusion. They were also surprised to learn that the benefits of rear-facing appeared greater in side impacts compared to frontal impacts.

The same problem exists in other countries. For example, in Sweden, so few if any children would be forward facing in a harness that a statistically significant comparison could not be made.

So, I believe it comes down to a few things.

1) Based on the undeniable physics involved in frontal and side impacts, rear-facing is safer for occupants of any age. This assumes that an appropriate vehicle seat or car seat is available.

2) Older, taller occupants are at greater risk for head injury, due to the potential for the head to strike a hard part of the vehicle interior. Head excursion related injuries are generally considered to be the most likely to cause serious or fatal injury, even moreso than internal/spinal injuries.

3) As young children mature, their bodies become more resilient to injuries typical of automobile crashes.

So, I think there some point where #3 becomes a bigger factor than #2 and the benefits of rear-facing begin to diminish, though there are always benefits.

The problem is we simply do not have enough research to say at what age that point is. We also have no data to say how much safer rear-facing is for children above 24 months old. To be honest, the published data we have for children under 24 months old is limited basically to one study with some admitted flaws, so a lot more research is needed! In the last 10 years, we have safer cars and carseats and a lot more kids riding rear-facing beyond 12 months, so it would be interesting to know more.

I will be turning my then (in Jan) 3 year old when our next is born in November for the same reason. I have yet to find a seat that fits rfing behind the driver's seat in either our van or our car that leaves enough room between my dh and the airbag while he's driving. If she was younger, we'd put her in the third row and just always take the van or otherwise figure something out but I'm okay with turning her around at two months shy of 3.

Thanks for the additional info.

These are the threads I learn the most on and I appreciate it.

AS far as I can see the benefit of 500% safer is not tested above 2. Yes?

skiersnowboarder3 said:

I will be turning my then (in Jan) 3 year old when our next is born in November for the same reason. I have yet to find a seat that fits rfing behind the driver's seat in either our van or our car that leaves enough room between my dh and the airbag while he's driving. If she was younger, we'd put her in the third row and just always take the van or otherwise figure something out but I'm okay with turning her around at two months shy of 3.

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I turned my youngest FF before 3 as well. Like many advocates, I knew he would be correctly restrained in the back of a newer carseat and vehicle. Those factors alone made any risk very small.

Thank you all so much! I love this kind of discussion and I adore this site. You all have inspired me since I found it in 2011 and I plan to get certified one of these days! Just need a little free time...between work, 2.5 yo and a new baby... Ha! However I am proud to say I am well read and constantly providing (unwanted?) Information about car seat safety and referring people here! When DD was 15mths we went to South Africa, bought her a ticket and brought the radian. We also made sure to rent a car large enough to RF her the whole time we were there...it certainly opened the conversation with a lot of people.

I was just reading something else that made me think turning her is the right decision. I was looking up airbags and pregnancy (with the RF Radian behind me, I am almost knees at the dash) and saw I should be sitting as far back from the airbags as possible. Still haven't unpacked the Foonf (I cant lift the darn thing right now!) but will try it RF and see if it gives front seat peeps enough clearance.

I do want to use the UAS FF. My car manufacturer refers to the car seat manual and the manual says of nothing is given, assume 40lbs (seat plus kid or just kid? That's not clear). So I think we'll hope for a seatbelt and UAS install.

Baylor said:

Do you have studies that show that, If there are I would love to see them because I just don't believe rear facing an 8 yr old is reasonable in any circumstance.

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Physics. Physics don't change based on age. The same amount of force spread over a greater surface area is ALWAYS going to equal less force on any individual body part.

There's even a Mythbusters episode where they compare rfing and ffing airplane seats that proves the math.

Just a quick update. I love Foonf. Tried it RF as suggested and it actually just fits (so better fit than the R120)...only problem is it gives my daughter a lot less leg freedom and she was really unhappy with the headwings blocking her view. She is already prone to car tantrums in her much more open R120...up until now I've been of the "too bad...you are a toddler who hates anything and everything on any give day" mentality. But based on the opinions on this thread, I am not against FFing her for the sanity of all in the car. So we turned the Foonf to FF behind the driver and everyone LOVES it. We got a good install using LATCH and seatbelt, and she loves being up and able to look out the front. She also looks super comfy. Her only issue "how are my legs supposed to go?". Amazing. I keep telling that to everyone who tutted that she must hate RF because of her long legs as squished. Nope. She liked sticking them straight up the back or over the sides!

She'll still do a large percentage of her driving RF in our other car until she's 4 (weekdays to and from daycare). But weekends and road trips will be FF.

Thanks for all of the advice!