How long do you plan to rear face?

[vonfirmath]

3yrs is my comfort.

We will not buy a new seat to RF beyond 2.5

[arivecchi]

Yeah, both of my kids had crazy growth spurts until 2 and then they really slowed down.

What studies cite 4 years old? I have only heard about 3 years due to spinal development.

[Multimama]

Yeah, both of my kids had crazy growth spurts until 2 and then they really slowed down.

What studies cite 4 years old? I have only heard about 3 years due to spinal development.

It was a study that came out in Britain awhile ago. This is just the first google link I found:

http://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.b1994.full

Rear-facing until four is standard practice in Scandanavia because, well, I'm not very good at explaining the spine stuff, but everything is usually fused together the way adult spines are sometime between the ages of four and six years old. So just from an anatomy perspective it makes sense that rear-facing would have safety benefits all the way up until that time.

[elektra]

I was just having this conversation with myself this morning, and I decided that I will probably not buy any new seats for DS, even though he may hit the 35 limit soon. I plan on keeping him RF in our Radian XTSL, and then FF in his True Fit, Marathon and Safety 1st Avenue, that all have 35 pound RF limits.
I am hoping that he can last a few more months though, and get closer to age 3 before he hits 35 pounds.

[mom2binsd]

I kept both kids until they hit the 33lb limit of their MA's...they were both about 3 1/2, I was very comfortable turning them at that age and did not see the point of buying a seat to RF till 40lbs.

[emschwar]

Our son just turned 4 and he's still rfing and probably will be for a while. He's 32 lbs on a good day and his blvd goes to 40 rfing.

He is ff in dh's car though. It's a Honda civic and it was just too hard to get him in the seat rfing. He hardly ever rides in dh's car though (maybe 2x a month).

[MommyAllison]

We went to the RFing weight limits of their seats, which was 33lb for DD1 and 35lb for DS. DD1 turned FFing just shy of 3.5, and DS turned just shy of his 3rd birthday. I'm guessing DD2 will stay RFing longer since the RF limits are higher now? We'll see. It was hard for me to turn the kids around, so I'd love if she could RF longer.

[HIU8]

My kids both RF'd to the limit of their seats. We had the old style MA that RF to 33 lbs. DS made it to 3 yrs 4 months. DD made it to 2 1/2 years, BUT it was December and winter and I kept her RF until March when she reached 35 lbs (I felt it was better to remain RF that winter and had no issues with the extra 2 lbs b/c the MA's had been approved to RF to 35 lbs right before then anyway). I wished I could have RF'd DD longer but a new convertible seat was not in the budget at the time.

[essnce629]

DS1 rear-faced till he reached the limits of his seat (33lbs) at 2 1/2 and I plan to do the same with DS2, who is a string bean at 27 months and only 26lbs. He's super tall though (95 percentile) which is why I bought the TFP (super high shell, but with only 35lb rf'ing limit). I would be shocked if he outgrew the seat before the age of 3.

[TwinFoxes]

They're not even close to the weight limits, but they're 39 months. I know DH wants to turn them, but he never says anything. In all honesty, I'm ready to turn them, I'd like to see them in the RV mirror when I chat to them. But I'll probably keep them RF for a while longer.