Rear-facing until 2

The American Academy of Pediatrics is now officially recommending that children remain in rear-facing carseats until they are at least two years old!  As you all know, I'm sure, Everett was rear-facing until he was 2.  He would have stayed rear-facing even longer if only we hadn't developed the need to have another rear-facing seat in our car.  ;)  Because someone in the family happens to be 6'4" and apparently needs leg room (pshaw!), we cannot fit a rear-facing seat behind the driver.  So Everett got turned forward-facing January (I think...may have been late December....but he was over 2).  He was thrilled to turn around but just having him enjoying the new view in no way makes me sorry that I didn't turn him sooner.  I still feel no guilt about turning him around, especially since he is a large boy for his age.
It was amazing the difference I saw in his head/neck control between the ages of 1 and 2.  As he crept closer to 2, I noticed that he was much better at controlling his whole body, including his head/neck and that made me so happy that we didn't turn him around at 1 like doctors were approving.  Also, our carseat is approved for rear-facing up to 35 pounds.  Everett, at 27 months and large for his age, is now at 31 pounds.  So technically, he would still be ok to sit rear-facing in that seat.  It has a forward-facing limit of 65 pounds and I'm pretty sure we won't be hitting that anytime soon.  Callum will definitely stay rear-facing until he is at least two and we bought the same carseat for him.  Acutally, I think we may have bought a newer model that has a couple newer features, but....yeah.  As soon as the weather warms up a bit, we're going to switch out his bucket seat that we borrowed from a friend and put in his new seat.  I just love that darn carseat so much, I would prefer to use it than the uber portable baby type.
Anyway!  My soap box has been stood upon.  I'm done (for now).

The importance of extended rear-facing

Please check out this post on The Baby Standard.  It is so important and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in Ashland who understands that.  I did flip Everett's carseat around for about a week and then the mommy guilt got to be too much.  He didn't fight me any less about getting into the car and the weather dried up so there weren't any more muddy shoes, so I said screw it!  He's going back to rear-facing.  He didn't care one bit about the change and still fights me when I put him in the car, but sits content while we drive.  Everett's carseat has a 35 lb and 50" maximum for rear-facing, so that's what I am determined to do.