The universal instruction drilled into parents’ heads in the US these days is “Don’t turn your child forward-facing until he is both 1 year and 20 lbs.”
Where does the 20 lbs benchmark come from? How much precision does it really have? Is there any real reason I shouldn’t turn my 19-lb 19-month-old child forward-facing?*
*Yes, I know there are many people who urge you to keep your child rearfacing as long as possible (as in up to age 3), I’m just talking about the “1 year/20 lbs” absolute minimum.
Of course it isn’t a simple switch where it goes from bad to Ok. They had to set some cutoffs to give people a clear guidleline. The 20 lb. minimum is put there so that preemies and kids with developmental disorders don’t get turned around at one year old even though they may be as small and fragile as a much younger normal baby.
Well, you say “of course”, but I sure am getting a lot of flak (spelling?) about wanting to turn my 19-pounder. At ValleyGirl’s 18-month appointment, when she weighed 18 pounds, her pediatrician said I couldn’t turn her yet. (For the record, she was full term and normal weight at birth and has no developmental disabilities.)
I guess I’d like to know how they chose 20 pounds. My WAG was that it had something to do with head-to-body weight ratio.
Our daughter was also 18lbs at 1 year but her twin brother was 24lbs and we left them in the baby seats until we got the new 5-point harness toddler seats. I think the 2 types of seats had a weight overlap so we could move them both at the same time. It didn’t really make a difference at that point as they didn’t make any fuss over which seat they got.
Now that they are 4 we have the same problem. The toddler seats are only for toddlers and you have to graduate them out of those seats. Our son is big enough for the booster, but our daughter is still too light. The cutoff is 40lbs and she is currently about 32lbs. She’s tall enough and strong enough to sit in the booster, but her weight is not there yet. And now we have the added difficulty of her wanting to sit in the booster like her brother. I am sorely tempted to give her the booster but the damn warnings keep me frightened.
What are the reasons for the weight restrictions? Why would there be a difference to the way the restraint system works based on the weight?
One of the safety video we have at work (Volvo Cars) mentions that a baby’s head is a much larger portion of their total body weight than an adults. This coupled with the fact that they are no where near as strong as an adult, means that they need a rearward facing seat until they get to a certain development level. This allows the neck to get strong enough to support the head in an accident. The point that it has been determined to be strong enough is 20 lbs. (aand 40 for a booster).
Can some kids have a strong enough neck at 19 lbs? Probably. But how do you know if your kid is strong enough? You doctor might give you an indication, but with my kids I erred on the side of caution. (My son rode home from the hospital in a car seat 26 years ago, the nurse was shocked that we were not going to hold our baby on the ride home :eek: five years later, his sister was not allowed out of the hospital unless we had a car seat. Things change.)
As far as the booster seat issue goes, the reason for a booster is that when a child outgrows the baby seat, they are still too short for an adult seat belt (the belt tends to run across their nose, not their shoulder) The booster does two things
It brings the child up so that the shoulder portion of the belt goes across the shoulder
It places the lap portion of the belt across the childs hips, no across their stomach. The hips are the strongest part of their little bodies. In the event of an accident their hip take the loading of the belt, not their internal organs. Trust me this is a good thing.
My personal opinion is that moving from a child’s seat to a booster is more of a size rather than a weight issue, as at some point the kid is just too big to buckle into the child’s seat. This is MHO, and worth exactly what you paid for it. Before you take any internet advice don’t forget it is your child, and you have to live with which ever decision you make. Again you might want to discuss this with your child’s doctor.
The reality is, it’s best to leave your kids rear-facing for as long as possible, even though many parents are eager to turn them around the first moment the child hits both milestones.
I’ve never found a clear answer as to the 20 lbs being the second criteria (I’ve lately seen it expanded to 20-22 lbs).
The “strong neck” thing sounds like muscle control, but the real issue is the neck bones and ligaments, and what can happen to the spinal cord of infants in a crash. As I understand it, 12 months seems to be the age at which these are developed enough so there is less risk of severe trauma to the spinal cord. But I’m still looking for information about why 20 lbs, too. I had a runty kid, so this was of interest to us, but I didn’t mind keeping him rear-facing.
Sorry for disappearing – virus season hit the Valley.
surrotobeinMD and others, I appreciate the message that it is best to stay rear-facing as long as possible (as I alluded to in my OP footnote). For the purposes of this thread though, I’m just trying to find out the studies/rationale behind the 20 lb “rule”. I will point out that my daughter, rear-facing at nearly 2 years old, is already probably way on the upper end of the bell curve of rear-facing kids in the US.
