Stroller Review: Perfect Strollers for Shoppers
Love to shop? Whether you just love to take long walks and window-shop, or whether you expect to come home loaded down with bags and boxes, there’s a stroller for you out there—one that can keep Baby happy and comfortable while you upgrade your spring wardrobe or find the perfect ingredients for dinner. This stroller review should help you choose.
Baby Comes First in any Stroller Review
Any shopping trip is much more delightful if you keep one simple rule in mind: a happy baby is a baby who won’t pitch a screaming fit and send you fleeing from the store. A stroller that can recline for sleeping, such as the Chicco Cortina, is key. A travel system with a good car seat, such as the Graco Passage and SnugRide car seat, is an excellent choice for the youngest babies.
New mothers are often pleasantly surprised by this golden period when Baby might actually sleep through an entire shopping trip. Older babies are kept amused by novelty; having some toys that are exclusively used for shopping trips might be a wise idea. It’s also important to keep snacks on hand, but avoid having your baby actually snack in the store itself; that’s a fast track to making yourself an unpopular customer.
Don’t Be a Basket Case
Some strollers offer roomy, accessible storage; others are designed so that you’d be hard pressed to stash a couple of diapers somewhere, let alone any purchases. Look for a stroller with a large basket under the seat, preferably one that can be accessed easily. After all, if you can’t reach the basket, it’s not doing you any good. In our stroller review we’ve found that the UPPA Baby Vista and the Safety 1st Acella Sport Travel System are good examples. It’s generally a bad idea to hang bags off of the handles (especially with lightweight strollers, this can lead to injury). Some strollers, however, are designed so that you can hang a diaper bag off the back, saving you storage space elsewhere; pay close attention to manufacturer recommendations on this.
If you can walk to your local grocery store, you’ll find that a stroller with a good shopping basket can substitute for an actual cart for small shopping trips. If you plan to use it at the mall, the under-seat basket can hold a bag or two, making further browsing more convenient.
Turn, Turn, Turn
Some stores are very stroller-friendly, of course; most strollers have no trouble in the wide aisles at Costco or your local grocery store. But if you’re a boutique shopper or someone who likes to browse the shops on Commercial Drive, you’ll want a stroller that is lightweight, easy to maneuver with one hand, and collapsible so that you can keep it in your car trunk or navigate Skytrain easily when you head downtown. So what do we recommend in our stroller review? Maclaren’s umbrella strollers are a good bet; another excellent choice is a smaller jogging stroller, such as Baby Jogger’s City Mini.
Having a good stroller while shopping makes it much easier to keep Baby happy and engaged. For babies, even a trip to the grocery store can be a dazzling new world. Sometimes Baby will be content just to take in the scenery, but it’s also fun to engage and entertain your little sidekick while you shop. After all, she won’t tell you that those jeans make you look fat — what more could you ask for?
