Top qualities for choosing a stroller for a newborn

Good morning, everyone!

I wrote about finding the right kind of stroller for 1 or 2 children and that was mainly targeted to people with with a toddler and a baby or two toddlers. But when I was expecting my first child, L, I had no previous experience on strollers at all. I'd seen those for sure but I never paid too much attention on them. Some strollers had four big tires, some four with two smallers ones in front and some of them had only three tires. Some were big, some smaller and some in between. Some have adjustable legrests while others have bigger & better hood/canopy. And the color - which one to choose? As you can imagine, we were lost and advice came from everywhere! This post is about finding the right one especially for newborn and we'll talk about other types of strollers later. I hope this helps you or even gets you on the right direction. As said before, I'm not a professional on this so this is only based on me and my family's own experience.

Types of strollers to choose from

• standard size: bassinet/baby cocoon, larger seat, bigger and easily maneuverable tires for everyday use. Some of these also have adapters so you can add your car seat to the stroller and that way they call it a travel-system.
• lightweight (best for travelling): some of these don't weight too much and are also foldable so they don't take too much space. They call these 'umbrella stroller' for that reason. These at not very handy in northern countries because they are very difficult to push on snow, for example. Since a newborn can't sit up for the first 6 months, I wouldn't recommend this type of stroller unless you have on that has adapters for carseat. Even with that, I don't think it's recommended to have you baby on a carseat for too long - baby really needs to lie flat so a bassinet is always the best. This blog compares some qualities & points out good things to keep in mind for choosing a travel stroller.

We decided to a used stroller for L and ended up buying Gesslein vision. That came with three large tires and a soft bassinet which you could easily convert in to a sleeping bag/footmuff when the baby could sit up on the stroller. It also had an underseat basket which is important if you shop with the baby. Raincover and mosquitonet are both a must, at least in Finland. 

The choice between a soft bassinet/a cocoon and a hard carrycot is one to think about too. Here are some ideas I'd like to share.

Types of bassinets (pro's and con's)

• Soft bassinet/a baby cocoon: lighter, easy to carry with side handles and you can also use it for longer since you can make a sleeping bag/footmuff out of it. The one we had was easy to attach to the stroller - I wouldn't use just a sleeping bag even if the seat goes flat. I'd be too scared the baby will fall out. Soft bassinet might also be too hot for a baby that borns in the summer time.
• Hard carrycot: many strollers have this and for sure, I think it's more safe because you can safely attach it to your stroller and you have to think about it falling off. Hard carrycot also have a bigger hood on it so covers baby from sunlight and snow etc. better than a soft bassinet. You can also use it as a babybed for newborn - the time you can use it isn't too long though. Our second stroller had a hard carrycot and the problem was that L did't want to lie flat after 4 months so we didn't use this anymore. And with living in the city, storage is always an issue: where am I gonna keep this now on? Depending on the size of the carrycot, make sure you have enough room to have a sleeping bag or something else inside the carrycot to keep your baby warm. That is, if your baby's born in wintertime.

So now that we've covered some basics it's time to ask following questions from you:

• Where will you be using the stroller: in the city or countryside? 
• Will your baby sleep in the stroller? In Finland many babies like to sleep outside in the stroller.
• Where do you live: in an apartment with no elevator or do you have lots of storage room in your house? We live in an apartment and sometimes I take the stroller upstairs so one of my requirements were that the strollers can't be too heavy. If we had a different situation, that would not be one of my requirements.
• Do you use public transportation or you own car (and how big is your car)? I use a lot of public transportation so my strollers have always been relatively narrow so they'll fit in the bus/train. My car is also super-small so that's why huge strollers are a no no to me.
• How will you use them: for exercise and walking a lot, or just to go to the park/somewhere close? That is something you should consider carefully. I walked a lot when I had L and that was my only type of exercise - I had no time to leave baby at home (I was breastfeeding him every 1-2 hours at the most). So I really needed good ones: not too heavy, good tires and easy to  maneuver. 
• Underseat basket if you do groceries with the baby. I've unfortunately always had a stroller that has a small basket but I've compensated that with a huge bag on the handle. Careful though, some handles 'can't handle' too much weigh!

Was this post for any help? I tried to think of everything that bugged me. Here's a site that covers this topic as well. Check it out!