You really need to go and push some about, we’ve got some iCandy thing cos it was shiney and someone else was paying.

Plenty of room for my feet as if you get one that you kick every time you take a step it’ll drive you insane.

If i had to start from scratch again though i’d have got something with much bigger wheels, being into your axles in any sort of sand/loam isnt fun.

What you really need to do is work out what you are going to be doing. Long or short trips? On or off road? In and out of the shops or just strolling about? Always using the car or some trips from the house? Will you have a sleepy baby or an easily disturbed one? Think about all that realistically and you might see the advantages and disadvantages of the different types rather than just being confused.

This. We ended up with two prams – a small foldup for the car boot (because the normal size ones don’t leave room for anything else) and a larger Silvercross pram for walking from the house. If you’re able to walk rather than drive most of the time you don’t need a travel system. Oh, and buy all your gear second hand. If you don’t like something, you can re-sell it for what you paid, and when you add up the cost of all the stuff you need, you’ll save thousands.

We’ve just sold one of these for around 75% of it’s original retail price after 3 years of good use so don’t be afraid to spend the cash on something good:

http://www.chariotcarriers.com/english/html/cougar.php

For round the farm you can use the full on 3-wheeler jogging kit mode.
For the bike there’s the trailer kit (which works well, it’s not an afterthought by the designers)
For the shops/town/etc there’s the two buggy wheels you replace the jogging wheel with.

All the above can be on the buggy at the same time, so you can cycle somewhere, convert it to 3-wheels for a long walk and then convert to buggy mode to nip into the shop on the way back.

Really well made bit of kit.

The “Chariot” above is a cool bit of kit,we used to sell these with the bike kit when I worked in a bike shop in Oz,all sorts of extras you can get such as a jogging kit and even Skis.

Just picked up our new buggy on Saturday. Went for an iCandy peach jogger which is a 3 wheeler jobby as we have to push over fields and rough paths whilst walking the dog.

Phil and teds were more sturdy, but really liked the collapse and uncollapse mechanism as can easily do one handed.

We bought a maxi-cosi mura 3 wheel travel system.
Pneumatic tyres
Solid as granite and about to be used for no. 2 due in next couple of weeks.
Used when walking dog on roughish paths and generally abused
Big downsides weighs a tonne and doesn’t pack up that small but any mid sized hatch should squeeze it ib
I reckon it will still have 2 kids worth of life in it when we are done with it. No quinny or silver cross will manage that.

thanks for all the responses everybody. Its a daunting subject.

Garage-dweller

Timely post that … we just went to the first shop today of what will no doubt be many … and the one that we came away thinking was the best of the bunch was the Mura.

I liked its sturdiness – which is a very high priority for me. Not quite Phil n Ted sturdy, admittedly, but a lot better than the others. I also liked how it wasn’t as long at the phil n teds, but still had large wheels. Agreed, it wasn’t the smallest when folded, but there are always compromises. I think the biggest issue with it would be trying to get it in our mini ( I think the mini will have to go for something else tbh, but she’s not having it at the moment )

I didn’t get to see an out n about 360 … although the lady at the shop said that whilst its good, the handle height could be quite low … which would cheese me off big time.

In terms of our uses:

Its going to be up at the farm trundling around the yard.
It’ll be used for walks out and about – mainly pavements / single roads sometimes to the farm.
We aren’t shopping people … only go to the shops for what we want and leave. So shopping centres, city centres are a very rare event for us. ( i went into glasgow centre once in the whole of 2011 )

the idea of clipping a baby car seat in and out of the frame really appeals and i was impressed by the ease of which the parts of the Mura clipped together.

Each thing you look at only generates more questions … I’m banking up sleep at the moment ! 🙂

I’m banking up sleep at the moment !

It won’t be enough…

We bought a secondhand Bugaboo Chameleon for about £380. IMO secondhand is the way to go if you look about you can find some mint condition examples and save yourself a fortune. New, ours would have been almost £1k!!

It won’t go in the mini easily. Ours fitted comfortably in an A3. When we lost that (wife went to a different job and gave up company car) we bought a Megane and with kids stuff that was easily filled even with him moving on to pushchair mode. Wife now has an ex fleet Mondeo hatch. Great cheap kiddy lugger and ok to drive and live with. Its not just the boot size its the size of the door openings etc and after squeezing 10kg of child and seat through narrow gaps you soon learn to live without the fun bits of your older cars. Although she still complains about missing the Audi for driving pleasure.

We got us an Uppababy Vista for baby Elsa Scarlet. Best seller in the States, travel system, “Which Best Buy”, cool colours, massive storage, height adjustable handle, me and the wife are both tall so no stooping over, big wheels, bassinet comes with it too. Cannot recommend it highly enough, utterly brilliant and cheaper than a flippin Bug-a-boo or I-Candy. Can convert to double or even triple with a boogie board. You must check them out if you’re going for a sturdy option rather than a lightweight jogger.

I reckon it will still have 2 kids worth of life in it when we are done with it. No quinny or silver cross will manage that.

Our second hand Silvercross is on its third child, and is good as new.

We used a fairly cheap silver cross travel system ( I think it came to £400 for the pushchar/pram and a seperate car seat that clicked into the pushchair).

Unlike some of the other posters on here, we found no problem with it, if we have another baby we’ll use it again. It did about 2-3 miles per day .

I’m sure its not as good as some of the more expensive stuff, but it suited us fine, and we didnt really see much reason to spend any more.

havent read the above but from our experience (limited budget/didnt see the point in buying new)…

just my views from going through it as it is a sensitive subject to some!!….

you can get good second hand gear off ebay especially if you want a flash travel system.

the way baby stuff is advertised/marketed its all to pull at your heart strings and SPEND, SPEND , SPEND!

i would avoid Quinny, totally form over function and we had a nightmare with ours.

good luck

Baby Jogger City Mini.

From birth, now 2yrs old.

Thoughts?

– It fits easily into the boot of an Aygo, Puma or similar.
– Its shorter/smaller than a travel/holiday buggy.
– Its lighter and more nimble for a light/lightly muscled lady to move around.
– Its not fashionable to the heavy-set/faux-posh new Mums who buy expensive travel systems.
– Ours has been in use daily, lives outside in ALL weathers at night, carried alot of shopping etc.
– It opens and collapses at the flick of your wrist. Great design.

Fantastic for £150. Absolutely amazing. At the end of its use we’ll just bin it as it was cheap and its paid its way well.

Found this: http://www.mumsnet.com/Reviews/pushchairs-three-wheelers/990-baby-jogger-city-mini

I once recommended the Nipper 360 (to the mighty Surfmat I believe) and he was really happy with it. Very light, good wheels/tyres etc. Even the double folds down enough to fit into a Focus-sized car.

Not ideal from birth but other than that they are very good.

I can’t believe our two are out of theirs already – not used it in months yet it seemed only yesterday Mrs F was popping them out.

Finbar 🙂

read this thread with interest……………………….
as el nino J will be released early August!!! 😀
Senorita J is disregarding all the buy second hand advice –
she wants new! 😥
keep the advice coming please….appreciated.

As soon as the baby arrives, all of this stuff is inconsequential 🙂