Baby in a Car Seat Fell Out of Moving Vehicle.

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Many parents enquire how long their child should stay in a rear-facing car seat. Actually, there'southward non an exact timeline. The rule of thumb is that children should exist in rear-facing auto seats for equally long every bit possible, to the superlative or weight limits of the car seat (in one case one limit is reached, the child is too big for the seat; it is unsafe to exceed ane limit even if the kid is withal within the other limit).

Riding rear-facing until the limit allowed by your child's convertible seat has big safety advantages that parents should strongly consider. Turning a car seat around isn't a milestone to rush. It's actually a step down in safety, so don't be in a hurry to make the big switch.

Current Advice From Pediatricians

From 2011 to 2018, the recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) was to keep children rear-facing until they were at least two years old, simply ideally longer—until reaching the rear-facing meridian or weight limit for their convertible seat.

Current Recommendations

The current recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics is to keep children rear-facing until they reach the maximum height or weight for their convertible seat. This is usually at iii to five years old, depending on the seat and the child'southward growth.

I-third of states in the U.South. take updated their child passenger safety laws to crave rear-facing seats until age 2.

Some state laws and some convertible machine seats say that kids can ride forward facing if they are at to the lowest degree one year quondam. This can easily fool a parent into thinking that information technology is safe for a one-twelvemonth-sometime to ride forward facing, when the evidence is clear that ane-year-olds are safer rear-facing. Seeing "i-twelvemonth-old" in print aslope "forward-facing car seat" leads many families to believe it is prophylactic for their lilliputian one to switch to forward-facing far too young.

New parents also naturally plough to their family and friends with parenting experience when information technology comes to car seat safety advice. If your family and friends are a few years out from having newborns and toddlers, though, it'southward possible, and even likely, that their machine seat advice is outdated.

Rear-Facing Better

• Historic period: Any age, so long as the child is inside the height and weight limits for their rear-facing motorcar seat

• Weight: Depends on the car seat, simply most convertible seats have rear-facing weight limits of forty to 50 pounds

• Height: Depends on the auto seat, simply most convertible seats have rear-facing summit limits that require the child's head to be at to the lowest degree one inch beneath the top (the child's legs touching the vehicle seat dorsum is not an indication that they are too alpine)

Frontward-Facing Allowed

• Age: Depends on state law and the car seat your child will be using

• Weight: Depends on land constabulary and the car seat your child will exist using

• Height: Depends on country police force and the car seat your child will be using

Why Rear-Facing Is Safer

Auto seats are designed to absorb some crash forces and spread the remaining crash forces over a larger area of the body. For adults, seat belts distribute force to the strongest parts of the body—the hips, breast os, and collarbone.

When a kid is in a frontward-facing seat, the head pulls forrad, which puts stress on the neck. When rear-facing, the caput, neck, and back all motility in unison and are cradled past the shell of the rear-facing motorcar seat. This video helps explicate.

The bones running downwards a young child's neck and back are not however solid os (they still accept a lot of stretchy cartilage). A young child's head is also much heavier, in proportion to the body, than that of an older kid or adult. So the head pulls forward with proportionately much more force on bones that are stretchier.

As the bones stretch, they can force the spinal cord to stretch. After it is stretched more than i-quarter of an inch, the spinal cord breaks. Riding in a rear-facing car seat helps reduce that risk past supporting the kid'due south head.

The incidence of severe head and neck injuries for babies and toddlers is profoundly reduced in rear-facing automobile seats.

The boosted back up the rear-facing car seat provides to the head and neck reduces your child's risk of being injured or worse in a crash. The rear-facing car seat is arresting some of the energy of the crash, so distributing the remaining energy along the child's caput, cervix and back.

With the forward-facing kid, the car seat isn't able to absorb as much of the energy, and more than of it is transferred to the kid—in particular to the head and neck as they pull away from the breast. The divergence tin can be seen in a video comparing rear-facing and forward-facing car seats in a crash exam.

