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Today, right before my nap (yes, I got a nap today, score one for me), I remembered some of the things I wanted to blog about.
I still probably won't remember all of them since the list came to me seconds before falling asleep. But the first thing I remembered upon awakening (well, the first thing related to the blog... I don't want you all to think I wake up thinking about blogging first. The first thing is usually "ok, which child is awake" and "will they both stay asleep long enough for me to pee") was related to carseats.
We finally flipped Penelope. At 25 1/2 months she is now forward facing.
There will be three different responses to this news:
1. What? You still had her rear-facing? That's awfully long/weird/strange/paranoid. Poor Poe, she was probably so uncomfortable. (She wasn't).
2. What? You flipped her already? Don't you know it's a million times safer to RF until the age of 27? How irresponsible!
3. Um, WTF are you talking about?
Obviously I'm exaggerating a little, but most people will be either shocked that I waited so long or they'll think that I probably should have held out for another year. Or they won't know what the hell I'm talking about.
We flipped her for one major reason... we were without a car seat for G (it was in my parent's truck across town) and we had P's forward facing only monstrosity (it's huge), so we put G in Poe's "old" RF seat and Pen got to flip around and sit in her "big girl" seat.
We were planning on making the transition soon anyway, events just happened to force that transition on Saturday.
I have read the research/seen the videos, and I know that rear facing is safer - for everyone. It's safer for adults as well. But RF was becoming rather impractical. I kept smacking Poe's head on the car trying to get her in the damn seat (she is an Amazon child and crazy-tall). She can now climb into the car herself although she can't quite put herself in the seat. This is still immensely helpful.
Her seat is still a 5 point harness and she will stay in it until she outgrows the limits. Then she'll move to a booster until she outgrows the limits, etc.
Griffin will be RF until at least 2 and we'll reevaluate then. We may keep him RF longer depending on our carseat situation, but I'm not willing to compromise on RF until 2. If he was a year old he'd technically be able to flip (the law is 20lbs AND one year) but there's NO WAY I would flip him at a year. Absolutely no way. As it is I have some reservations about flipping Penelope; but what's done is done and I think flipping her back would trigger more meltdown and tantrums than I am willing to handle.
So there you have it.
Penelope is finally facing forward.
3/22/15 at 3:58pm, 8.11 lbs, 22 inches
Memory Lane/Update
1 year ago
we're flipping Grace, too. She's within pounds of the RF limit, so I feel like we need to do it before I lose track of her weight. I'm so not happy about it, but she's obviously safer using her car seat appropriately. I'm telling myself it has the added benefit of not having to argue with the people who don't get it anymore. Since some of those people are members of my family, it's a decent bonus;)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations. :) We initially wanted to do extended rear-facing but ran into some respiratory issues brought on by NC heat, and it made it much more difficult to suction our daughter's tracheotomy with her rear facing and me driving without backup. After a lot of debate, we turned her around and it has been much easier. It still makes me nervous, but for us it was a must.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on sticking it out. :) And I hope Poe enjoys the view!!