SwagBucks

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Rear-Facing Car Seat

String Bean had her 15 month check up at the pediatrician's office today. It is always an adventure since she has had a weight problem for most of her life. The moment of truth came and String Bean weighted in at a whopping 17 pounds 7 ounces. For those of you wondering what percentile that is, it is the 0.42 percentile. At her 12 month appointment, she weighed about a pound less. In 3 months, she put on about a pound.

The law in Illinois is your child must be 20 pounds and 12 months old to turn the car seat from rear-facing to front-facing. Of course, String Bean grew out of her infant car seat because she surpassed the recommended length for that seat. Since she was still under the magic 20 pounds, we had to get a convertible car seat (it "grows" with your child; a newborn can be put into a convertible seat). The specifications for this seat say your child has to be 24 pounds before you can convert it to front-facing.

24 - 17.5 = 5.5 pounds. If it takes String Bean 3 months to gain 1 pound, we are looking at 16 or 17 months until she weighs the magic 24 pounds. That puts us to just after her third birthday. Unreal.

Does anyone know if there is a maximum length/height for rear-facing?! If there is, we are likely to hit that milestone first!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aren't both Peanut and Cashew still rear facing? I could have sworn that I saw both their car seats still facing the rear.

Anonymous said...

Did you ask your doctor about the car seat? I would think that beyond a certain height, you would have worries about your child hitting their face on their knee and breaking their nose or something.
My 18 month old is a big 'un; I would find an expert to ask! :)
I'm sure there are exceptions. For example my mother in law is 65 but less than 5 feet tall and under 100 pounds, but doesn't have to use a booster seat.

Anonymous said...

Peanut and Cashew were both just switched to front facing.

Rear facing is safer as long as the top of their ears are below the top of the seat back. Some people say that if they can touch the car's seat back then they should be turned around, but that's simply a result of the fact that by the time they're tall enough to touch, they usually weigh enough to turn.

Anyway, it's nothing to worry about.