Stroller Recommendations?

[willybean]

I am expecting my first baby in September and am looking for advice on strollers. I live in an urban area and will spend a lot of time outside and walking around town (gopefully immediately). Does anyone have any stroller recommendations for this?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[SPITFIRE]

Willybean--do you have a car? If so, the Graco SnugRide carseat is a great option. You can move it from the car to an affordable, lightweight stroller frame (Graco makes this as well). Great for when the baby can't sit upright on her own. We actually got more use out of it than we thought we would (about 10 months) before she outgrew it.

Now we have a Combi Cosmo stroller--very lightweight (around 11 pounds) and easy to fold. Lightweight strollers are Combi's niche and they come in fun colors (wasabi green and mandarian orange). It was about $99 at Babies R Us. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that some higher priced (think Peg Pergo) strollers have. However, all those additions make the strollers heavier. The only disadvantage of our Combi Cosmo is that it has a tiny mesh storage basket on the bottom and no cup holder for the parent (it has a baby cup holder). These are just minor quibbles regarding a great stroller.

I strongly suggest buying a book called "Baby Bargains." We saved a lot of time, money and frustration with this book. The authors review products and tell you what are good buys and what are wastes of money. They also highlight what products got good safety ratings and those that did not.

[willybean]

Thanks SPITFIRE.

I have the book Baby Bargains and love it, has been an invaluable resource but did not provide too many recommendations for urban settings, with the exception of the bugaboo stroller. I had been told that in a city setting one that is more of a jogger-type might be better so was looking for recoomendations from people in similar settings who have loved the stroller they have/had.

Thanks for the input!

[Kerri]

There are really a ton of strollers out there and it is impossible to even know all the options. A friend of mine who lives in Berlin with no car loved her Gracco Quattro, and felt like it handled better than a friend's buggaboo.

[melis_d]

I think the decision about your stroller is really personal, depending on where you live, how you'll use it, your living situation (e.g., we had to bring our stroller up and down flights of stairs in our condo building), your height and how much you want to spend. For the first two years of my son's life we lived in Boston and rarely drove anywhere. We chose a Zooper Waltz and it worked pretty well for uneven pavement, snow, etc. The zooper is a less expensive version of the Peg Perego strollers. A lot of friends in Boston have Mountain Buggy Urban Singles or Revolution Bob strollers, both of which (I think but am not sure) hold car seats with some kind of adaptor. The Bugaboo and Bumbleride strollers are also seen often on city streets, but are quite expensive.

I would encourage you to try to test "drive" whatever stroller you choose and then look for deals on-line (we bought our travel Maclaren stroller online at a large discount because it was a model from the previous season).

Baby bargains actually has a message board (http://www.windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/index.php) that can provide a lot of really helpful information.

Good luck with your search and congratulations on your future arrival.

Melissa

[ellery]

Congratulations on the new baby!

We did what Spitfire recommended for the first 6 months or so. We had a Graco carseat and we registered for (and received) the stroller that the carseat snapped into, and we took DS for many many walks with that - in the mall, on jogging paths, etc. The stroller was pretty inexpensive and didn't take up too much space and was lightweight.

As he got bigger and was ready for a bigger stroller, I did loads of internet research along with lots of test driving strollers in person. We noticed that we tended to kick the back of most strollers when we walked (maybe we take big strides?) on everything except Peg Perego and MacLaren, so we needed one with more extended handles. A good sunshade was important to me, as was something that folded with one hand, was lightweight and took up minimal room in the car. I also wanted a stroller that I could push one handed, and that had a decent sized basket. We settled on the Peg Perego Pliko Lite, which I found on ebay for about $125, which is very good for strollers.

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/albee-baby_1999_69972870

It has worked out very very well for us and I have absolutely no complaints about our stroller. I LOVE it.

Probably the best advice right now I can think of is to get one that your carseat snaps into and as your little one gets older, you will have the time to shop for the right stroller for your family.

Good luck and congratulations again! :)

[magdon]

we live in SF and had an Inglesina Zippy for DS1 which I loved (except for lack of storage). You could pop the car seat in it or it reclined fully when they are that age and we still are using it 4 years later for DS2 (who is 2). lightweight, one hand folding.

