My wife is pregnant and is due in October. We are in the process of making a baby registry, (We are larding stuff in there because a few stores will give you ten percent off the item if no one buys it). We are looking at strollers and are not sure which way to go.
We aren’t sure if we should go for something like this, which is a big stroller that has cupholders and a place to store stuff and shopping bags, etc, or something like this which weight about half as much as the other one and doesn’t have all sorts of storage.
We live in the city, but have a car and use it. We have restaurants and coffee shops in our neighborhood but not much in the way of commerce, so we won’t be doing a lot of shopping here. When we go shopping, it will tend to be of the go to the store variety, buy what we need and go back to the car. We rarely go to a shopping mall, maybe once in a year at the most. I should add that we will
I’m leaning towards the lightweight stroller since I don’t know that I will need a cupholder in the stroller and since my wife will have to lift the thing as well and she is on the smaller side.
What do you all think? What kind of strollers did you buy? Are you happy with the experience? Do you have any regrets?
Have her lift and try to figure out the stroller as much as possible in the store. Don’t help her at first, let her figure it out - that’s what we did.
We have a Graco stroller we paid just over $100 that has the cup holders, 2 storage areas to hide snacks or key, and nice big area underneath for the diaper bag or shopping bags. It also fully reclines, has a 5 point harness and a collapsible shade with a see through window.
The stroller was great in the beginning when we thought we’d have to pack the whole house when we’d go out. Now that our daughter is 19 months, I just don’t use it much except when we go out and do a lot of shopping or go to a theme park. (ie: Some place I need a lot of storage.)
Otherwise I have some $12 umbrella stroller I got free with some purchases. It does not have a 3 point harness, and my daughter quickly figures out how to wiggly her way out. No sunshade either or storage area. It’s good enough for when I need to go to the post office or book store and just be able to push something that holds her while I look around.
Big Stroller:
+pro: lots of storage room - it’s like a built in pack mule
+pro: very sturdy
+pro: nice while out walking or at the park; offroading
-con: kind of wide and makes it difficult to maneuver in some stores in the mall (Game Stop, coffee shops, small stores)
-con: storage, takes up a lot of room in the car (currently just stays in our garage)
Little stroller (umbrella type)
+pro: VERY lightweight
+pro: very flexible in where I can take it
+pro: storage - minimal space required
-con: need more restraint
-con: hubby/wifey carries more bags/drinks
Now that we’re expecting baby number #2 in February, I’m kind of thinking that a nicer umbrella stroller in the $40-50 might be a wise investment.
So if you’re looking for something to get in/out in and not carry a lot of stuff the second one you linked might be your better option.
This may sound random, but it’s not: what kind of car seat are you getting? If you get an infant seat, you can get a stroller frame that the seat snaps into, which is very convenient. We have a Graco Snugride car seat, and the Graco frame that it works with. I highly recommend this, because it’s easy to snap the car seat in and out without getting the baby all unbuckled and then buckled again. The frame is also relatively cheap. Once your baby outgrows the infant car seat, you will probably have a pretty good idea of how much you’ll use a stroller, and what features you would like, and it’ll be easier to choose.
Also, check out the book Baby Bargains – they rate strollers and other baby products, so you can buy a good-quality product.
Whatever you do, definitely test them at the store – you might find that some are too short or too tall or too hard to maneuver, etc.
I highly recommend getting one that you can open/close one-handed, for those time when it’s just one adult with the baby – there isn’t always a place to put him down safely/cleanly while getting the stroller ready. We learned that the hard way – we have last year’s model of the second one you linked to, and we ditched it because it requires two hands to open and close.
I’m having a baby in about 30 days and when we went looking for strollers I was so worn out that even the light weight strollers were hard to lift. I’ve looked at the cheaper umbrella strollers to the Stokke which is about 1K. In the end we went with the Peg Perego Pliko 3 which is an umbrella stroller that is pretty light weight. I’m 5 feet tall and not pregnant about 105 pounds. So I didn’t want to have a heavy weight stroller that was complicated like the bugaboo or the all in one travel systems. We got the matching car seat although the graco snugride is lighter than the pp car seat. Its nice because it folds up like an umbrella stroller and it is free standing. There is a cup holder and a place to put your stuff and most importantly I can lift it into the trunk.
Definitely try a couple of different types - and look for ease of set up. Nothing’s more frustrating than to be wrestling with a heavy stroller that Does. Not. Want. To. Set. Up. (or Fold. Down).
I wish we’d splurged on a nicer stroller the first time around - a friend had a Combi (Savvy was the model, I think) that she could set up almost as simply as grabbing the handle and giving it a shake. We had a Graco which had all the features (no built-in cup holder back then, those weren’t common 15 years ago) but had tons of storage and had the advantage of allowing the baby to lie flat while he was napping. It was heavy though; a higher-end brand might have been lighter.
