rear facing/forward facing

[megs4413]

I'm sure this has been covered before, but I don't know how to use the search feature correctly so I'll just ask it again. What is the safety/reasoning behind keeping the seat rear-facing as long as possible? We have an 11 month old and I'm starting to think about when to turn her seat around. She's 23 1/2 pounds and 31 1/2" tall. We have a britax wizard so it will stay rear facing up to 33 lbs I think. I know she is pretty miserable turned around most of the time, but I want to keep her facing the rear if it's more safe. Can anyone tell me what the difference is safety wise? Should I keep her RF until she's 33 lbs? That seems like an awfully long time. TIA!

[nfowife]

http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/stayrearfacing.aspx

Make sure you watch the crash test videos!

[Kat_Mom2D_J_andRuthie]

children under 2 are 4x more likely to die or suffer spinal injury during a crash if they are facing forward

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

my daughter just had to be turned ff because of hitting the rf limit of her cosco scenera... I would really recommend keeping her rearfacing until she has to face forward because of the size limits.

Ruthie may be happy to have her marathon back, but me, I'm just wishing I could have kept her rf longer.

[Joolsplus2]

It's more likely she's miserable because she's strapped in, not because she's RF... kids that age are just desparate to use their new-found large motor skills, and she'd rather be crawling and cruising and otherwise just OUT. It's really a miserable stage, but it'll pass, and the safety benefits are just too great (imagine if she were screaming and crying at the gate to a pool...would you open the gate to make her happy? The risks of drowning are even lower than the risks of dying in a car crash. Just take lots of deep breaths and you will both get through it fine :) ).
Julie CPS Tech and mom to 3 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx