People with kids on the smaller side, how long did you rearface?

At his 1 year checkup a week ago my DS had actually lost a few ounces since nine months and was only 18lbs 12oz. And he's not got hardly any baby fat, he looks so scrawny! My MIL keeps telling me (every time we see her) that my DH was 30 lbs when he was 5 and looked like he was 2. So I'm thinking DS might stay small. I know babies don't gain as much weight the second year so I'm thinking weight wise we'll be rearfacing forever. Height I don't know, he's 29" now but still in 6-9 month clothes (and man is it hard to find pants that won't fall down off his skinny little waist and to get the diaper to fit good!).
So I was wondering how long people with little peanuts rearfaced? Did you go till you had to turn or have people turned their kids at like 2 or 3 because they wanted to?
I really want to rearface as long as we can and I don't get any flak from anyone so far. I just explained why it was safer and so far everyone is supportive. I'm just curious what others have done.

Ds was about that same size at 1 year. He's just barely 4 now and we turned him in August, so ~3 years 9 months. We could have lasted a couple more months. He wasn't quite 33 lbs when we turned him, but had a growth spurt and was 36 fully clothed at the dr's office last month. I did start getting some flak after about age 2- even from dh. I can't believe you're getting questioned on it already since he's not even big enough to ff in any seat currently on the market.

I would be comfortable turning somewhere around age 3 for convenience/preference.

my youngest is rf still and he's 33 months. He weighs between 31 and 33 lbs. He's getting pretty antsy so I'll probably flip him the next time I change around the kids seats. I'm really proud that I kept him rf so long!!! Everyone else around here flip their kids at 1 yr if not before, so I get alot of stairs and why's! But every time I look back at him I'm sooo proud of how safe he is!! So I'd do it until your ready to flip him around.
Tonya:thumbsup:

What percentile is he? My DD is 10th for weight, 20th for height. She was 24.25 pounds at her 2 year check up. According to the doctor's chart, if she stays 10th percentile, she won't get to 35 pounds until after she's 5 years old.

I tell people DD will RF until she's 5. I'd really like to RF to 35 pounds. But I think around 4 I'll reevaluate. But, I am one that would totally consider buying a Sweedish seat to keep my chunky toddler (2-3 year old) RF longer (if I ahd a chunky over 35 pound toddler).

My dd will be 4 in 4 days. She weighs 28 pounds, measures 35 inches tall, and has a 12 inch torso. She is rear-facing and won't be for another year unless she begs a lot to turn around, which I don't anticipate. She's not the type to think of such abstract ideas. I'll keep her rfing because it's safer and easier with the positioning of car seats and such.

If I turned her forward facing, she'd need an anchor in the middle row. Oldest dd would have to move to the back to a different shoulder belt and ds would move to the lap belt. Dd would straddle her brothers' tether strap and have to crawl under the rfing seat to get to hers. Other dd would straddle dd's tether strap. Our back row would be a booby trap. No thank you!

My ds is a lightweight. He was close to the same size, he hit 20 lbs at a little over 15 mos. He was rear facing until he was 3. At 3 he was begging me to turn him around so I did.

My son turned 4 in August. He hoovers around 29 - 30 pounds now, depending on how well he eats.

He was about your son's size when he was 1 year old.

My thought process on how long I would rearfaced evolved slightly over time, so, I will start from the beginning.

From before he was born, I always intended to rearface until the limits of his convertible seat. I registered for a Roundabout which, at the time had a 30 pound rearfacing weight limit. I assumed that I would have a small kid (since I am small) so I didn't see the need for the Marathon which rearfaced to 33 pounds. I didn't have any sort of an estimate at the time as to how long it would take him to hit either of those limits.

When he was 18ish pounds at his 1st birthday, I committed to myself that I would keep him rearfacing until at least 2 years old, and the re-evaluate at the time.

