Turning Baby Around To See The World

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Turning Baby Around To See The World

March 30th, 2008 by Mommie

As we neared our Spring Break vacation, we knew we had a long drive ahead of us. My husband wanted our son to be turned around in his car seat, facing forward, so he could be more entertained during the trip. I was dead set on listening to the two major things that had been drilled into my mind, 1)the have to be a year old and 2)they must be over 20 lbs. Our son is 11 mo old and is about 21 lbs. So what do you think we ended up doing?

Being the type of mom I am, I called the pediatrician. I knew that she would side with me and say “no way, your son must be a year old you crazy bad mom”. I was sure I’d win this one with my husband. Um, I was wrong. She came back and said that he’s over 11 mo, and well over 20 lbs, so he should be fine.

While I still wasn’t comfortable with that. I pulled out the manual for his car seat, as I wanted to see if we could just turn it around, or if he needed a big boy car seat. As I flipped through the manual I was floored to find out that his car seat was only for infants up to 22 lbs. My son is pretty much that, so we were on the edge of an unsafe car seat and WE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT. That was scary to me.

We were lucky to have a car seat that went from 20 lbs to like 55 lbs, an extra one of our daughters that we bought last year. That’s now his seat.

Couple of things to take away from this are:
1)Always call your pediatrician, she has a medical degree, I have an MBA, she trumps me on kids.
2)Check on the weight requirements of car seats and toys for babies
3)Keep your baby facing the rear as long as you can, it’s safer in the long run.
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One Response

Theda K. writes:
March 31st, 2008 at 10:06 am

Wow, I’m surprised at your pediatrician’s answer. I always heard that the reason for the age/weight requirement had more to do with muscle strength and formation of bone structure in the neck. So, like you said, it’s safer to keep them rear facing for as long as possible. Even children over 1 year have poorly formed bone structure in their necks, so a severe accident can cause internal separation. Scary stuff.

I wound up keeping my daughter rear-facing until she was too tall (using a carseat that was for children over 20 pounds, of course). I think she was about 1.5 when I finally switched her. I forget exactly, but everyone else I knew had switched long before we did.

My pediatrician also suggested I give my daughter formula when she was just 5 days old, and that I should give her iron pills as an infant since I was breastfeeding. Ludicrous! Pediatricians use their own biases sometimes.

Good luck with whatever you decide, and at least your investigation helped you find out about the weight problem for your car seat.

Theda K.