Car seats

The thread about the fave family car got me thinking about carseats. I remember when I was a kid, I was sitting in the backseat sans carseat and seatbelt (our car didn't have any) when I was 3 years old. Now, I know kids have to be substantially larger to ride w/o a carseat. What are the guidelines?

I think I saw somewhere that a child who was 80 lbs had to use a carseat??? I am a small person, and I weighed 80 when I was a freshman in high school!! My neighbor is this wildly successful attorney, who drives one of those cute Mercedes SL roadsters. She is probably 4'9", and I would guess weighs about 90 lbs (if that!). I can't imagine her zipping around town in her hot roadster sitting in a carseat

The rules vary by state and height plays a factor, too. I moved my daughter out of a carseat into a booster because she exceeded the height but not weight limit. She's 6 now and will probably be in a booster for another year and a half, depending on her height at 8 yo. I know she won't meet the weight requirement.

Times do change, huh?

[Cumberland]

I saw a segment on the today show a year ago or so about an independent study done that showed there was no appreciable difference bt children over the age of 2 sitting in a carseat vs a booster vs a seatbelt. I just tried to find it but couldnt.

[Vanquisher]

Well, regardless of what the "rules" are, and regardless of what state I am in, my children are and will be restrained in the most responsible way at all times as long as necessary.

When you know better, you do better.

My 75 lb. 4'7" 8-year-old is still in a booster seat. My daughter only recently moved to forward facing in her car seat which goes to 65 pounds and is a 5-point harness. She will not move to belt positioning booster until necessary. I kept her rear-facing well after 1 year of age.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9916868/

Two years ago, however, the American Academy of Pediatrics quietly added this wording to its guidelines: If a car safety seat accommodates children rear facing to higher weights, for optimal protection, the child should remain rear facing until reaching the maximum weight for the car safety seat, as long as the top of the head is below the top of the seat back.

There’s a growing body of evidence, however, that this lesser known guideline, which is considerably different from the well-known minimum guideline, will soon take center stage.

“In Scandinavian countries it’s common to keep children rear facing up to 3 or 4 years old and there’s some good data there that proves it’s effective,” says Chris Sherwood, a research scientist who is studying the issue at the University of Virginia Automobile Safety Laboratory. Yet, until recently, Sherwood says there was not U.S. data to prove that keeping an older child rear-facing would result in significantly less injuries.

As part of a project sponsored by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Sherwood and colleagues recently completed a study looking at the benefits of keeping children in car seats that face rear. Sherwood’s research is now undergoing the necessary stage of being published and peer reviewed but the outcomes look intriguing.

His study, presented at a recent meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics, involved 870 children under age 2 who had been in either rear-facing or forward-facing car seats at the time of an automobile accident. He found that the children in forward-facing seats were more than four times as likely to be injured in side crashes as opposed to the children in rear-facing seats. The study also found a small but not statistically significant benefit for facing rear in frontal crashes.

Alexia is just over 30 pounds (at the limit of her seat) and is 2 1/2, and I just moved her to forward facing.

[MissCrabette]

I remember a news segment mentioning that a booster seat was needed for kids 4'9" and shorter. I laughed because I'm barely a few inches past being strapped in a booster seat myself.

It gets rough though, we have a SUPER tiny 9.5 year old boy who weighs 40.5 pounds...we tease him that he will be picking his first girlfriend up and then hopping in his booster seat!