by Joyce Slaton posted in Products & Prizes

If you?re confused by what kind of car seat your kid?s supposed to be in, you?re not alone. There?s a bewildering tangle of rules and regulations to follow, and no one to ask questions. No big deal, it?s only your child?s life riding on the seat, right"
One particular area of confusion that plagues a lot of parents today is when to turn toddlers forward-facing. The American Academy of Pediatrics changed its car seat recommendations in 2011: toddlers should stay rear-facing in their car seats until age 2, or until they reach the maximum height and weight for their seat.
Meanwhile, authoritative sources are starting to advocate leaving preschoolers rear-facing for a much longer time. The Car Seat Lady blog cites convincing statistics that leaving kids rear-facing is five times safer. This is the way they do things in Sweden, which has a very low rate of auto fatalities and where they leave kids rear-facing until at least age 4.
Well, since many popular seats have rear-facing weight limits of 35, 40, even 50 pounds, and the average 4-year-old is usually well under 40 pounds, shouldn?t be a problem to leave them rear-facing longer for safety, right"
Wrong. Though seats have been steadily coming out with higher weight limits over the last few years, the height limits haven?t been inching (see what I did there") up as quickly. Kids tend to out-tall the seats long before they outweigh them.
But the following crop of seat...