Shopping for Strollers: Good Luck, Buddy
A stroller seems like a simple proposition: a bucket with some wheels on it that you can toss a baby in. Naturally, the Baby Industrial Complex has turned the simple pram into a nightmarish hellscape of proprietary systems and interfaces. God help us all!
Considerations
Below are some considerations we were mulling over before even beginning to explore the world of modern day strollers.
- How much money are we willing to throw at this?
- Should we get a car seat that fits in this thing while we're at it? (probably)
- How many children do we currently have in our possession / how many might be forthcoming?
- Do we ever plan on traveling on a plane with this thing? (the baby, and by extension, the stroller)
- How much weight are we willing to lug around? (You don't want to body shame your baby)
- Is it possible to wait out the clock and simply drag our child around in a plastic sled until it's able to walk?
- Will we use our stroller as a way to signal our social status / wealth?
Components
Strollers these days are generally sold as systems, and for good reason. We figure that we'll probably going to want to:
- Push our baby around places.
- Put our baby in a car so you can take it to other places to be pushed.
These two things make perfect sense. We can handle these two needs simply by purchasing
- A stroller
- A car seat that can fit in said stroller
The two above components are often bundled and referred to as a Travel System.
But! We might also want our baby to lie down flat while you're strolling with it. In that case, we're going to want to throw in something that comes with a bassinet, or the ability to adjust the seat to a flat position.
Strollin' in Vermont
We live on a house at the end of a quarter mile long gravel driveway. Beyond that, we are surrounded by dirt roads. Finding a stroller that can get its ass kicked by these roads (and the winter) seems like a tall order. It's not easy to find something that is light, durable, has decent wheels and doesn't cost $2000.
It's looking like we're going with the Nuna Pipa Urban Mixx Travel System. The car seat weighs nothing, and the back wheels have a suspension system that will hopefully survive being pushed around up here.