Dangers of Forwards-Facing Too Early

Even if your child's legs are touching the seat back, or they cry when rear-facing, you lot should still keep your child rear-facing until they reach the rear-facing weight or elevation limit of the car seat. Virtually convertible car seats have rear-facing weight limits of 35 to 50 pounds, so most kids tin can ride rear-facing until age three to five.

Some children never like sitting in a car seat, and they may cry. Still, beingness properly restrained makes it more probable that a child will survive a crash to cry another day.

Many parents worry that their child will suffer broken legs or hips in a crash considering the child'south legs bear on the seat back or await cramped when rear-facing. In fact, there are more than leg injuries when forward-facing, as the legs fly upwards and the feet go into the dorsum of the front seat. Equally everything moves forward, compression forces into the hip and femur tin can break the leg of the forrad-facing kid.

Studies of real kids in existent crashes shows that leg and hip injuries in rear-facing kids are very uncommon. When they do happen, information technology is in side impacts where another vehicle hits the kid correct where their leg is, breaking the leg. Rear-facing kids practice not get hip or leg injuries from being scrunched up. In fact, during the instant of the crash, rear-facing kids go even more than scrunched, with their legs pulling up into a cannonball position. This is not a cause of injury.

If Your Child Is Fussy in the Car Seat

Kids often fuss because they are strapped in, not considering they are rear-facing. To reduce fussiness in a rear-facing kid:

• If your child can sit upright unsupported, sit the automobile seat more upright (if the car seat allows) to give the child a better view out the window.
• Remove the vehicle head restraint to permit the rear-facing child a better view out the window.
• Use music to assistance entertain and calm the child.
• Use toys that are prophylactic for travel to distract and entertain the kid.

Auto Seats for One-Twelvemonth-Olds

When babies turn one, many parents recollect about moving past the infant car seat with the carrier handle. In that location are lots of options if you demand a new car seat for a ane-year-old!

Call up, advocates recommend that toddlers and preschoolers ride rear-facing until reaching the maximum weight or superlative for rear-facing in their convertible car seat, which for about kids is between three and five years of historic period. So you'll want to find a motorcar seat that can work both rear-facing and forrad-facing. Look for a convertible car seat with a loftier rear-facing weight limit and alpine vanquish, and then use it rear-facing as long as possible.

Several machine seats today have rear-facing weight limits up to l pounds, which should accommodate about every kid through age v (unless they reach the maximum rear-facing height for the seat). You should check the manufacturer's rear-facing height limit to be sure your child is not besides tall to safely stay rear-facing to the weight limit.

About children should be able to remain rear-facing far beyond age 2.

A Word From Verywell

Crash data shows us that anybody is safer in a crash when riding rear-facing for the reasons outlined above. Young children are amend protected in a rear-facing car seat because that seat distributes the force of a crash over a greater body surface area and gives better back up to immature heads and necks.

A rear-facing car seat offers the best protection for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and fifty-fifty immature school-age kids and should be properly used for as long every bit possible, to the limits of the car seat. Keeping your child rear-facing to the limit of the seat is the safest choice. You can cheque your car seat instruction book or the labels on the car seat sides to find the rear-facing weight and height limits.

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Verywell Family uses but high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts inside our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Durbin DR, Hoffman BD. Child passenger safety. Policy argument. Pediatrics. 2018;142(5) doi:10.1542/peds.2018-2460

2. American Academy of Pediatrics. Rear–facing car seats for infants and toddlers.

3. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Seat chugalug and child seat laws by state.

4. Durbin DR, Hoffman BD. Child passenger safety. Technical report. Pediatrics. 2018;142(5) doi:10.1542/peds.2018-2461

5. American Academy of Pediatrics. How long should my child ride rear–facing?.

6. Arbogast KB, Durbin DR. Epidemiology of child motor vehicle crash injuries and fatalities. In: Crandall J, Myers B, Meaney D, Zellers Schmidtke S (eds). Pediatric Injury Biomechanics. Springer, 2013.

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Source: https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-long-rear-facing-car-seat-293731

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