Kim Kardashian answers mommy shamers worried about Saint West's car seat

In June, Kim Kardashian inadvertently made herself a target for mommy shamers when she posted a photo of her son, Saint West, in his car seat. Today, she decided to put herself out there again explaining why the then 18-month-old was seated facing forward.

“So, I took a photo of Saint, and he was sitting forward,” West begins in an excerpt from a video on her app. “So, they say for his age he should be rear-facing.”

That’s according to a California law, which went into effect in January, that states children under 2 should be in rear-facing car seats — unless they weigh 40 lbs or more, or they are 40 inches tall. That last bit, it turns out, is Kardashian’s defense.

“But what people didn’t know was that Saint is now the weight and the height requirement to sit forward facing,” she says. “Saint actually weighs more than North. If that is believable, he does.”

It does sound a little bit unbelievable that he weighs 40 lbs and is 40 inches tall. The average weight for a toddler of that age is 22-26 lbs, and the average height is about 32-37 inches tall, and being 40 lbs and 40 inches would put him above the 99th percentile for his age. That’s fine. Babies come in all sizes, but from the pictures we’ve seen, it doesn’t really look like he’s quite that huge.

A more believable explanation? He weighs at least 22 lbs, which is the minimum weight for facing forward in a Maxi-Cosi convertible car seat like Saint’s. That’s not abiding by the California law or by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ official recommendation, but it’s still not the equivalent of dangling your child out the window of the car and it’s perfectly legal in most other places.

Interesting that Kardashian decided to open herself up for more shaming (will people say she’s feeding the kid too much?), instead of just telling the chorus of critics to mind their own children.

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