Top Mistakes on Choosing a Compact and Lightweight Baby Stroller



There are more and more compact strollers in the market, more choices is good for customers, but it also means customers need to spend more time on choosing the right compact stroller. And there are a lot of garish advertisements on the internet, social spaces and shops, those increase the difficulty for consumers on making the right choice. 

As a man who works in baby stroller industry for over 20years and also a father, here are my thoughts on how to choose a right compact stroller for your baby, hope it can help you to save your time and not struggle anymore on making your choice. 

 

1. As small as possible

As compact as possible is a very important feature for many parents who looking for a travel stroller, so they want the stroller as smaller as possible when it is folded. Those parents are very easy being attracted by garish videos and photos which showing the super compact size of the baby strollers, but they may do not see the disadvantages of an extremely compact stroller till using it. As a stroller engineer and user, I would highly recommend consumers pay attention to  following things before purchasing:

Is the seat space enough for baby?

A common sacrifice for some compact strollers is a very small size for the seat. Although compact strollers must with smaller space, the seat shouldn’t be too small, otherwise will not comfortable for kids.

Is the frame of stroller strong and steady?

Some extremely compact strollers usually have many joints and movable components, so they can be folded smaller, but a disadvantage is the frame of the stroller will not steady and feels shake.  I think that’s why main bicycle companies do not make the bicycles to fold like strollers, because bicycle needs to be much more stronger. 

Is it easy to use? 

Many super compact strollers are very difficult on folding and unfolding, usually much more difficult than they are showing in the videos and advertisements. a complicate folding stroller will cause your nursery life more complicated. 

 

Are the wheels too small? 

Too small wheels will not run smoothly on uneven roads, especially difficult on Europe paving stone roads. When my family traveling in Florence Italy on 2018, we use a compact stroller with 5.5inches front wheels, my 5 years old son was fall out of the stroller as the front wheels were stopped on the stone roads suddenly. 

But we could not use the big wheels on a compact stroller as it needs to be “compact’’, after trying many different compact strollers, I suggest the front wheels for compact stroller should be between 6inches to 8inches.

2. As lightweight as possible

Lightweight is great, but similar reason like the most compact strollers, the lightest strollers usually with some disadvantages as well, like not steady or stronger, fewer functions. so you’d better pay more attention to the must need features when you check a “lightest’’ stroller.

 

3. Complicated on folding 

As all the strollers I have seen till now (As a stroller sourcing consultant for some European and Australia companies, I have been visiting the biggest baby stroller fairs in the world since 2003, like Cologne Fair, HongKong Fair, Shanghai Fair etc. and most of the stroller factories in Asia ), the most compact stroller usually are complicated on folding; And another type of compact strollers have fancy structure and looks attractive or high technology, but they are complicated on folding. 

What I want to mention to parents is compact stroller should be easy on folding, because compact stroller also calls travel stroller, we should not bring a stroller with complicated folding when traveling. 

Best compact strollers with easy and simple folding, those are smart designs. 

By the way, a complicated folding stroller usually needs more components to build the stroller which will also make the price high. 

 

4. Without leg-rest part 

Some compact strollers without leg rest part, so kids’ legs are always hanging out of the seat when sleeping, this is an old design, I do not recommend to buy, no matter how big brand it is from.

5. A higher price stroller better?

Strollers are not high technologies products, they are all made by pieces of metal, plastic, fabrics etc combined together, from my 20 years experiences of manufacturing on baby strollers, a nice compact stroller’s reasonable retail price should be from US$150 - $250, this has included the manufacturing costs and margin of distributors and retailers. a compact stroller over $300 is not recommended to buy, no matter how famous of the brand is and how rich you are, because I think there 2 reasons for that high prices: high margin, or the manufacturing costs are unnecessarily too high.

 

Thanks for reading and hope this article can help you to find your favorite compact stroller. 

Explore for a great compact stroller: www.beberoadbaby.com

 

Mark from Beberoad