Wee Baby Stuff

• Where you live... do you have stairs to navigate? A shared hallway? Have you got someplace to park 2' x 4' of stroller?
• Your location. Are you in an urban environment with lots of concrete and smooth sidewalks? Or do you have to go off-roading just to get to your car?
• Do you HAVE a car? If not, will this be your pookie's usual form of transportation? As opposed to a car seat that can be attached to a stroller base?
• Do you spend alot of time outside recreationally? Jogging and hiking or window-shopping and sidewalk cafes?
• How do you shop? By car at a supermarket or on foot to the market?
• Do you take public transport a lot? How wheelchair accessible is your city's public transport?
• What about other traveling? Do you fly a lot?
  
• Are you planning on Attachment Parenting or baby wearing? 
• Are you particularly tall or uh, not tall?
  
• Will you be dealing with snow? Mud? Sand? Torrential rain? Tuskan raiders?

Be honest with yourself too... you're unlikely to start jogging just because you bought a jogging stroller. Which is kind of a shame.

Try not to get suckered by the celebrity endorsements. For example, I heart Gwen Stephani, have done forever. Last year I was all:

'Ooooooooh' (in a reverential whisper) 'Gwen Stephani has a A Maclaren Stroller... IN GOLD!' 

This is not a good reason to buy a stroller, see, Gwen lives in L.A. (where it doesn't snow). Gwen has a car.  Gwen probably doesn't have to navigate stairs to take her puppy outside to pee. Gwen can rock the shiny gold stroller without looking stupid... Me? Not so much.

Now you have an idea of what your stroller will have to deal with make a list of deal-breaker features. For us these were, that it had to weigh less than 20 lbs, had to have a carrying handle, had to have a LOT of cargo space and had to have air filled tires.  Anything that didn't didn't make the shortlist.

Get talking! Word of mouth is brill. Ask your neighbours, friends, family... random strangers, if you see a stroller you like the look of ask about it. The worst people can say is nothing. The folks in your area also deal with the same weather, sidewalk etc conditions as you, so even if you're not shopping local, talk local.

Have a shortlist then test drive test drive test drive.

• Remember your bag of groceries from choosing a breastfeeding chair? Stick it in the seat/bassinet and heave the stroller around.
  
• How easy are they buckles to do up and undo? You might not see the need for speed here, but it can make all the difference in a poop 'blow out' situation.
• Can you take it apart one handed while holding your grocery baby?
  
• How big is it when it's broken down? Will it fit in your car? Seriously, it's worth measuring your trunk space.

We ended up getting the Bugaboo Frog, so it's the stroller I know best.

We chose it for a few reasons; we live in downtown Toronto, we don't have a car, we spend quite alot of time outside, but not exactly in the deep wilderness. We have stairs to navigate every time we want to take our puppy out to pee. We needed a stroller that was lightweight, tough enough to get over a foot of snow, small enough to get into a cramped coffee shop and had enough cargo space for a week's worth of shopping. The Frog is great for this. The handle that allows you to pick it up one handed is worth it's weight in gold or at least cupcakes.

If we had a car we DEFINITELY wouldn't have bought the Frog. The two-part breakdown is a bugger to get into a trunk. Also the price... kind of mental. We rationalised it because we weren't buying a car seat and the Pookie used and still uses the bassinet part as a travel crib. The Bugaboo branded accessories are also ridiculously overpriced.

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