I have read similar things about development, but as Cranky detailed, I’d heard that it was spinal cord development which was age-related, not weight-related. Your info on head to total body weight ratio corresponds nicely with my WAG, though.
My WAG (two in one thread!) about the 22 lb mark is that it is derived from metric countries, where 10 kg would be a nice round number, just like 20 lbs is in the US.
Cranky, were you as surprised as I am at how hard it is to figure out where this 20 lb figure came from (ex: a post-crash study, a neurologist’s back-of-the-envelope calculation, an AAP committee, some entry-level engineer at NHTSA)? I thought I’d find it out via Google in minutes.
If the child is so long that her feet are smooshed against the back of the seat, and/or her shoulders extend more than one inch past the slot for the belts, it’s time to turn her around, regardless of age and weight. If her shoulders are that high up, the belts will not hold her securely in the event of an accident, since they are more likely to slide over the child’s shoulders. Assuming that your child is normal developmentally, and has good head and neck control, 19 pounds and nearly 2yo seems like a reasonable time to turn her around to me.
I should add that I am very conservative about the use of car seats. Our (now 14yo) daughter was close to average size as she was growing up, and pretty much hit both weight and age goals for different levels of car seats at about the same time. I did, however, turn her around when she was 1 year old, and weighed just shy of 19 pounds, because she was walking well at that point, and because she was getting too tall to be confortable with her feet jammed against the back of the seat. She still seems to small to be safe in the front seat to me, but I do let her ride there because she’s probably the same size now that she will be when she learns to drive in a couple of years, and she has to sit in the front seat for that. :eek:
Our son is 10yo now, but he is extremely small for his age, and has muscle problems. He rode backwards until he was nearly 2 years old–partly because of his size, but mainly because he still couldn’t walk well at that point because of reduced muscle tone. He rode in a five-point toddler seat until last year, when he finally hit 40 pounds and his shoulders were more than one inch above the highest setting of the straps. He still rides in a booster seat, and I don’t plan to have him give that up until he’s in high school, at the rate he’s (not) growing. :dubious:
If the kid is secured, statistically, the risk of putting her in the booster at that age is slight. Granted, there is some risk - and I don’t have access to numbers at the moment to quantify the precise risk - but judging by articles I’ve read about the subject, the potential gain in safety from keeping them in a toddler seat is not large.
Just bumping my own thread to let you guys know (if anyone cares) that I got an answer from another website. :eek:
According to several Child Passenger Safety techs, the reason for the 20 pounds is not for anything related to the child, but related to the design of the seats. They used to say 20 pounds so the child would not go over the weight limit of the old rear-facing seats, which were designed to only go that high (now you can get ones that will go much higher). Seats were not convertible, and the forward-facing ones were not designed or tested to fit a small child under 20 lbs. It is not clear to me what weight dummies are now used for testing forward-facing seats; I’m WAGing they probably still don’t test under 20 lbs. However, as modern convertible seats have harnesses designed to fit tiny babies, based on all my searching I don’t see any compelling reason to choose 20 lbs as a turning point. Basically, 20 lbs seems to be an engineering factor, not a biological factor.
I can report that my niece by marriage has only recently (the past four years) gotten out of her last child seat. She is around 12 years old now. My daughter on the other hand raced through her seats because she was so big (you can’t keep them in a seat once they are heavy enough and get too tall, no matter how old). She is now in her final seat and may jump right over a booster if she keep going at this rate.
I have always understood that they give the weight limit to gauge body development (strength, bone development). Your pediatrician can tell you more, I just always felt it’s better to err on the side of caution on this one.
I’ve been pondering this exact issue myself. My 15 m/o is about 19 lbs. I WANT to turn him around and will probably do so this weekend. It’s such a pain to install the seats that you have to allow for an hour or so :smack: !
My reason for wanting to turn him is this: I think it’s more fun for the kid if they can look forward instead of just looking at the seat back. I couldn’t wait to turn my first one around (I did, though) just for the “funness” of being able to see where we’re going.
We turned the seat around because of height, not weight or age. She was a tall, thin baby and not only were the strap slots lower than her shoulders, but the straps tended to fall to either side of her shoulders, pinning her arms a bit and not doing much to restrain her. We just move up to the second kind of forward facing seat because she is too tall for her old seat but she is still well in the weight range of it.
It is not just the funness. Children are less likely to get carsick facing forward. Also, it is easier to keep and eye on them and communicate with them in the mirror. The one who rides shot gun can play peek a boo or if needed frown sternly to convey disapproval. Both are surprisingly effective.