Health Highlights | Car seat safety
Parents have a lot of questions when choosing the safest car seat for their kids.
A big one is when to make the switch from rear to front facing.
There's no one-size-fits-all answer. But Cindy Hamilton, the Child Passenger Safety Program Coordinator at the OSF Children's Hospital of Illinois, has some consistent guidelines parents can follow.
First, the child should max out the height and weight for the rear-facing seat they're in, which is going to differ based on the manufacturer.
The State of Illinois requires children to be rear facing at least until they're two years old.
However, the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration recommends keeping kids rear facing until they're three.
Hamilton says if you're in a crash, the shell of the body of the rear-facing seat will absorb the shock. It protects the head, neck and spine more than when your child is front facing.
"A lot of parents might say 'well my child is uncomfortable, their legs are long, but they're still not two,' or they're low in the weight range. Our best advice is that you can heal from a leg injury. A spinal cord, neck or brain injury, maybe not. So that's a key determiner of keeping them rear facing,” Hamilton says.
When you make the switch from rear to front facing, Hamilton says to make sure your child has full control of their head and neck.