When you are a parent, it seems like you are constantly faced with tough decisions. You are called upon to make weighty decisions that have no clear right answer, and without any good, concrete evidence on which to make your decision. That’s why I like to talk about some of these things periodically on the blog. There really is no right answer, but at least someone out there might be able to read about how and why we did certain things, and maybe that will help them come to a decision of their own. Or maybe at least help them feel a little more secure in their decision, knowing someone else out there agrees with them. Or, barring all else, learn from our mistakes!

So, one such decision we made was to keep Evie sitting facing backwards in her car seat for as long as possible. Always when people see her sitting backwards, they’re always like, “Oh. She still sits backwards?” Even people without kids sometimes. So obviously it is something that people notice, and that stands out as odd.

Really, the root of this decision comes from this horrific video that Sara made me watch, about how much safer it is during a crash for kids to face backwards in their seats.

It is quite clear when watching the video, and watching the poor little crash dummy babies, that the seats really are designed to absorb shock better when facing backwards. And the seat itself has recommendations about how much a child should weigh before you turn the seat around.

So, if it is safer to face backwards, why is there such a push to have the kids face forwards?

I think the main reason that parents tend to assume kids want what they want. So they can imagine they would want to face forward, and that the kids would also want to face forward. Well, this is true to a point; kids do enjoy being able to see forward, or at least Evie does. But at the same time, until we turned her around, she had never experienced it any other way besides backwards. So she didn’t know what she was missing.

Also, it is easier to deal with her in the car when she is facing forwards. You can hand her things a lot easier. But at the same time, if backwards is safer, is it really worth a little added convenience? And we certainly managed to hand her things when she was backwards, and it wasn’t that inconvenient.

All that being said, it is so nice now that she is facing forwards! We saved it as long as we could, and then switched her around on the trip back from Pittsburgh, on the brilliant idea that it would help a long trip pass quicker. Evie really enjoys being able to see what’s in front of her. She always asks what street we are on (I think she knows the neighborhood better than I do!) and she still has not gotten over pointing things out that are on the road in front of us.

Probably the thing I notice the most is the ability to point things out to her. Previously we would say, “Hey, there’s a dog! Wait…coming up on your left…did you see it? No? Well, it went by really fast.” But now, she can see what we can see.

So, to us, the decision firmly came down on the side of leaving her facing backwards as long as possible. However, facing forwards really was worth the wait.