Because all newer cars have passenger-side airbags, you're not supposed to put kids in the front passenger seat until they are 12 years old and five feet tall.

Also, I think you're in the minority for still having to use locking clips. Again, most newer cars have auto-locking seatbelts (pull them all the way out, and they lock as they retract; to unlock you have to let them go all the way back in), so no clips required. My car's only a year newer than yours, and it has this feature.

The three carseats I put in my mom's Infiniti (which also has the auto-locking belts) included a Britax Roundabout in the middle, and two convertible high-back booster seats on the sides. Three high-back boosters might not work as well, since they're all wide at the same point. I may get a chance to try this out in the next few days; I'll let you know (I'm sure you'll be waiting with bated breath).

tm

I have successfully crammed a rear-facing Britax Roundabout (fastened with LATCH), a rear-facing infant carrier of indeterminate brand and origin (fastened with seatbelt), and a Jupiter Komfort Kruiser Booster across the rear bench of a 2004 Passat. The booster seat took the brunt of it and frankly its occupant was crammed closer to the side curtain airbags than I would have liked. Not a long-term or everyday thing.

This is why I think three kids in carseats is where you give up on being a MILF or DILF and get yourself an Odyssey or Sienna.

Rear/Front facing
 

Is it a safety issue with going from rear facing to front facing at 12 mo/20 lbs? Or just that most kids are too big at that point to rear face b/c their feet will dangle across the back windshield? I had my Brittax Marathon installed rear-facing a while back nice and secure by the local county police department (they are awesome) and I didn't want to change this secure set-up until I had reason to (and time to sit for 2 hours in the long line of cars on the day they are open). So up until last week, my almost 3 year old (23 pounds) stayed in her rear facing. She is so impossibly short (she is finally wearing clothes for a 12 month old when she's almost 3) that her foot position was fine in the rear facing and she seemed to sleep nicely like that. Then a friend told me how awful it was that Babe wasn't facing front like all the other kids her age. So I did the police thing again and changed it to front facing. Now she knows what's going on and wants to drive the damn car. But anyhow, is there a safety disadvantage to keeping them rear facing?

Oh, and "kiddie beds": her small size means she is still in the crib, which she loves. What do I wait for to make the change? She is potty-trained except for at night. If she is in a real bed will she get up to go potty during the night? I'm hesitant to ditch the crib. I love knowing she's my little prisoner in there and not wandering around, possibly down to the basement, climbing the "bad stuff" shelf and guzzling the liquid drano. Or WORSE YET, coming over to my bedroom and waking me up.

Vietmom

Rear/Front facing
 

Probably the latter. If you hit something at 45 mph it's better to distribute the force along her entire back than have her head thrown forward and the restraints holding her in. Of course, this says nothing about what kind of shape you'll be in. I'd bet NHTSA would have us all rear-facing if they could swing this from an engineering perspective. At some point I remember reading about a push to put all airline seats rear-facing for this reason, but then they realized that there really aren't enough survivable crashes to make this worthwhile anymore. A pilot friend told me there hasn't been a "water landing" that left the fuselage intact since the dawn of the jet age. Feel free to ignore the flight attendants when they give those instructions.

The nice thing about having the kid forward-facing is that you can interact with them. Point out buses and such, and then sing context appropriate songs, like "The Wheels on the Bus." On second thought, rear-facing sounds real good.

I think you're extraordinary for having a 3yo who isn't climbing. You'll know when you need to go bed shopping.

My 4yo cries for us in the middle of the night when he needs to go potty. If, on the other hand, he wakes up and it's light out, he can get up and go by himself. This has been the case since shortly after turning 3. Once he figures out the Tivo, we'll pretty much be irrelevant to his life until 10 am or so.

a little boy with a man crush
 

L'il Ty has fallen in with the wrong crowd at pre-school, and was busted yesterday by the teachers for mocking a substitute teacher, laughing at her when she told him to stop, and then having a potty mouth. There were four of them in this little posse, but the ringleader (I think) is the object of his man-crush, a boy whom I'll call Jake. LT thinks Jake hung the moon. When he gets to pre-school, he needs to see what Jake is doing. In the evening, he tells us what Jake did and said. He caught a spider the other day and named it Jake. LT isn't the sort of kid to think of harassing a teacher, but if Jake started it, he would giggle and go along.

So how do we deal with this scary little friend? Just wait for him to graduate and go to kindergarten? Have them go rock-climbing together?

a little boy with a man crush
 

Beat up and humiliate Jake's father in front of Jake and LT. Then send them an ice cream cake.

I am the best dad on EARTH.

Rear/Front facing
 

Because I'm in the 95% of drivers who feel he's above average, I've never fully understood this. What if I get rear-ended? In that case, forward-facing is better. Now, probably most rear-enders are 5-10mph collisions, whereas head-ons are 30-50mph collisions. But given the lunacy and inattentiveness of other drivers, I figure my chances of the former are much greater than my chances of the latter.

a little boy with a man crush
 

Slowly remove each of the spider's legs and then squish it, showing what happens to bad little boys?

