I’m just wondering what features do you consider important in a pram? I’ve thought of these, but I don’t know which are more important:
[ul]
[li]Can be used as car seat - is this worth having?[/li][li]Can face forwards/backwards when pushing?[/li][li]Adjustable height?[/li][li]Lightweight[/li][li]Storage space e.g. below the baby[/li][li]Can be opened with one hand?[/li][li]Can balance when closed[/li][/ul]
Also, do strollers have different age/weight ranges, like car seats? I wonder how many strollers a kid goes through.
It varies. But aroubd here 90% of parents use a Baby Jogger City Mini or the Britax one that is a nearly identical clone. They are versatile and lightweight, and while they aren’t particularly cheap they aren’t absurdly expensive.
We had one of the car seat compatible kinds when our daughter was small. By about nine months she was too heavy to tote around in the carrier that way (for me anyhow) and was kind of… sort of… able to sit up in a shopping cart at the store, so we got rid of that one and ever since, we’ve made do with two strollers.
First one is a cheap umbrella stroller. It stays in the trunk of my car all the time. It’s easy to pop open and closed. I use it at the mall, the zoo, that kind of thing. Its two drawbacks are that it doesn’t have much storage underneath, and it isn’t comfortable for long distance walking. The handles are too low and my toes kick the wheels when I try to walk fast with it.
Then we have a Britax B-Agile. That’s the big fancy one that sits in the front hallway. That’s for when we want to take long walks. It’s got lots of storage, is easy to push while walking fast, and turns on a dime. I love that stroller with a passion. The only thing wrong with it is that it’d take up most of my car’s trunk, if I ever tried to put it there.
It really depends on what you are using the stroller for. Different lifestyles have different needs. I almost never use/used the stroller outside the neighborhood, but we put 20 miles a week in the neighborhood on it. But we also never go faster than a walk, and it does to the grocery store a lot, and we have good side walks. When, where,why, and how often do you imagine using yours?
We have the City Mini and they are incredibly well made. We are using the one we bought for our first child with our second child. You can get adaptors for them so you can fit in the infant seat. It goes up to almost 50 lbs so most likely your child will walking everywhere before they outgrow the stroller. Something like this is better if you live in the city and walk to a lot of places. Since the sidewalks in my neighborhood are very uneven, an umbrella stroller with small wheels is a nightmare to use.
Again, though, were you using it a couple times a month at the zoo or the mall, or where you walking three and four miles a day to the grocery store, park, library?
Ours is just 2.5 months now, I punted on the stroller decision and got a car seat and a stroller caddy, it’s basically wheels for the car seat. The advantage is that it takes up much less space than a real stroller, and we have no space anywhere except in the trunk of my car (seriously, my car is a hatchback, it has more open space than all of our closets combined) This does mean I have to use her car seat even for a walk around the neighborhood, but so far this system hasn’t caused us any real problems. The only issue is remembering to take the caddy out of the trunk of my car when I go somewhere without the baby.
Eventually I’ll have to get a real stroller, I figure I’ll get one of those lightly used fancy strollers on craigslist, from someone who registered for one but never used it.
We got the earlier version of this system. The car seat clicks into the chassis and it was soooooooooo easy to push and steer with one hand. It made the others feel like dump trucks. It was narrow as well which is a godsend when you live in a medieval town with pavements that are non-existent or perhaps two feet wide.
We had it for nearly four years and two children and it travelled on many plane journeys. It took an immense amount of hammer and still fetched 40% of of it’s new value when we finally ebayed it.
B-Agile is the other one I was thinking of. It is nearly identical to the City Mini.
They aren’t super small, but they weigh about 17 lbs and fold with one hand. They come pretty bare-bones, but can be tricked out with all kinds of accessories- including car seat adapters.
Anyway, in this heavy-walking city, they are the clear people’s choice. I rarely see other strollers.
I’d say that being able to fit an infant car seat bucket, and being light, easily folded/unfolded, and stable are the big 3 must-haves to any stroller that I’d buy.
That said, my wife and I have a City Mini, and it’s great. Stable, lightweight, easily folded, and has an adapter for our infant seat (Chicco KeyFit 30).
It’s been on a European vacation and came through with flying colors. Cobblestones and curbs aren’t a challenge with it.
Going a bit beyond the OP’s question, I am a big fan of the Baby Bargains book. It has thorough reviews of products like strollers (and cribs, car seats, high chairs, etc.), recounting pluses and minuses for different lifestyles.
For me, I’d go with ease of operation. The City mini folds with one hand easily. It is slightly bulky, but for use in a city neighborhood with imperfect sidewalks, the small lightweight strollers with small wheels aren’t going to be as easy to push.
Thanks for the suggestions. I didn’t know combined car seats + strollers were so popular. But huh? The entire car seat can fit in a stroller? How big is that stroller? So I guess I can buy only one stroller to fit 0 months to 5 years?
What’s wrong with “pram”? Don’t the British still use it?
Hmm. I didn’t think about this. I guess I’ll use this mostly in an indoor setting. I’ll be putting this in my car and at my destination, maybe set up and walk for around 5 hours. Only 1-2 times a week. Might have to get another one for air travel.
The combination stroller only works with an infant car seat, not a convertible one. The infant car seat is a carrier that snaps onto a base that always stays in the car, and the stroller just functions as another base.
You don’t have to buy an infant car seat; you can use a convertible car seat from the get-go. The advantage of the infant seat is that you don’t have to unstrap a sleeping baby and lift it up, but rather can just pop the whole carrier out, with less risk of waking the baby.
After the baby is too big for the infant seat, the combined seat + stroller is no longer usable either, and you’ll have to get another stroller.
Five hours can be a long time to expect a baby to sit in any stroller.
