Dr Rhodes says the gold standard is something called the five-step test to help you determine when it's the right time:. She said early transition out of a booster seat was the biggest area of concern, according to her team's research. Restraint practices outlined in the national guidelines do not cover children with a disability or other additional needs, whether these are physical, medical, or behaviours of concern.
Kidsafe recommends case-by-case assessment of these children and seat them according to Australian Standard Restraint of children with disabilities or medical conditions in motor vehicles.
According to new national guidelines released in March by Kidsafe Australia and NeuRA , there are other important recommendations to remember. The most common mistakes found by Kidsafe Queensland was people not using the tether strap correctly, with more than 50 per cent of all seats checked having them either not attached, incorrectly attached, too tight, twisted or broken. Other mistakes were the incorrect use of harnesses, seatbelts and rear-facing babies and toddlers, with seats and capsules incorrectly reclined or angled.
If in doubt, have your seat or booster regularly checked to ensure it is installed correctly and ask a professional before transitioning your child to the next restraint. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. Key points: Doctors say children should remain rear-facing for as long as possible New statistics has found 8 out of 10 car seats in Queensland are not installed properly New national guidelines around car restraints have been released this year.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 40 seconds 40 s. Are you putting your kids at risk in the car? A study says you probably are. More on:. Top Stories Celebrity cosmetic surgeon's 'barbaric' attempt to fix a tummy tuck under local anaesthetic. Live: 'I love you, Dad': Touching family tribute shared as entertainment 'master' Bert Newton farewelled.
However, many experts advise longer than this. You'll see a considerable change in your baby's development every month as they grow stronger.
The longer you can continue to strap your child into their seat rear-facing, the better. Some experts even recommend waiting until they are four years old before switching to forward-facing travel. Luckily, car seat manufacturers like Maxi-Cosi have made it possible for parents to make this choice. You can opt for an i -Size car seat that allows rearward-facing travel until your child is cm tall, or around four years old, when muscles and bones will have developed further. Choosing the right car seat for you.
At Maxi-Cosi, we have a reputation for helping new parents with our trusted, innovative designs. From our first ground-breaking, rear-facing car seat launched in , we've listened to your specific needs to develop our range continually.
From to , the recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics AAP was to keep children rear-facing until they were at least two years old, but ideally longer—until reaching the rear-facing height or weight limit for their convertible seat. The current recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics is to keep children rear-facing until they reach the maximum height or weight for their convertible seat.
One-third of states in the U. Some state laws and some convertible car seats say that kids can ride forward facing if they are at least one year old. This can easily fool a parent into thinking that it is safe for a one-year-old to ride forward facing, when the evidence is clear that one-year-olds are safer rear-facing.
Seeing "one-year-old" in print alongside "forward-facing car seat" leads many families to believe it is safe for their little one to switch to forward-facing far too young. New parents also naturally turn to their family and friends with parenting experience when it comes to car seat safety advice. If your family and friends are a few years out from having newborns and toddlers, though, it's possible, and even likely, that their car seat advice is outdated.
Age : Any age, so long as the child is within the height and weight limits for their rear-facing car seat. Weight : Depends on the car seat, but most convertible seats have rear-facing weight limits of 40 to 50 pounds. Height : Depends on the car seat, but most convertible seats have rear-facing height limits that require the child's head to be at least 1 inch below the top the child's legs touching the vehicle seat back is not an indication that they are too tall.
Car seats are designed to absorb some crash forces and spread the remaining crash forces over a larger area of the body. For adults, seat belts distribute force to the strongest parts of the body—the hips, chest bone, and collarbone. When a child is in a forward-facing seat, the head pulls forward, which puts stress on the neck. When rear-facing, the head, neck, and back all move in unison and are cradled by the shell of the rear-facing car seat. This video helps explain.
The bones running down a young child's neck and back are not yet solid bone they still have a lot of stretchy cartilage. A young child's head is also much heavier, in proportion to the body, than that of an older child or adult. So the head pulls forward with proportionately much more force on bones that are stretchier. As the bones stretch, they can force the spinal cord to stretch.
After it is stretched more than one-quarter of an inch, the spinal cord breaks. Riding in a rear-facing car seat helps reduce that risk by supporting the child's head.
The incidence of severe head and neck injuries for babies and toddlers is greatly reduced in rear-facing car seats. The additional support the rear-facing car seat provides to the head and neck reduces your child's chance of being injured or worse in a crash.
With the forward-facing child, the car seat isn't able to absorb as much of the energy, and more of it is transferred to the child—in particular to the head and neck as they pull away from the chest. The difference can be seen in a video comparing rear-facing and forward-facing car seats in a crash test. Even if your child's legs are touching the seat back , or they cry when rear-facing, you should still keep your child rear-facing until they reach the rear-facing weight or height limit of the car seat.
Most convertible car seats have rear-facing weight limits of 35 to 50 pounds, so most kids can ride rear-facing until age three to five. Some children never like sitting in a car seat, and they may cry. However, being properly restrained makes it more likely that a child will survive a crash to cry another day. Many parents worry that their child will suffer broken legs or hips in a crash because the child's legs touch the seat back or look cramped when rear-facing.
In fact, there are more leg injuries when forward-facing, as the legs fly up and the feet go into the back of the front seat. As everything moves forward, compression forces into the hip and femur can break the leg of the forward-facing child. Studies of real kids in real crashes shows that leg and hip injuries in rear-facing kids are very uncommon.
When they do happen, it is in side impacts where another vehicle hits the child right where their leg is, breaking the leg. Rear-facing kids do not get hip or leg injuries from being scrunched up.
In fact, during the instant of the crash, rear-facing kids become even more scrunched, with their legs pulling up into a cannonball position.
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