Turn around at 1 and 20 pounds or stay facing backwards

We will rear face until the girls are 45lbs or 5. Right now they are in Marathons and are close to the 35lb mark and at that point, we will move to Sunshine Radians which have 45lb rear facing limit. It is simply safer and I prefer it. When we arrived in Germany we had to rent a car and the marathons would NOT fit rear facing. I cried. We had to put them forward facing for two weeks and now that we have our car, they are rear facing again. Honestly, it's easier. They are less demanding when they can't see me I don't see any real benefits to forward facing unless space is a real issue.

 

Mine are almost 2 and close to 30lbs and still rear facing. They actually like being able to push the feet against the seat and play all kinds of games with their feet- including turning the music player on and off. I saw some crash test footage comparing forward and rear and decided to stick with rear facing as long as possible. I live in South Florida so the risk of a car accident is pretty high here. I am on the only one of my friends with kids this age who is still rear facing though.

 

The dealer did put the floor tethers in for us... Are you talking tethers or the anchors for the latch?

 

Here's a link to a video that shows crash tests and explains why rear facing is safer. Yes, it's a bit scary, and yes, it counts on the fear factor, but it still shows the facts and why rear facing is so, so much safer

Video

My twins are 38 months and still rear facing. We have a My Ride 65 and a Britax Marathon. I'm lucky my kids are light though (26 and 28lbs 2 months ago), but most people don't know that there is a length limit too... There are more and more car seats with higher rear facing limits but the shell isn't necessarily higher, which means that the kids are likely to outgrow them in length way before the weight limit... so if you have long kids I suggest looking for a seat with a bigger shell (the rule of thumb for most seats when rear facing is that the top of the child's head need to be over 1 inch from the top of the shell).

In my case we still have ways to go... DD is 38 inches now and still 3 inches from the top. DS is smaller and is even farther. I doubt we'll have to turn them forward before they're 3.5, if that... Honestly I asked them one month ago if they wanted to be turned around and they said no, we have a minivan and they can see from the back windshield now so they really don't mind at all (yes they have to bend their legs some but they don't care either).

 

Chicklet: I was talking about floor tethers. Both the middle and back seats have the hooks for the latch system but only the middle has floor tethers.

 

That's what I thought! Yes the dealer will install them for you!