Baby convertible car seat is tilting too much?

I have the seat rear facing and when i put my son in it he seems to cry alot and when he falls asleep his head ends up hanging towards the front. Is it possible that the car seat is sitting upright too much that it’s making his head tilt forward? I placed it according to the manufactures manual and it seems to be siting properly in the car. What can i do ? by the way my baby is 22 lbs. 28in 1/2, 5 1/2 months.

It definitely does sound as if the seat is too upright. Babies require a strict 45 degree recline until they are old enough to sit up and have good head control. Average is about 6 months, but some will need the 45 degrees a little longer than that. Even once they’re sitting up w/good head control, they need the seat reclined 30-45 degrees as long as they are rear facing, which should be as long as he fits in a rear facing convertible. A rear facing covnertible is outgrown when:
1)the weight limit is reached 30-35lbs on current models
OR
2)there is less than 1″ of seat above his head

To check the angle of the seat, hold a piece of paper horizontally with your car on level ground, and eyeball the recline angle of the seat. Remember that 45 degrees is half a right angle, other words, half the corner of a square. 30 degrees would be a little less than that. Check the car seat manual and see if it allows the use of a pool noodle to help get a better recline. Most do. You put up to 3 pool noodles (taped together to form a triangle of noodles, but most seats only require 1) in the crack of your vehicle seats, and place front of the base of the child seat on the noodle to help lean it back more. If the seat has an aftermarket infant head rest in it, take it out.
You can use a rolled up receiving blanket, one on each side of his head, if he needs more help. OH! Is he in an infant carrier seat or a rear facing convertible seat? If he’s in an infant carrier, he needs a new seat ASAP – the weight limit on most is 22lbs. Only the Graco Safeseat and Chicco Keyfit30 hold to 30lbs. All others go to 22lbs.

At 5 1/2 months, he should in the next few months be able to have the seat slightly more upright. But will need to be rear facing for a long time yet. The old 20lbs/1 year rule is just that. OLD. It came about in the 1980′s when our seats were only capable of rear facing to 20lbs and we didn’t know any better. Now we definitely know better and all current convertible seats rear face to at least 30lbs, but its hard getting people to realize this.
Turning kids forward at 20lbs/1year is an outdated practice that could cost you your child’s life!
1)A forward-facing child under 2 years old is 5 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a crash than a rear-facing child of the same age.
2)A child’s vertabrae do not fully fuse until 3-6 years old, before then, she is at great risk for internal decapitation. The spinal column can stretch up to 2 inches in a crash BUT the spinal cord can only stretch up to 1/4 inch before it snaps and baby is gone.
3)Current research suggests that children under the age of two years are 75 percent less likely to die or be seriously injured when they are riding rear facing.
4)In a recent article from Injury Prevention, it was found that the odds of severe injury to forward facing children age 12-23 months old was 5.32 times higher than a rear facing child. (Car Safety Seats For Children: Rear Facing For Best Protection; Injury Prevention 2007; 13:398-402.)

It works this way: when you get in an accident and run into something, the car stop suddently, but everything and everyone in the car keeps moving in the direction the car was moving when it stopped, in most accidents, this is forward. So in an accident with a child in a forward facing seat, his head, the heaviest part of the body on babies and toddlers, flies forward very forcefully and easily snaps. If that same child is in a rear facing seat, his head tries to fly forward but is supported by the back of the rear facing seat, so there is no stress put on the child’s neck and spine.

Check out this Photo Album exclusively of rear facing kids, many of them much older than 12 months: http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/rfalbum… There isn’t a single documented case of a child breaking their legs b/c they were rear facing in an accident. There are, however, lots of cases where children have been killed and seriously injured where a rear facing seat would have protected them better. And most kids actually prefer to be rear facing b/c they can rest their feet on the vehicle seat back. When they are forward facing, their legs don’t receive enough support and will frequently fall asleep.

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