When should I move my baby to a convertible seat?
There's one other feature of safety seats that you want to look at when you're deciding whether a child can still stay in that rear-facing safety seat or move to a convertible seat. It is an error that is particularly made with infant only safety seats. Sometimes a child is under the expected weight, but the childs' head is too close to the top of the plastic of the seat. We recommend that there is at least an inch between the top of the plastic of the safety seat when it's in the rear-facing position, and the top of the child's head. The reason for this is when a safety seat is in a frontal collision, it's allowed to rotate, forward and down. If the baby's head is to close to the top of the safety seat, as the seat rotates, the childs' head may emerge from the top of the seat which we don't want to happen. One of the beauties of the rear-facing seat is that the childs' head, which is the most important part of the childs' body, is fully enclosed and is supported during the whole crash. So with infant only seats, you want to be particularly careful about that, because that's a common way that a child outgrows that product. Then they should go onto a convertible seat in the rear-facing position and use it until the child reaches the weight, or the childs' head is within an inch of the top of the plastic of the rear-facing seat.
