Should I switch to front facing auto chair?

@david3r1 Extended rearfacing is generally accepted as the safest practice. It is the recommendation of the AAP. It is certainly not harmful to children and may confer some additional safety benefits. We choose to rear face longer term even though cars are pretty safe on the whole because the costs are low (discomfort) but the potential benefit is high (potential additional protection in a crash).

However, in the interest of science, it’s worth noting that there is honestly not a suite of evidence behind this recommendation in comparison to other safety recommendations that are strongly endorsed - the case for extended rear facing is primarily based on:
  • A paper that came out in 2007 (Henary et al) that found statistically significant evidence that children ages 0-23months had fewer injuries rearfacing. This paper was called into question and then retracted by the journal in 2016 after independent statisticians could not replicate the findings.
  • A paper in BMJ found children rear facing had lower injury rates (but the sample size was too small to find statistical significance). Similarly, in 2017, a paper found lower rates of accidents in kids ages 0 and 1 but not a large enough sample to reach statistics significance.
  • Swedish data (based on a mix of Volvo safety testing and government and Volvo-specific accident data) which found that crash test dummies benefited from extended rear facing and rearfacing seats outperformed belt positioning boosters when it came to reducing injuries (forward facing car seats are uncommon in Sweden). No other country/market has published data on this but Sweden is generally recognized as a country at the forefront of car seat safety.
  • Logic. Based on what we know about how bones (specifically your spine) fuses, about the relative prevalence of accidents between frontal, rear and side impact and the relatively low “cost” (time, discomfort) of rearfacing, we err on the side of caution and recommend extended rearfacing.
ETA: to be intellectually honest, there is also evidence that car seats don’t confer death-reduction benefits after age 2. Stephen Levitt of Freakonomics fame published in 2005 a study that looked at NHTSA data and found no reduction in fatalities due to car seats compared to seat belts alone. That study was both replicated by different researchers and its conclusions were affirmed after looking at 6 additional years of data in 2014.

These studies looked primarily at fatalities, not all injuries (the original piece did have some injury-related conclusions) and other studies have found reductions in injuries by up to 80%, however, these studies generally haven’t articulated an additional benefit specifically due to rear facing position.

For me personally, the case above on rear facing is credible enough that it’s worth it to stay in a car seat and stay rearfacing.
 
@david3r1 I would also add review local regulations. My US state has enacted a law that requires rear facing to age 2 based on some of the above data. Decision made easy for us.
 
@david3r1 No! Do not switch. My 2 year old is very tall with long legs. She’s still rear facing and I plan to keep her that way for a long time.

Her pediatrician said to keep them rear facing as long as possible to protect from potential head trauma. The thought of being in an accident and anything happening to your child is terrifying, but you would rather their legs break than something happen to their head.
 
@david3r1 As other already stated based on the picture the child is not correctly restrained. Also the buckle resting directly on the groin could cause a lot of crush damage in case of accident
 
@david3r1 Rear facing is safer, regardless of where his legs fall, especially before the age of 2, but also make sure he still fits the criteria for your specific car seat to be rear facing. Your seat’s manual should have that information. In the photo, his head looks close to the top of that seat, which could mean he’s outgrown this specific seat, so definitely check that before starting your long drive. You should still be able to get a larger rear-facing seat or maybe even a convertible seat (can be installed rear- or front-facing depending on your child’s size, so it lasts longer) for maximum safety.

And a little unrelated: I’m assuming you put this up as a “fit pic” rather than an example of how he’s usually buckled in, but just in case: make sure you’re tightening the straps enough and positioning the buckle and straps according to your manual. You’re clearly in a different country from me, with different style harnesses, but those straps look very loose to me and like they wouldn’t be very protective in their current state.
 
@brenda This is the standard for car seats in Europe, they don’t use a chest clip. We lived in France and traveled with rental car seats in other European counties and they all look like this.
 
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