We got a Peg Perego double stroller when our second child was born. It was heavy - but handily accommodated our large children. Also I resold it when I was done, and got half the original purchase price. The downside of that particular one (design flaw) was it was really a pain to remove all the fabric bits for washing.
stargazer, not random at all. We also bought a Graco Snugride car seat and we will be using that kind of stroller at first until the baby hits 22 pounds which in my family seems to be around six or seven months. Good call on the two handed thing. We were leaning towards the second one, so I think we will have to contemplate this a bit.
My wife has the baby bargains book. She tends to break things down and read the reviews. We just aren’t sure if we should go big or small.
lunar elf, you seem to have broken down the pros and cons. I’m just not sure as to how much stuff we will need to be carrying around. How old was your daughter, when you stopped carting so much stuff around?
cherry, congratulations and good luck! That seems like a nice stroller. My wife is the same pre-pregnancy size as you are, so weight is definitely a consideration for us.
Maus Magill, how old is your child? I take it from your post that you did not like the big stroller much.
Mama Zappa, I hadn’t even thought about washing the stroller.
Ding! Winner!
With our first child we had a full sized stroller. It was a pain in the ass. It took up damn near half the trunk of my old Volvo (which has a HUGE trunk) it was heavy and hard to fold.
When our son was maybe 8 months old, someone gave us an old umbrella stroller. We used it rest of the way though child #1 and all the way though child #2. The only time I recall ever using the big stroller after the umbrella arrived was a full day trip at Disneyland.
With the umbrella I could get out of my car with child in one hand, reach in the trunk with my other hand, remove the stroller and unfold it. When I got back to the car, I would remove the kid, and fold the stroller with one hand, and put it away. Umbrella strollers rock.
If I had to do it again, I would just get the smallest, lightest, easiest to fold umbrella stroller and be done with it.
Once our daughter began sitting up more reliably by herself, around 6-7 months is when I started using the umbrella for quick trips in/out of places. Her schedule was a bit more predictable (feeding/diapering) and I wasn’t as concerned about exploding baby diapers. Plus since they were quick trips I never really needed the diaper bag if I was going to be in a store in 15mins.
Of course now she’s at the phase where she wants to walk around everywhere, so neither stroller really works except the umbrella is easier to fold up and pull around when she doesn’t want to use it.
Our Graco one says we could snap the carseat into it (we had a Snugride too), but it wasn’t a travel system one. :dubious: I’d still take this one when going to Disney or for mega shopping trips.
If you can find a lightweight stroller, where the baby can lie down I really believe that’s all you need the first couple months. Of course you want a really secure harness too. If you really need some storage, they have nets you can attach to the stroller, smaller sized diaper changing things (about the size of a really flat purse).
Don’t bother with the big combo stroller-carseat sets. Those strollers are huge, heavy, cumbersome, and good only for giving you more work and less space.
A Snap-N-Go (less than 7 lbs) will be all you need until baby is big enough to sit up, and then you can use an umbrella stroller. What I have used more than anything else - and used now for years, and through 4 children - was made by Century. I have no idea when it was made,and no idea what model it is, because I bought it in a thrift store 10 years ago for $12. I like it better than an ordinary umbrella stroller because it has a built-in basket that can carry, and has carried, a car battery. It folds flat like the big Megastrollers, but it’s lightweight and amazingly strong. The closest I can find to it on the Babies R Us website is the Combi Urban ST (but nobody has reviewed it, so I can’t be sure how this model measures up to my old one).
I have more than gotten my $12 out of it…taken it to France…slung it in the trunk…lugged coolers and children and suitcases and car batteries (sometimes all at the same time). Try THAT with an umbrella stroller? And it folds down about 6" thick. But it’s only good once baby doesn’t slump like jello. Until then, we used the Snap N Go, and we were happy.
We got the stupidly expensive Bugaboo cameleon, plus the Graco carseat and the carseat adaptor, and I really like it. We don’t have a car, but we borrow one or get driven some of the time. Anyway, I use it pretty much every day. Most of my travelling is on foot, and it’s easy to steer, has some storage, has a rain cover. What we were specifically looking for was extendable handle, folds up, can flip handle forward and backward.
The cons are that it is really big, expensive, not much storage space, and takes up a lot of room in the car. I’m going to get an umbrella one for quick trips, especially now that he’s pretty much out of the infant carseat (must buy new one next week).
My kid is almost seven months.
