When my husband and I first went stroller shopping before my daughter was born, we considered several features before making our first purchase. How easy was it to push? Was there enough storage for a diaper bag? Would it be a hassle to push around in an airport? Did it look good? These were the important questions. Safety wasn’t anywhere on that list. And it’s not that I wasn’t concerned about safety with all of that pre-baby shopping, it’s just that strollers never struck me as particularly dangerous.
And let me say right off the bat that, thankfully, we have no stroller horror stories of our own to tell. Like that of Australian model Kerry Lucas, who stopped to answer a telephone call, bent over long enough to write down a telephone number, and looked up to find her stroller had rolled into a river. Or remember the YouTube video of a stroller accidentally rolling in front of a train? (Thankfully the baby survives, which is the only reason I could watch that clip at all.) In our house, it’s been pinched fingers and bumped heads, but I realize that it’s frighteningly easy to go from mundane boo-boos to a terrible, life-changing tragedy.
So here are a few things that a couple of years of motherhood and too many viral stories and videos have taught me. Maybe, hopefully, once you have that baby and are out there one day jogging off all of those pregnant cravings for Jack-In-The-Box Oreo shakes (dammit!), you’ll make sure to wear the wrist strap. So, here it is. The things I now know about stroller safety:
STROLLER SAFETY TIPS
-Not to sound like a broken record, but wear that wrist strap! Always! Even if you’re stopped still just long enough to make a phone call…
-Go stroller shopping on a sunny day and take the stroller outside. See exactly how well the sunshade works. Babies get sunburned easily. We’ve gone through five (or six) strollers by now and that has been my biggest overall stroller issue so far. Not having good shade can make an otherwise good stroller a bummer to take out.
-Buy a stroller with a five-point harness and use it. I didn’t always use ours. One day when my daughter leaned too far forward, down she went with the stroller right on top of her. It was a lightweight umbrella deal, and she came up laughing, but it could have been a lot worse, depending on where she went down and how fast you’re going. We were stopped.
-And speaking of tipping over, remember that the bigger your baby gets, the stronger they get. An 18 month old having a tantrum can get pretty crazy, and if they’re strong enough they can really get that thing rocking. Make sure you’ve got a wide base and that you’re using that five-point harness.
-Those sit-and-stand strollers are great, but take care with sudden stops and trying to get the stroller up onto a sidewalk. I have, more than once, accidentally dumped my daughter out of the back. The strap that is supposed to prevent this from happening broke on our stroller, so if yours works, use it!
-So that’s what I’ve learned. How about you? I’m sure there are a lot of important safety tips out there that I haven’t touched on, so if you’ve got one, please share!
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Nowadays it seems like whenever you go into the baby store to buy a stroller, there is an overwhelming sea of strollers. Maybe you got a recommendation. Maybe you are relying on the sales associate in the store. Or maybe you are on a strict budget and are praying you find something cute. The real question is “How do I know this is the one?” Here are a few tips and for testing and choosing the best stroller for you.