When he was 21 months, we bought a house out of town and I knew I would be commuting early in the morning. DH was hoping to turn him forwardfacing on his 2nd birthday, but I was leaning toward keeping him rearfacing not only for the increased safety on a longer commute, but also for convenience, so that he could sleep in the mornings more comfortably.

When he was 22 months, during our morning commute, I t-boned a full sized pick up truck. I was going about 60ish MPH. I sustained 3rd degree burns from the airbags and both of my feet were broken. DH had some bruising and chest pains. Jordan was perfect. He had a slight brush/burn type rub near his neck from the harness strap on one side. He didn't even cry.

I firmly believe that Jordan could have been seriously injured if he were forwardfacing at the time. It was a severe crash and the thought of it killing him or paralysing him makes me ill. At that point, I knew there was no way I would turn him anytime soon. We replaced the Roundabout with a Marathon.

So, now, he is 4 years old and still rearfacing. He has not complained about it at all. Even after riding in the car with his best friend who rides in a no back booster.

Now that he is 4 and 30 pounds, I have decided that if he tells me he is uncomfortable, then I will turn him. I do recognize that as they get older, the safety benefit of rearfacing gradually declines. While he is still safER rearfacing, he would not be unsafe forwardfacing. If he doesn't complain, then he will stay rearfacing until he is 33 pounds.

I didn't consider E to be that small, but he didn't reach 33 lbs until about 3 1/2, so that is how long he RF. He is skinny minny, but not short, so the problem was that he was too tall to RF in many seats. He outgrew the Triumph (the old one, not the Advance) RF before age 2, so I got him a Wizard (pre-BV Britax seat) and a RN and those allowed him to RF to the limits.

My son was 20lbs at one, 23 lbs at two and 27lbs at 3. He has fluctuated from 5 - 20% for weight in his 3 years however has always been 80% for height.

Knowing he was small I made my personal goal to rear face until 3. I really dont have a rhyme or reason. I felt RFing till 3 was quite the accomplishment and at that point I would turn him if I felt ok with it. When he turned 3 he was 27 lbs and I made the decision to FF him.

He is tall, I think he may be too tall to RF in the Marathon (outgrowing it height before weight never happens!) He now is almost 4 and 32.4 lbs fully clothed so just barely at the weight cut off to RF in the seats I own.

I didn't learn about ERF till my peanut was 26 months he rearfaced from
26 months till about 2 months ago(3 years 9 months)...he went to 36 pounds all of a sudden...now he is back to 33 pounds and he complains being in a 5-point harness all together(thanks to his friends in boosters(low backs)----...he is too big to rearface weight wise in any seat we have.

My daycare kids rearface till the limits of their seats at 3 I evaluate to see if they are complaining or not. I had one kid at 3 start undoing his chest clip while I was driving and I decided it was safer to turn him FF. :-(

I have a 27lb 30 month old who is still rf. She'll be rf until closer to 4, or 35lbs whichever comes first. I have no plans on turning her anytime soon...

I also have a 23lb 14 month old who will follow in her sister's footsteps... no ff'ing here for Many Many Years to come. :thumbsup:

My DD was only about 18lbs on her first birthday. She is still rf at almost four years old. She weighed in at 31.5lbs and was 37in tall at her last dr apt about ten days ago. I think she'll make it to her birthday in Jan before hitting the 33lb limit of her seat.

Her twin brother only rf to 2 1/2 years old when he hit the 33lb limit. He would like to sit backwards like his sister, but we've talked about the fact that he is too big to sit rf in the car seat.

Seth was 17lbs at 12-15m. He is maybe 24lbs now at almost 27m. He will go foward facing at 3.5. I am comfortable with that decision.

C was rf until he was 3.5. He could have gone longer too. I think he hit 33-35 pounds at about 5. He's somewhere between 36-40 lbs. now. He'll be 7 in April.

He hit 20 lbs when he was about 23-24 months old.

