Thinking about transportOn the impending birth of my son Codi, I became a fanatic with baby prams and capsules. Every outing was an 'eye spy' did you see that pram, stroller or capsule? I would record brands, the color, the happiness of the baby in the transport system mentally
in my mind. To me I had got in my head that this was like buying a car and it had to have the same fashion statement, reliability, loads of features, free items thrown in and light enough to speed around places to feed Codi and get things done.
What was I thinking!I should have sat down and thought about exactly what I would need a pram for. Back in 2004 the craze was power mountain buggies, I bought one of those, and got a bassinette in the package along with a nappy back pack. To me I found I wasn't travelling over the country side and jogging with the buggy to lose weight (as I ambitiously thought I would be). I couldn't use the bassinette out in public and served as an expensive bassinette in our room in the early days of bringing Codi home. The nappy back pack was huge and I only used it once when we travelled on a huge overseas trip (which we won't do again for many years). This $400 package sounded great at the time...I am only 5 foot 2 and all this stuff was just too heavy and cumbersome.
One thing I was proud of was my purchase of a newborn baby capsule (up to 10 kgs) that allowed you to upclip from the car and clip onto any pram so you wouldn't disturb baby when you went out and about. This was fantastic I could go out and not disrupt him and have to deal with resettling him. It was really great all the way up to 8 months to have that extra freedom. It was still a little heavy but it was a small sacrifice for uninterrupted sleep for Codi.
However, I still went shopping again (much to my husbands dismay)... I was convinced I needed the pram that matched this capsule. Why? I don't know...and I never use it now it's packed up in the store room (another item to sell on ebay). But, this now leads me to thinking about strollers...
It became apparent that I felt envy as Codi got older that many of the kids his age were travelling around in cool light weight strollers, not confined in the big pram and happily sitting slight upright seeing the world. I bought a cheap quick travel stroller from Kmart for $27...it's still kind of alive. However, it was extremely useful when travelling overseas (especially on the New York subway). I was still wanting a cool stroller. I bought a mountain velco stroller $158 with different reclines, one for sleeping, one a little higher (before they can really control their head) and an upright setting.
I enjoyed this stroller, but again it had a few limitations. It didn't ride as smoothly as I would have wanted, which you can feel like you are pushing a really full shopping trolley. The recline setting in the upright position was over done. Poor Codi sits up too straight. So guess what it sits collecting dust in the boot.
I have worked out after spending too much money that the only best buy was the capsule $129 and cheap stroller $27!!!!!!!
My adviceDon't be an unplanned fashion victim. I am planning to learn from this expensive experience.
1. Write down the features I want (be able to flip the handle bars over to a position where baby can see me and then flip back to baby seeing forward, an awesome feature)
2. Thinking about the lifestyle I lead, I'm not a exercise person with a pram...(I worked out I enjoyed exercising by myself at the gym with Codi in their creche for the hour).
3. Work out my entire budget for prams, capsule, stroller and cheap errand stroller. If I want to upgrade I am going to set some proper questions to ask, eg. light enough for a small person like me to lift into the car.
4. Think ahead what's going to happen with this stuff when I have a baby number two on the way and have to think about transporting two people around.
In conclusionOther parents may have been really good at doing this, but for those going out there shopping for transporting equipment I hope this aids as a guide.
(April 2006) (
