The goal for today was just to go look at strollers to help us make sense of the descriptions we’ve been reading online. Of course, by the end of the day we had purchased one. We didn’t search far and wide for one, visiting only three stores. ChatGPT was incredibly useful when doing some research, too.
Here are the best pieces of advice that I collected for when you’re looking for a stroller.
They are all safe.
It’s true. They are all safe. They all must be in order to be marketed and sold. When thinking about which stroller to buy, you needn’t concern yourself with the safety aspect of them.
Spending more money doesn’t make you a better parent.
Admittedly, I look over the fence into the Joneses backyard. With regard to the stroller, I was starting to feel as though looking for a budget-friendly option meant that I was somehow shortchanging my daughter. This isn’t true. We ended up getting something mid-tier for a little more than we were thinking we’d spend but for less than half (almost a third) of what we priced out for more expensive options. We didn’t really have to make any compromises, outside of switching from a jogging-style stroller to a more traditional one.
You have to go see them in person.
Trying to figure out what we wanted simply by reading through websites online didn’t work. It wasn’t until we went and pushed a stroller that we understood what we were looking at. Think of it like buying a car; you need to get a feel for it.
We didn’t see the one we bought but we did see something very similar, leaving us confident with our decision.
Talk to a good few people.
I asked people who I saw in the shops what their opinion of the strollers they were using were. Some people were more generous with their feedback than others, but it was helpful overall. The sales associates were hit and miss in terms of their helpfulness. As first-time parents, it’s difficult for us to know what our “lifestyle” is like and what features in a stroller will be most useful to us. Getting more pointed advice, such as, “The wheels on this stroller are plastic which won’t stand up in the winter,” was most helpful. Ask around until you find a person who will tell you what you need to know.
A travel system will take out some of the guesswork.
We bought a travel system, which included the stroller, car seat, and bassinet. You can choose all of the items separately, but it then gets complicated with compatibility, within and between brand lineups. Getting it all together, as a package, reassured us that it’ll all fit together.
I don’t know if this’ll be helpful to anyone, and it’s not the type of post I usually publish, but here it is.
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