OK so don't go all maggie gyllenhaal(Away We Go) on me. I am a pretty firm believer in the ingenuity of bwing. Made my own ring sling and have the fabric for two wraps, to come. Last night my grandmother ordered me a beco butterfly, so I am feeling pretty prepared for carrierwise, but I am unsure about strollers. We have a travel system that we got as a hand me down, and the car seats will be great but i soooooo don't want to lug around the baby in the car seat or lug around that big a** stroller all the time. If strollers were free, I would get a nice jogging stroller but I am cheap and I don't want to overspend on something that still might not get much use. It also seems like the "cool" strollers are all way more expensive, I would be happy if they had a simple and sleek but durable one without paying +$500. It seems like a lot of the three wheeled cheap strollers are made very poorly or dont fold up simply, and the ones that do are at least a few hundred new.
I would like to just buy one stroller for the whole childhood, possibly with a carseat attachment(chicco keyfit) or the ability to add something for a second older child to sit on, if we have another kid.
how much do you babywearers also end up using a stroller? does the stroller end up collecting dust even if it is nice and not just a huge cumbersome one? any recommendations? I have been looking at the bumbleride indie jogger which i heard is compatible with my carseat. also the city mini or some other newer euro brands that aren't super expensive.
Re: Strollers for BabyWearers
We had the keyfit travel system and it was good when he was really tiny, but I sold it and bought a convertible carseat and a Chicco Liteway. We use the Liteway at the park, but that's about it. Every other attempt to use it in public ends with DS in the RS and us pushing the stroller with the bags in it. However, I'm comfortable that the Liteway will get more use as DS grows and it has a decent resell value if I decide otherwise. I also used a 20% off coupon for it as BRU so that made it a good deal. We also have an older Eddie Bauer jogging stroller that my sister bought at a yardsale for $5 (seriously, $5! LOL). It needed some TLC and cleaning but now it's good to go when the weather cools off and DH takes DS on the disc golf course.
We got the Chicco Trevi to use our KeyFit in and it was fine. I don't use it very much but DH takes DD on a walk every day with it. Or did. It actually started breaking (the recline feature) with a year of daily use. Really ticks me off too because it's just outside the warranty period. I trolled Craigslist and just picked up a Quinny Zapp for less than half price. It's perfect for our limited stroller needs (basically we need an umbrella stroller at this point for daily walks and occasional stroller-friendly trips).
It's tough to guess what you will and won't use at this point but if you can I'd highly suggest buying used. People tend to overbuy on strollers IMO and you can find a lot of really nice, really great quality, strollers on CL and in garage sales. GL!
this. i wear bunny a lot, but if i'm doing a lot of shopping or we're going on a picnic, it's great. i use it several times a week.
My advice would be to wait and see what your stroller needs turn out to be (since you already have one you can use if you need to anyway).
Until Friday, I'd never used a stroller for anything besides running (I have the BOB revolution). I did take it to the zoo on Friday because I wasn't sure my pregnant stamina was up to wearing kiddo all day in the 90+ heat while carrying all our gear for the day (since DH wasn't along).
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I am only 3mo in, but so far I use my stroller for walks regularly. I pretty much wear DD in my RS or Moby when I go shoping and stuff. Since DD hates her carseat, I just don't want to put her in it more then she has to. We have the Key Fit 30 with the adapter for the Phil & Teds Sport stroller. We went with the Phil & Teds in the anticipation that we can add a second seat for our next baby. Oh, we got our stroller for about 1/2 off so that helped our decision to
I really would want a City Mini though!
I would recommend the Quinny Zapp, as it is lightweight, stylish, and all around awesome (besides the small basket, but that doesn't bother me). It also takes a car seat, but only the Maxi Cosi infant seat; it sounds like you already have a car seat. I also believe that you can add a toddler ride-on board, but don't hold me to that.
We had the Kolcraft Contours Options three wheel stroller when DD was an infant, and I loved it. It is not made poorly - we used it for a full year, every day, even through snow and sleet, and it held up well. We only stopped because we got a new stroller/bike trailer - the Chariot Cougar. We now use that every day for biking.
It takes nearly every brand of car seat, has a HUGE basket, the seat can face towards you or away, and it is only $150 - looks like it is on sale for $136 right now, though.
When I was pregnant with DS I fell in love with the UPPAbaby Vista but there was no way DH and I could justify spending that much money, especially not knowing whether or not DS would be a stroller baby. I knew I wanted to BW so I invested in a Beco Butterfly 2 instead. Turns out that it was a good choice.
We got a great deal on a Jeep Overland stroller but in 5 months DS has only been in it a handful of times... he hates that thing and will only tolerate it for 10 minutes or so. I pretty much wear him everywhere - whether we're running errands or just taking a walk in the park - and he and I both love it that way.
MIL tried to tell me that I wouldn't want to wake my newborn DS up every time I had to go somewhere but truth be told, he HATED (and still hates) being in the infant carrier/carseat. Once I had him in the Beco it would take him all of 3 or 4 minutes to fall asleep again.
So for us a stroller was pretty much a waste of money. Still, I think it's a good thing to have a somewhat decent one on hand or available... you never know when you're going to end up using one even if you are or plan to be primarily a babywearer.
We have this one and it's great.
https://www.safety1st.com/can/eng/Products/Travel/Strollers/Travel-Systems/Details/459-TR076PAC-Acella-Sport-Travel-System
I have the Maxi Cosi Foray and use it quite a bit. I babywear when I'm running errands or walking to and from story time, the doctor, etc. I use the stroller when we go places that require a lot of walking. DS gets too heavy to wear for hours at a time. I wore him in a ring sling for about 2 hours yesterday and my shoulder still hurts!
I basically use the stroller at our local theme park (we go quite a bit) the zoo, park.