J's New Car Seat

Our baby grew up *sniffle* and it was time to get him a "big boy" seat. We kind of procrastinated researching seats because...that's what we do best. Plus our kid is a little scrawny, so he fit in his infant seat longer than other kids his age. When I started researching, I was a little overwhelmed with the options. I wanted to find the safest car seat, but it's hard impossible to do this in the US. Car seat crash test results are not published in the US. The manufacturers are not required to share them, only to pass the compliance testing and let you know that they "meet or exceed safety standards." And to put the cherry on top, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration doesn't think it's necessary to give parents access to results, either. So what is a parent to do?

Buy a European product, that's what. We went off a friend's recommendation and looked into Recaro car seats. Recaro is a German company that is known for making seats for sports and luxury cars. They have very high safety standards-the car seat we bought exceeds EU safety standards (which are stricter than US standards). We bought the Recaro ProRide convertible car seat.

J enjoys his new seat, even if he looks angry the whole time :)

And as you can see, we decided to face him forward, despite new recommendations about keeping children rear-facing until age three. I saw this article on Facebook about car safety for children that had some comments about parents like me being ignorant and dumb for not following the new guidelines. However, I think the people who made these recommendations are only looking at how a child's body reacts in a crash and leaves other important elements out of the equation. Here are our reasons why we are not following the new recommendations:

1. Many kids cry and fuss when they are rear-facing and it is a huge distraction to the driver. Two of the biggest reasons people get into wrecks is technology and passenger distraction. But when you face kids forward, they don't fuss because they can see Mommy and Daddy. Hmmm. Maybe facing rear is the reason WHY some accidents happen in the first place.

2. The number of kids dying from being forgotten in cars has spiked in recent years. In fact, this didn't start happening until recommendations about kids being rear-facing came out in the 1990s. When a child is forward facing, you can see them every time you look in the rearview mirror. When a child is rear-facing, the driver cannot see them unless they get out of the car and stand behind it. Unfortunately, many parents forget that they have a child in the car and leave them in there to dehydrate, develop heat stroke, and die if the parent does not realize their error in time. But you say you would NEVER forget your child? That's what those parents thought too.

3. Older babies and toddlers learn how to unbuckle themselves. You can't see this if the child is rear-facing. Now please, explain to me how rear-facing is safer if my child is unbuckled and I don't know it. If your child is forward-facing, you can see the buckles in the rear-view mirror or check at red lights. I'm sorry, but I'd rather have my child face forward and be buckled in than rear-facing and possibly unbuckled.

I'm not trying to say that I think you're wrong or stupid if you go with the new recommendations. I think whatever you think is best for your family is best for your family. All I'm saying is that maybe parents like me have our reasons for going against the recommendations and we'd appreciate it if we weren't the subject of "mommy bashing." I also wanted to put this point of view out there for people on the fence about which way to face their child's car seat.