DD is about 23 and a half pounds at 21 months. She's 25% for weight and 50% for height. Honestly, I don't get the whole "i'm comfortable w FF a X age". yes, RFing to 2 is better than RFing to 1 and RFing to 3 is better than RFing to 2, but still RF is always safer. I always wondered if I'd start having issues as DD got older but so far no. I just took some pics of her today and I can see she starts bending her legs or stretching them to the side, and honestly she's very comfy and has no clue she could be riding any differently. I wanna keep my dd RFing as long as I possibly can. I mean, I was just thinking wow I got her RFing to 21 months, and then I read about the little 22 months old girl that just died and it really doesn't seem like I've been doing anything so great. Plus, it hasnt been hard at all to keep her RFing, so if I turned her now I wouldnt feel like I had some great accomplishment cause it really doesnt seem like a big deal KWIM?

My DD was around 19 lbs. at one year. She's now 28.5 lbs (30 fully clothed) at 2 years. At this point I'm planning for her to RF to limits of the seat. She has already reached the RFing limits of our Roundabout, so she started FFing for very limited times in that seat (just started this past week). Her other seats are a 33 lb. BLVD and a 35 lb. EFTA. She will stay RFing in those until she reaches their respective limits. I'm pretty sure she'll hit 35 lbs. by or around age 3 - she's been growing really fast, and has shot from the 10th percentile for height and weight (at nine months) to the 75th percentile for both.

My DD2 is 26lbs. at 34mo. and rf in her signo. Its tight for leg space, but so far she hasn't complained. I plan to keep her rf until it becomes obviously uncomfortable for her, she'll let me know
My DS1 is 26lbs. at 19mo. and also rf in his signo...and he's about the same height as DD2 so we'll see.

My daughter is 3 1/2. She weighs 24 lbs. She didn't hit 20 until 2 years old.

She is still rearfacing 95% of the time. To be honest, I was going to turn his this winter at 3 1/2 due to how hard it is to get her into her MA rear facing because of how longggggg her legs are. It's almost impossible to squish her in. I was just done. Done with the comments and stares and the struggle to get her in. I really had no intention to ever go to the limit of the seat with her because when in the world would that be? US seats are just not made to rearface older larger kids. Now if I got a Swedish seat....lol

I think now I will shoot for 4. Joel's story really put it in perspective. I want to try to rear face as long as they do in Sweden since they have an amazing low death rate. I figure they gotta be doing something right. I am not going for 35 lbs because that could be age 7 or beyond and our seats are NOT made for kids that size.

I am going to get a true fit just to get some more leg room and height. She's almost outgrown her seat by height.

It's easy for people to say they don't understand the whole "i will rearface to x amount of years" when they don't have a child who doesn't gain weight and there is NO end in sight. Us seats are NOT made to RF 7 year olds and I won't be doing that. So that's why I picked an age. Weight to me isn't a huge issue. Do you honestly mean to tell me my 33 lb 18 month old is safer than my 25 lb 4 year old forward facing simply because they weigh more and are near the limit of the seat? I just have a hard time with that. I feel my 25 lb 4 year old would be safer forward facing even though that's 10 lbs away from the limit, KWIM? Her bones and spinal cord are more developed and her head is a smaller proportion to her body even though she is only 25 lbs. It's age that's more important to me, not weight. Not to mention chunky younger kids have larger heavier heads thus making it more likely of injury. Their spinal column starts to harden and fuse around 3-6 years old regardless of their weight. So that's where my point of view comes from. It's not the weight that's important to me, it's the age. and 4 is more than old enough to go FFing. So that's where my point of view comes from. Not that weight isn't important-it is...but with my skinny minny, age is more important since she won't be getting to the limit of the seat any time in the next few years

So we will be probably 4 or 4 1/2 and that will be becuase of choice, not because she outgrew the seat. DD2 will go to the limit of the seat because she is "normal"

Quinn is 4y4m and 28lbs. I imagine that he will RF to 5.5 or 6.