Please help settle this RF question from another listserv

Jem4121

New member
Hi all..

So, on my other listserv I posted a question about RF carseats and there have been about 1/2 one response and 1/2 the other. I am seriously hoping that here we can settle it.


I have a Britax Blvd. and it's rear facing for my 26 pounder child. I was going to forward face it b/c I was so bothered by how loose the seat is. It's as tight as the seat belt will go but in impact it'd fly back to the seatback. I could move it there myself with quite a bit of push.

Someone told me to rig up the straps to the seat back handle on the passenger seat so I did that but now 1/2 the people are arguing that they were told it's SUPPOSED to fly into the seatback b/c that absorbs the impact and NOT to strap it down...

SO bothered by all this...anyone REALLY, REALLY know the answer. Thanks-you'll be helping out hundreds of women on my listserv literally!
 
ADS

LISmama810

Admin - CPS Technician
As long as the seat is tight at the beltpath, it's fine.

Rear-facing seats will rebound in a crash (the seat will "cocoon" up toward the back of the vehicle). That's normal, and there's nothing wrong with it. The rebound forces are much less intense than the initial crash forces, and a child in a properly tightened harness shouldn't have an issue with that.

Britax does allow tethering rear-facing, but not to the handle, like she has. She needs to use the d-ring that came with the seat (a small piece of webbing with a metal plate at the end), wrap that around something forward of the child restraint that's bolted to the vehicle frame (like a front seat leg), and then attach the tether to the metal plate on the d-ring. (Note that usually you can find a place to tether, but in some cars, it's not possible. Knowing the make and model of her car would help us determine that.)

Rear-tethering can provide some additional protection, especially in a side-impact crash. However, it's not necessary, and it's something allowed by only two manufacturers. Some people don't like rear-tethering because it increases neck loads, which can be dangerous, especially for very small infants. For an older kid, it's usually recommended if you can do it, but we don't know how much safer it is (if at all).

Whether tethered or not, a rear-facing seat is much safer than a forward-facing seat. In forward-facing seat, the child's head, neck, and spine will take the crash forces. RF, the shell of the seat handles all that.

(Edited: OP, sorry for referring to you in the third-person! I thought this was a question someone else had posed, and you were just re-posting it here!)
 
Last edited:

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
They're all right. LOL

Britax allows rear facing tethering. I have no idea what you're doing, but it doesn't sound right. However, your seat came with a tether connector strap, a "D ring," and you can use that to make a rear facing tether point. I normally wrap the D ring around a front seat leg and use that. Sometimes I need to get more creative, but often that works just fine.

Besides the Britaxes the Radians allow rear facing tethering. All other seats, though, do NOT and should never be tethered. It's not a problem for the seat to rebound back into the backseat (keep in mind that the backseat is supposed to absorb the forces of your average size male). Also, it's a rebound, not the initial impact. And then on top of all of that the shell of the seat will hit the seat, and your baby will likely not make much contact with the backseat.

However, YOUR seat IS designed to be tethered rear facing. You don't have to, but it's part of what you spend the money on with a Britax. So yes, you can tether it rear facing. Just check your manual. Hooking it up to the passenger handle is NOT an approved tether location.

Also, check for looseness at the beltpath. You want less than 1" of movement there. The head of an untethered seat will move, and that's fine. It's not loose, just untethered.

Wendy
 

valleyfam

New member
Are you 100% certain the correct belt path is being used? (meaning rf belt path is being used not the ff belt path) I have a rf blvd and it does not budge at the belt path and really moves very little at the top even before I tether it.
 

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