When #2 came along we went for Phil & Ted's E3 which can be a single or double for baby & toddler or 2 kids, depending on how you set it up. It's the size of a regular jogger but holds 2 and is super maneuverable (I had someone comment on that after seeing me with it the other day). There is an attachment you can buy for car seats. It's not super heavy and folds flat but I think it would be kind of a pain to cart up and down stairs with baby in other hand, if that is something you are doing. but if you are considering a 2nd at sometime, this might be worth the investment. I consider it the best money we spent.

I've walked a ton with both strollers and they've held up well. You could also look at wraps for when your baby is still new and not too heavy (they might like that better anyway) which would give you more time to check out the strollers of other new moms and see how you are spending your time and what you really need.

[veschke]

We had our first baby while we were living in Boston, and we decided on a Peg Perego Aria (after consulting extensively with the Baby Bargains book). It's not as "full-featured" or sturdy-feeling as the big Gracos I see a lot, but it is light enough to carry one-handed up to our third-floor apartment. :) It's looking pretty beat-up after a lot of use, but we're using the same one for our second baby right now. Definitely test drive! The one thing I don't like about ours is you need two hands to fold it up.

[KristinK]

DH and I are both runners, so a jogging stroller was a must-have for us. We love our BOB Revolution, and we used it with the car seat adapter for our Graco SnugRide for the first four or five months. It handles well and folds easily. However, it is a bit bulky when it comes to fitting on a crowded subway, and it might be too big for the trunk of a cab. We also got a Maclaren Quest for that reason; it's very lightweight, handles very well, and folds up easily and compactly.

If we didn't need the jogging stroller, I probably would have gone with one from Phil & Ted's instead. I love that you can add the double kit for a toddler seat when the time comes.

[Couperine]

Bumping this since I'm looking for a new double stroller; from the recommendations I've seen (ignoring the hideous prices for these things), I'm favoring the BOB Revolution in Navy versus some of the Phil&Ted's stroller models. My single Graco Metrolite is dying a slow death at present, and my babies will be 13 months apart, so I will need the double for a while.

Any opinions? This is my 3rd boy, so honestly the only real expense in preparing for his arrival is getting a good stroller so I can finally work off two babies worth of pregnancy weight gain. I walk on paved roads in our subdivision, but there is a lot of gravel and debris around since there is still a great deal of construction.

[EmilyD]

Nancy I posted this over on the Feb pregnancy thread but am pasting it over here as well. I'm almost 36 weeks with my first so our circumstances are different but perhaps this will be useful to someone else?

in re: to the stroller options being discussed, we obviously haven't used it yet, but we went with the BOB Revolution plus carseat adapter. We're in a rural area and it looks like it will be well-suited to our gravel driveway (1.5 mi. roundtrip to the mailbox, which will likely be a daily walk for us at some point) and will also allow my DH to go jogging with him later. I think the adapter kit was about $55 at our local registry. We debated getting that kit or the carseat frame stroller and felt like the durability/usability of BOB won out. We drive trucks so the compactness wasn't an issue. I second (third?) the rec. to test "drive" the strollers first. You can look on the individual co's sites to see where they retail locally. Luckily, the options my DH wanted to see were all at the same store, so he could do a side-by-side comparison. That store is only local here in the Austin area (Baby Earth) but also has a good website. And REI is a chain that carried several of the brands mentioned earlier (including BOB). we were very underwhelmed by the options available at our Babies "R" Us, but that was partially because we have atypical needs (rural vs. suburbs or urban use). I've also found the "Baby Bargains" book to be a great resource, as well as their site/boards. Although they don't always have a long list of recommendations, they do usually state their standards, which helped me to evaluate additional options.

[SusanPC]

Nancy, we have the Baby Jogger, City series and LOVE it. It is so easy to fold up and get in and out of the car (not my everyday stroller but I take it to Stroller Strides or to the trails.) Also, it has infant carrier adaptors if you need them. My big splurge was the bassinet attachment....it felt so fun to walk around with Maddie in her little pram...although that didn't last long.

http://babyjogger.com/citydouble.htm