Do modern prams isolate young mums?

Lunar_Eclipse

Ma77hew wrote: »

I think a few of you just have an issue with prams in general lol.

I think you're right.

I no longer really notice prams since I don't go to town centres often these days, but now that you've made me think about it, the problem is that there are just too many.

Maybe it's population growth and increased family size. But unlike decades ago, it's also fairly normal to see 3 & 4 year olds in strollers. I can't help but wonder if this is attributing to the increase in child obesity too (although it's a fairly small 4 year old that can still fit in a stroller comfortably.:D)

sneekymum

littlerock wrote: »

I recently helped out a friend with a craft fair on the first floor of a shop. There was a good view of the road and as I looked out I was struck by how the pendulum here seemed to have swung back in favour of large technologically advanced baby carriages. I noticed a lot of young mothers pushing one of these mini perambulators, the lower tray stuffed with shopping and the babies buried inside in a cocoon of bedding.

I also noticed that the only mothers to visit the craft fair were those with strollers or babies in baby slings despite the fact there was a large and attractive range of baby related items on sale. We had someone at the street level, to greet and mind the prams while the mothers visited the fair but all the big pram pushers declined on the grounds the pram was too heavy to carry upstairs,...

What was the plan to allow disabled people to access this event?

trailingspouse

I loved my stroller when my son was little. I could hold him with one arm while a quick kick and an expert shake reduced the stroller to nothing bigger than a fat umbrella. I could get the stroller and a week's worth of shopping into the boot of the car. And it didn't cost us much.

Oh, and at a strapping 6'3" I don't think he's suffered any ill effects from it.

Nada666

I don't understand the stairs problem the OP noticed. Perhaps too many have shoddy prams that don't deserve the name. One major advantage of the pram is that it has a large wheel with proper suspension - bumping a child upstairs in the pram is very easy. Despite living on the third floor of a tenement my little sister and brother could both stay asleep during the whole process.

Lobell

Lightweight strollers and many of the bigger pushchairs are not suitable for babies under 6 months. The advice now is to keep a baby in a pram/carry cot (where they can lie flat) until 6 months. Hence why you see more prams around. I had one and didn't find it cumbersome, inconvenient or isolating. But I wouldn't have left my baby with a stranger to watch over her so that i could browse a craft fair...and that's not just because I'm not that interested in homemade tat.

I also had a sling but tended to only wear that for dog walking so I could carry baby and have hands free for dog leads etc. The pram was far handier for a stroll around they shops as it gives you somewhere to stash your shopping as you go. Not so much fun carrying shopping bags and a baby.

OrkneyStar

We had a pram/buggy suitable from birth- he could lay flat but also was able to sit up (from what I recall there was flat, slightly up, and then more toward up right- the first option was used exclusively when he was tiny). It was fairly easy to fold but did take up a reasonable amount of space. It was handy with the bit below and when it was cold etc I felt he was warmer in there as room for a blanket on top, then the actual pram/buggy cover that popped on, and a sturdy hood. It also had a good rain-cover and was fairly steerable. However when he was about 4 months we got a more stroller type (actually mum got it as we were going south and she had it there waiting for us to use and take home), which was more padded than a basic stroller but much more light weight and easy to fold than the other one (from memory it was adjustable- didn't go completely flat but quite sloped or more upright). The big one needed to be in the boot whereas this one could be folded and laid across the floor in back of car. It had a decent rain-cover too. I do remember taking DS to nursery, aged 3, not worth trying to drive in the snow and he hated walking in it (school was a fair distance then and it was two trips, there and back, within just over 3 hours) so we pushed him in the big buggy, all wrapped up with blankets and hats and so on. He was happy, I made it the one exception that I'd use a big buggy for a 3 year old though! We did have a sling/carrier but with my back issues we didn't use it that much. Sometimes I'd park the buggy and take him in with me, holding him, and that worked for short shop visits. As for names, I think the first one was a Graco and the second a Chicco.

OrkneyStar

Lobell wrote: »

Lightweight strollers and many of the bigger pushchairs are not suitable for babies under 6 months. The advice now is to keep a baby in a pram/carry cot (where they can lie flat) until 6 months. Hence why you see more prams around. I had one and didn't find it cumbersome, inconvenient or isolating. But I wouldn't have left my baby with a stranger to watch over her so that i could browse a craft fair...and that's not just because I'm not that interested in homemade tat.

I also had a sling but tended to only wear that for dog walking so I could carry baby and have hands free for dog leads etc. The pram was far handier for a stroll around they shops as it gives you somewhere to stash your shopping as you go. Not so much fun carrying shopping bags and a baby.

That's a bit sweeping is it not? Many crafted items are not 'homemade tat', in fact a lot of handmade items are far superior in quality to machine made items and imported or mass produced items.

AngelOfTheNorth

Gillyx wrote: »

I'm 27 and my mum had a massive silver cross pram for me :eek: now that was massive.

Yes, that was very much my experience too. I'm surprised to hear so many people describe modern prams as bigger than those from a couple of decades ago, for me it's been vice versa. I think people tended to use lightweight strollers for older babies and toddlers earlier than now, perhaps, and they were smaller than today, but not the prams.

littlerock

No-one was suggesting the baby be left in the pushchair park, the park was there for pushchairs not babies. My point was that many of the local mothers came to the entrance and then decided against going up the stairs because so many had large technological pram-buggies which were not easy to get up the stairs - which had a turn on them. And it was not home made tat. Bit sweeping that.

I have discussed this with my d-i-l. They live in New York where it is really impractical to keep a car, and they live in a walk up. Before the baby arrived she bought quite a high spec push chair buggy in a fit of enthusiasm (nothing but the best for my new baby etc) and then found, she says, it was too cumbersome and restrictive when negotiating stairs and pavements and transport and she replaced it with a light weight model which also had a back support incidentally for very young babies. She mostly carried the first baby in a sling anyway and when the second arrived she moved the first to the light weight push chair and carried the new baby in a sling.

But she said the sort of prams you see on the high street here taking up the pavement would not be practical in a New York walk up. Even storing it in one would be an issue. There do seem to be a lot of them round my way, hence my friend saying they are something of a status symbol.

Looking back I recall had a very small pram which I used until the baby could sit up and which doubled as a carry cot when we used the car, but the car went to work with my husband and without it I was more or less confined to be on foot or carry the baby which was difficult to do for long periods as I had a back problem too. I could not wait to get rid of the pram and move baby to a easily collapsible push chair as it gave me so many more travelling options. (And I always collapsed it on public transport.) My children really enjoyed the push chairs and going on the bus and train and facing forwards looking at stuff not just me....

I am sure that if you go everywhere by car one of the three way pram buggy carry cots is OK but I see so many young women pushing one of these on their own on foot and I cannot help but wonder if they had something smaller and more mobile it would enable them to get around more and so make life more interesting for them.

AngelOfTheNorth

littlerock wrote: »

I cannot help but wonder if they had something smaller and more mobile it would enable them to get around more and so make life more interesting for them.

I'd say the opposite, actually. If you don't have access to a car, the pram is more likely to need to be big enough to carry shopping on it. It's harder to fit all the stuff you might feasibly need to transport onto a smaller chassis. Whereas car boot size tends to preclude one from using some of the biggest prams.