I'm after three things, first a travel pram. Anyone have any experience with the Yoyo stroller?
Secondly, a car seat which swivels, he's 13 months and we'd like it to last as long as possible.
Finally, some kind of trike/bike thing, I'm wanting to stick him in it so I can take him around the fields when I walk the dog. It'd need to have proper tyres or some basic suspension as the ground can be quite uneven. Idea is I push him along and eventually he can do a little pedalling etc himself.
Recommendations most welcome!
Travel buggy: buggaboo ant or I think it's now been replaced by the butterfly or something like that. Excellent, go in overhead lockers. best thing we bought. Main buggy seat stows into the base when you're using the carseat attachments. Great design. We also got a normal buggy (buggaboo bee) for general use as it's a bit more robust and capacious but still small enough to easily get down bus aisles etc. Both have brackets that take our car seats (Cybex cloudZ and cybex atom).
Car seat For the buggaboo models we got there weren't many car seats that were best buys for safety that also had approved buggy brackets for putting the carseat onto the frames. Luckily the best of the best cloudZ was compliant, the only downside being its high cost!
We use the Cybex CloudZ mainly as the day-to-day car seat, and the cheaper Atom as an occasional travel seat that gets put in the plane hold as we didn't fancy the main seat getting thrown around. The atom has faired rather well so far tbh in its big (3rd party) travel pouch (that we pad out with blankets etc when we check it in the oversize luggage drop-off). Atom also handy as a spare when we have visitors and need to take an extra baby along with us.
Isofix swivel base
We have found an isofix car seat swivel base is invaluable when they're babies. We went with the Cybex i cloud iso base thing to go with the cloudZ seat. The same base takes a follow on toddler seat when they get old enough that therefore also rotates. We are yet to reach that stage so no idea if it makes a difference at that age, but we're already bought into the system so I imagine we'll go with it. Then once they're out of that we can get a multi-age booster seat thing.
When we travel we take the atom which just goes into cars using the standard seat belt and the difference in time it takes to install/extract is noticeably longer, more fiddly, more difficult to do in a crowded carpark (and more irritating when you're used to the quicker option). Obviously it is not practical to travel with an isofix base. The cloudZ is one of the models that can use a base or seatbelt so you don't have to use a base if you don't want to spend the extra money. We just wanted the convenience of the swivel base. Surprisingly there are some models that can only take a base. Seems a bit odd to me that but there you go. Best avoid those IMO.
I haven't tried the Atom in our isofix base, I think it can use a base but it might need a different (non-swivel) one but we drew the line at that for an occasional (mainly travel) seat.
Flying:
We did not find a decent car seat (meeting modern crash standards) that fits into airline seats. (dif airlines have dif requirements, and some are ridiculously narrow). Having flown several times with the baby, don't bother trying to find a car seat to use on the plane. Get a good sling (baby bjorn etc) and keep them strapped to you. That is all you need shorthaul, and it saves paying for a separate seat for them. If it's long haul they'll have a bassinet to go in. If ours is anything to go by you'll spend most of the flight bouncing them up and down the aisle anyway.
You can keep the baby in the sling and just put the red infant belt around him. We've had confirmation from the airline that this is acceptable. Every now and then you get a rookie attendant who asks us to take him out the sling for takeoff/landing in which case we just do what they ask as the argument isn't worth it, but when they bother to look it up it is ok so long as the belt is still around them and the baby is facing forwards. For <6 months you might need to take them out and hold them for TO/L as IIRC they should only be rear facing in the sling until they can support their head properly.
I would suggest that whatever travel buggy you get goes in overhead lockers, and which doesn't need wheels taking off to achieve this. It's so much easier being able to wheel them to the gate, fold it down and just walk onto the plane. No worrying about it getting left on the tarmac / crushed in the hold etc. The envious looks (and comments) we get from people with big clunky things tells us we did the right thing. Also the poor family who got their buggy back with a dent and the wheel broken off. Not cool...
Can't help with bikes. Sry. we do lots of walking, but it's so hilly here and the roads so narrow/busy I haven't dared take him out in a bikeseat yet.
thanks for your help
. I wouldn't if it was an important year like gcses or Sat's (not sure if they got replaced).
disney for example is 3K vs 8K. not paying that...
