In order to decide when your child should face forward in the car, you should take into consideration their weight and height, not their age, according to new car seat guidelines issued by The American Academy of Pediatrics.
What are the pediatricians suggesting?
The pediatricians’ advice parents that they should keep their babies rear-facing until they reach the maximum weight and height allowed by the manufacturer of car seats. They have changed the previous recommendations.
Taking into consideration the drastic change in recommendations, even a child turn two, they might need to keep facing the rear of their car. The decisions were made based on research on children car safety.
Below you can see a list of what children parents should take into consideration when they want to change their children’s car seats:
Children will ride in car safety seat that faces the rear as long as possible taking into account the limits introduces by their car safety seat. According to this rule, most children under the age of four and all children under the age of two will be facing the rear of the car while seated.
After the children were turned around, they will remain seated in a car safety seat which faces forward until they exceed the seat’s length and weight limits. Most seats have a limit of up to 60 pounds or more.
After exceeding these limits, child passengers will ride in a booster that positions the belt all until they can use a seat belt that fits correctly.
After exceeding the booster limits and being large enough to use the vehicle seat belt alone, they must always use a lap and shoulder belt.
For optimal protection, all children under the age of 13 must be restrained in the rear seats of vehicles.
As our second lead editor, Anna C. Mackinno provides guidance on the stories Great Lakes Ledger reporters cover. She has been instrumental in making sure the content on the site is clear and accurate for our readers. If you see a particularly clever title, you can likely thank Anna. Anna received a BA and and MA from Fordham University.