We've decided to keep our little one in rear facing for as long as possible.

We bought a BeSafe IZI Combo (ISOFIX one - very easy to fit) from some very helpful folks at the InCarSafety centre near Milton Keynes. A bit of a trek for us, but worth it as their service was excellent.

The fitting of these can be a little unpredictable. For instance, we have two cars at the minute, a Zafira and an Avensis. You might expect that the big rear facing seat (and they (mostly) are big too) would be an easy fit in the Zafira but not in the Avensis.

Truth is, in the Zafira we have to have the front passenger seat as far forward as it will go and in the Avensis the front seat stays in roughly the normal position - i.e. still plenty of legroom there at the front.

In the Zafira this is just about acceptable for us, as Mrs OB is quite short and I don't tend to be a passenger in the Zafira for longer journeys. The Avensis works fine with this seat and it's no trouble at all, except for maybe affecting rear quarter vision slightly on that side.

I would say that if you are thinking about buying another car, to ensure a rear facing seat works there's a couple of issues to ponder:

• Leg room in the rear dicates how far foward the front passenger seat will have to be. Mid-size MPVs actually have deceptively poor leg room, that's how they fit three rows of seats in! Tradtional family estates (e.g. Laguna maybe?) will often be much better in this regard. No idea on the Berlingo, but they don't look very long to me?
• Some cars (often French MPVs) have storage compartments in the floor, this is a problem for some, although not all, of the rear facing seats as they have a stabiliser arm that needs a solid surface to rest on.
• Will you have to share the seat with anyone else, e.g. grandparents...

Other than that, our little one gets on fine with the rear facing seat. Because it's quite high up, she gets a great view out of the car, resulting in lots of little finger waving and happy shouts of "Tat, tat tat!" as we drive along... :) Plus she's much safer too, so we're all happy.

I just purchased a rear facing seat - a BeSafe IZi Combi ISOFIX from the Glasgow Pram Centre, it just happened to be discounted this week from RRP circa 300, to 229. This was the one I had been researching, so felt very happy to purchase at this price.

I asked the manageress why there isn't more marketing on these rear facing seats, as far as I can see they are much much safer. From my web research for forward facing, the seatbelt seems to do much of the damage to infants. Internal decapitation being one of the common misfortunate injuries being reported. Her reply was that all of her staff were not trained on the installation of rearfacing yet, so she was not allowed to advertise or promote the rearfacing seats. However there is to be a large campaign by BRITAX next year in this country.

I came to know about rear facing seats from Mumsnet forums, and once I read about it, there was no changing my mind.

I am a first time Mum and I suffered severe mobility problems during my pregnancy, and am still recovering. I had my heart set on one of these 'swivel' seats - whereby you swivel the seat to face to outside, place the child in, then swivel to the front, I guessed this would save my back somewhat. However, after hearing and reading about injuries incurred on small kids in forward facing seats - my mind was made up. The child is high enough up in the rearfacer to see out the windows, and am hoping that my son won't really know a difference as he has not had the chance of being forward facing so far. I can see where it might be different if he had been forward facing before.

Sorry this has gone on a bit longer than I anticipated, also to say that there is plenty of room in my 07 mondeo with the seat in place. Hope this is of help to someone out there :)

OB- I know it's crazy isn't it?