Car Seat

It used to be standard to turn kids' car seats from rear-facing to forward-facing when they turned one year old. Many people still do that, but these days the experts urge parents to leave their kids rear-facing for as long as possible, because that is a much safer way to travel in the event of an accident. We decided to leave Justin rear-facing as long as our seat would allow (manufacturers are making seats designed to stay rear-facing longer and longer these days).

He stayed rear facing for several months after turning two. Here is a picture of him facing the back, taken about two weeks before Thanksgiving, shortly before we turned the seat around (he wanted his rhinos to be in this picture, too):


When he finally started coming up against the rear-facing height restriction for his seat, we turned him around. Here he is looking cool, forward-facing, on the way back to Virginia after Thanksgiving:


And later when he fell asleep:


It was nice to feel we were keeping him as safe as possible for as long as possible. But I have to admit it is also nice to have him facing forward now, so that we can see him, talk to him, hand him things, etc. :)