Wee Baby Stuff

Around here, at this time of year, getting babies ready to go outside can take about 20 minutes. You get your baby dressed up in a million tiny layers, pop him in the stroller, put on your own coat, noticed the horrendous smell. Check for poop. Curse inventively 'monkey flopper'. Take him out of the stroller, remove the million tiny layers, change the diaper, wrangle the clothes back on, back into the stroller, and finally out.

I figured there had to be an alternative. And there is, stroller footmuffs or stroller sleeping bags, you pop your pookie in in just his regular amount of layers then zip him up, pull the drawstrings and off you go. When you reach your destination you peel the bag down to maintain optimum pookie comfort temperature.

Awesome. And EXPENSIVE.Most strollers seem to have their own versions and depending on the make the range from pretty steep to ludicrously expensive. There are a few non-stroller specific brands out there, like the Eckert sleeping bag, $139

Which has lots of great features, and unzips flat to turn into a play mat. It's been discontinued, though some places still have a few.

Or there is the Brooks Pond Perennial buggy blanket, $135, which comes in some completely gorgeous colourways, (hello yummy red and orange).

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Of the stroller specific ones the two that we like the look of were the Quinny Buzz Footmuff, (the cheapest of the bunch at $69.99)

It also come in some pretty cool colours, but we worried about the amount of leg room in it for the bears long (and kicky) pegs.

And the Bugaboo footmuff $129,

(which is what we eventually went with) I'd seen one in action and it looked snoogly and had lots of kicking room. And yes, it matched our stroller, but that's HONESTLY not the only reason we bought it. Trying to find ANY of the Footmuffs in Canada was actually a bit of an issue. (...Dear Canadian baby shops. It is winter here for 11 months of the year....well, almost. Might want to look at stocking winter gear.)

Babyguru.ca has pretty much everything but they are chronically overpriced, ToyS?F-U uh, I mean ToysRUS say they stock them but I got a succinct "HUH?" when I called to check for availability. I ended up getting ours for $150(CAN) at an AWESOME little shop called Ella and Elliot that you absolutely should check out if you're in Toronto.

• clothes
• winter
• footmuff
• stroller