We’ve been using the same stroller for a little over a year now, and we have used the hell out of it. He practically lived in the bassinet for the first few months, and it was nice to be able to take it upstairs or down, or let him cruise around in it. Of course, we walk a LOT, and I wouldn’t consider buying that stroller if we were going to be using it exclusively out of the trunk of our car. It takes up too much space there. On top of that, they’re ridiculously expensive.
Actually, I think the storage in them is about as good as most any other stroller you’ll find. I stow my groceries down there all the time.
We were in about the same boat as you. **Fang **was about 4 when **Spike **was born last year. We bought a huge monstrosity which would allow **Fang **to ride on a rumble seat while Spike’s car-seat was clipped into the front.
However, the thing was friggin’ huge, and took up nearly the entire trunk. I think I could count how many times we’ve used it on my hands.
**Fang **now walks. It build character. **Spike **rides in the umbrella.
We still use a mid-sized Graco that we had gotten for **Fang **when he was an infant, but it only get broken for big outings. It strikes a nice balance between storage underneath, and storage. It’s also nice because you can open it with one hand.
We got a lightweight stroller, One of the cosco models, The only problem was i have to lean over slightly to push it, I’m 6-2 BTW so what ever you get push it around the store for a bit
Another vote for smaller strollers here. We used the snap-n-go while QKid #2 was in the infant carseat, and that was very convenient. We made the move to an umbrella-type stroller when she was around four months old. We had a giant, unweildy Graco with QKid #1. We lived in DC when he was born, and I hated, hated, hated that stroller. It did not fit in urban stores or on city sidewalks. And it was way too heavy to carry upstairs to our condo!
One thing to consider is that when you are out with a stroller you usually also have a diaper bag of some sort with you. I like to be able to put the diaper bag in the stroller. I’m a pretty low maintenance parent, so from about 1 year on, my diaper bag consisted of a couple of diapers and a handful of wipes in a gallon size ziploc, but you still need somewhere to put it. Other parents who are better at being prepared also like to travel with pacifiers, sippy cups, a change of clothes, a few small toys, a sun hat, and who knows what else. If you think you’ll travel with a lot of baby stuff, you should consider a stroller that can accommodate it.
One thing I would avoid in both the strollers you link to is the tray thing that goes in front of the kid. That just makes it that much harder to get baby in and out of it, and I don’t think they serve any especially useful purpose.
You say you live in the city - do you do the kind of shopping where you park (or walk) somewhere, go to a bunch of stores and have a bunch of bags to carry before you get back to the car or home? Then get the bigger stroller for those kinds of trips. Also good for older kids who like to wiggle - they can’t throw their weight around and cause it to tip over, plus the bigger wheels roll better with greater weight on them.
For the car, for trips to the museum or zoo or walking trails or whatnot, a cheap ($15) umbrella stroller is great to have “just in case”.
But also keep your eye out in resale stores and such for a back frame carrier at a reasonable price. For the ages of “sitting up unassisted” to about 3, they’re better, IMHO, than strollers. Your hands stay free, you don’t have to worry about places not allowing strollers or deal with in and out of the stroller all day. You don’t hit people’s ankles with the stroller and the baby has a much better view - nothing more pathetic than seeing some ankle-biter in a stroller eye level with the wall while Mom’s enthusiastically pointing out the lions in the distance.
A specific **Chicco **warning: none of their handles were placed right for us. Definitely try before you buy - toss a bag of cat litter in the seat for weight and roll it around the store for 20 minutes. I had to stop using their umbrella stroller entirely because my back ached so badly - and I’m only 5’6"! My 6’4" husband looked like Quasimodo trying to push that thing!
We have done this, but we were careful to check for recalls of that particular model before buying it. This happens for baby equipment all of the time.
Thanks everyone! I’ve been reading the responses. It seems that the consensus here is to not get the really big stroller but rather go for something more lightweight which makes sense to me.
WhyNot, we do live in the city, but we do all of our food shopping by car since the grocery store near us isn’t all that great and we prefer to shop at one of the ethnic markets in the suburbs or the Trader Joe’s near where I work. We do spend some time in our neighborhood but that tends to be more just walking and maybe getting a cup of coffee and a meal somewhere.
I’m 6ft 2 and my wife is 5ft 3 so yeah, we are definitely going to have to test drive them.
For the first few months, we will have a snugride frame which will let us snap in the infant seat. We have friends who really like theirs. (We went with the Graco Snugride since it had good safety reviews.)
This is kind of my fear. That we will decide to eat lunch somewhere and that the stroller will be too big to carry anywhere and that we will have something that we hate.
My wife is insisting that we buy a new stroller since she is willing to go used on everything but the car seat and stroller. Of course, even if she were amenable to that idea, my parents would not be and I would find myself with a new stroller there.