Heck, we're going through the same thing. I don't know if the socioecon/ethnic thing has anything to do with it, but we switched very reluctantly from a Kindercare that was way too far away from our new house - it was mostly African American, with some Latino kids and a few Asian-Am's and I loved that place dearly and cried like a baby when we left. This new one is close to home, safe and she likes it but it's mostly white and after her first day there, she came home to tell me (when I refused her something) "You're NOT my FRIEND". The culprit is "Emily" who is snotty, mean, and not just Vegetarian but "Vegan" (there are 4 other Vegetarians there!). I guess I'll have to beat up and humiliate Emily's Vegan mother too (which will be easy with all the iron in my blood). I'm eating the ice cream cake though. Good luck and keep us up to date on how the man-crush developes. Oh...um. You know what I mean.

VM

Rear/Front facing
 

FWIW, I am "famous" in my family for deciding when I was potty trained. I climbed out of my crib, took off my diaper, used the toilet and returned to my crib without waking up my parents. I don't know how old I was but my first bed came sometime after this event. (For some reason, I vividly remember picking out the bed and then it being delivered. I also remember lying in my crib for my nap, looking longingly at the new bed. My sitter wanted to wait until my parents were home for me to start sleeping in it.)

Rear/Front facing
 

I have heard this is the best solution. Put the real bed in the room, and wait for the child to want it. Let them get in it when they want. THat is, unless you've had to install 6" foam padding all around the crib already.

Rear/Front facing
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by viet_mom


Oh, and "kiddie beds": her small size means she is still in the crib, which she loves. What do I wait for to make the change? She is potty-trained except for at night. If she is in a real bed will she get up to go potty during the night? I'm hesitant to ditch the crib. I love knowing she's my little prisoner in there and not wandering around, possibly down to the basement, climbing the "bad stuff" shelf and guzzling the liquid drano. Or WORSE YET, coming over to my bedroom and waking me up.

Vietmom
__________________________________

Most toddler beds are the same size as cribs so she would esentially be in the same bed just without the side bars. When DS moved into his tb, we kept the same mattress and moved DD into the crib. This crib is a convertible, so DD will use it as her tb, but she isn’t ready yet – we tried to convert and she started wandering. Unlike yours, my kids are amazons so she can already reach the door knob and turn it to get out of her room….. Anyway, with DS it took him about 2 weeks of getting up and being walked back to bed before he stopped getting up at night…. We are going to try again with DD this summer, when Daddy can walk her back to bed all night. But from what I hear – it usually takes kids a few weeks to get it down, you just have to keep walking them back. DON’T let her get in the bed with you or you’ll be kicking her out at 12……

ml

Rear/Front facing
 

Now why would you post information like this here, and not on the FB???

Rear/Front facing
 

There are also, as with everything, various age-appropriate books about children getting their first bed. Start these in the night-night rotation these before any new bed arrives. If your child is a member of the Cult of Elmo, I recommend "Big Enough for a Bed." Deals with the issue that everything else about bedtime remains the same as before, because the kid may be afraid that moving to a bed is a harbinger of other unwelcome changes. Elmo assures them that it is not. Elmo loves his big bed!

The non-Elmo book about getting potty trained is disturbingly frank. (I think it was written by an Israeli woman (NTTAWWT -- I say this only for identification purposes because I can't remember the name)). I can't read it without feeling faintly nauseated, and I manage to deal with the real thing without much difficulty. (Hi, paigow!)

a little boy with a man crush
 

When you see the substitute teacher, ask her how she managed to get into early childhood education being such a big pussy.

Rear/Front facing
 

Before 12 months their little necks aren't strong enough to withstand any sort of collision, so this allegedly keeps their necks from snapping. There is no disadvantage to keeping them that way. The Lexling (33+" and 31lbs) is still rear-facing because I haven't gotten around to changing it.

In our case, kid #2, but that probably won't work for you. Based on his climbing abilities elsewhere and his height, the Lexling can get out, he just doesn't know he can and why would he - he loves his cage. He is going to have to get the boot to a big boy bed between 18 and 20months (#2 arrives at 19mos and the bassinet gives us a few more months leeway). I am NOT buying another crib. We have a toddler bed - low to the ground and fits a crib mattress, but I am loathe to begin using it since he is so young. I am contemplating putting one of those little hook and eye things on the outside of his bedroom doors to keep him in (he can't use a doorknob yet, but it's only a matter of time). My mom used one for my little brother and it was perfect - and you can't lose the key. Anyway - I plan to put the crib and the made up toddler bed into his new room, devoid of anything he could pull on himself or otherwise injure himself with (bookcase, Drano, etc.) and get him used to the room for a week or two before moving him into the toddler bed.

Buy a toddler bed and set it up - if she likes it, she'll let you know. Cool new sheets or a new blankie with her favorite thing on it may speed the process. If she shows no interest, wait until she does, but since you have no time crunch, there's no need to rush it, though before HS graduation would probably be good.