How long do infants have to be rear facing

Some information may no longer be current. But my son is 10 months old and weighs 22 pounds already. So how long should I keep him rear-facing? Kids should stay in rear-facing car seats for as long as they fit, Fuselli said. Kids should stay in rear-facing car seats for as long as they fit, an expert says. In a frontal collision, everything in the car moves forward, including the child.

In a rear-facing seat, the child is pushed into the back of the seat during a frontal crash. Rear-facing is still the safest way for children to ride, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics which recently updated their guidelines in Every transition actually reduces the amount of protection a child has in the event of a crash. P arents really shouldn't rush transitioning kids out of rear-facing seats and later, into boosters before they're ready.

A rear-facing car seat will absorb most of the crash forces and supports the head, neck and spine. When children ride forward-facing, their heads - which for toddlers are disproportionately large and heavy - are thrown forward, possibly resulting in spine and head injuries. Many car seats manufacturers have created seats that allow children to remain rear-facing until they weigh 40 to 50 pounds.

Even many infant-only seats have a higher weight limit to 35 or 40 pounds. Evidence does not support that children will suffer leg and foot injuries if their feet touch the seat. There are no known harmful effects of riding rear-facing longer, while the benefits of doing so have been observed for years.

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Enable or Disable Cookies. A young child's head is also much heavier, in proportion to the body, than that of an older child 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 one-quarter of an inch, the spinal cord breaks. Riding in a rear-facing car seat helps reduce that risk by supporting the child's head. The incidence of severe head and neck injuries for babies and toddlers is greatly reduced in rear-facing car seats.

The additional support the rear-facing car seat provides to the head and neck reduces your child's chance of being injured or worse in a crash. With the forward-facing child, the car seat isn't able to absorb as much of the energy, and more of it is transferred to the child—in particular to the head and neck as they pull away from the chest. The difference can be seen in a video comparing rear-facing and forward-facing car seats in a crash test.

Even if your child's legs are touching the seat back , or they cry when rear-facing, you should still keep your child rear-facing until they reach the rear-facing weight or height limit of the car seat. Most convertible car seats have rear-facing weight limits of 35 to 50 pounds, so most kids can ride rear-facing until age three to five. Some children never like sitting in a car seat, and they may cry. However, being properly restrained makes it more likely 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 because the child's legs touch the seat back or look cramped when rear-facing.

In fact, there are more leg injuries when forward-facing, as the legs fly up and the feet go into the back of the front seat. As everything moves forward, compression forces into the hip and femur can break the leg of the forward-facing child. Studies of real kids in real crashes shows that leg and hip injuries in rear-facing kids are very uncommon.

When they do happen, it is in side impacts where another vehicle hits the child right where their leg is, breaking the leg. Rear-facing kids do not get hip or leg injuries from being scrunched up. In fact, during the instant of the crash, rear-facing kids become even more scrunched, with their legs pulling up into a cannonball position. This is not a cause of injury. Kids often fuss because they are strapped in, not because they are rear-facing. To reduce fussiness in a rear-facing child:.

When babies turn one, many parents think about moving past the infant car seat with the carrier handle. There are lots of options if you need a new car seat for a one-year-old! Remember, advocates recommend that toddlers and preschoolers ride rear-facing until reaching the maximum weight or height for rear-facing in their convertible car seat, which for most kids is between three and five years of age.

So you'll want to find a car seat that can work both rear-facing and forward-facing. Look for a convertible car seat with a high rear-facing weight limit and tall shell, and then use it rear-facing as long as possible.