We think that walking with your stroller is one of the best forms of exercise you can do when you have a new baby; it's low impact, it's easy, it's free, you can do it right from your home, and there's the bonus of the shopping basket underneath if you happen to pass the shops on your way :-) Walking with the pram can be social too if you arrange to meet up with a friend and go for a walk together. Some of my fondest memories from when I was on maternity leave walking with friends and our prams, stopping for lunch and generally having a nice chilled out day together.
Most of the strollers that we sell at Global Baby have parent facing seats. In the old days pushchairs always had parent facing seats but sometime around the 60s or 70s a compact fold became more desirable with strollers, and so due to engineering restraints the seat was turned to face the other way. These days engineering has come along way and it's now possible to have a light weight compact stroller where your child can sit facing you. We think that there are a lot of things to love about parent facing strollers, and here are some of our faves.
Most of the strollers that we sell at Global Baby have parent facing seats. In the old days pushchairs always had parent facing seats but sometime around the 60s or 70s a compact fold became more desirable with strollers, and so due to engineering restraints the seat was turned to face the other way. These days engineering has come along way and it's now possible to have a light weight compact stroller where your child can sit facing you. We think that there are a lot of things to love about parent facing strollers, and here are some of our faves.
1. You can see and hear if your baby is upset
You don't need to stop walking and move around to the front of the stroller to see what your baby doing or what's bothering them.
Bugaboo Cameleon
2. You can talk to your baby while you're walking
There are lots of studies showing how much more babies are talked to when they are sitting in the push chair facing their parent, like this one out of the UK, and this more recent study in NZ. It's really a lot of fun to chat to your baby while you're walking, and it's exciting too, when their language develops and they start pointing things out to you like busses, flowers, playgrounds, dogs, and other objects that you see every day but hardly notice without your child bringing them to your attention.
3. You can make adjustments
If the blanket phones off or if the hat goes over their eyes, you'll notice straight away, you can even see if one of their booties falls off.
Bugaboo Runner
4. This is kind of a funny one
When you go to pick up your child from daycare with an empty stroller, you'll get less comments from strangers if the seat is parent-facing. This is especially a bonus if you're pregnant with number two, Anna told us that the strangers comments ramped up a notch when she was pregnant and walking with an empty outward facing stroller! LOL!
Mutsy Igo
5. You have options
All of the strollers with parent facing seats have the option of facing the other way as well. You might turn the seat around for an older child, if they want to see where they're going, or you might turn them out of the sun on a particularly sunny day, or, you can keep them facing you!
CasualPlay Kudu
6. You get to see their cute little face
Just how adorable are they? So cute!! You get to see their cute little face and make eye contact while you walk, that's a bonus right?
Basically, the best thing about parent-facing strollers is that you get to see more of your baby, and while they're a baby you're the person that they love the most in the whole world, so they want to see more of you, that's a good feeling right? When they're older they might want to face the other way, but we'll soak up the eye contact for as long as we can xxx
