Making headway…
Well I can’t believe it. We actually made a trip to Babies-R-Us today and Jess didn’t leave in frustration uttering colorful words. This was probably the fourth or fifth trip specifically to look at strollers / infant car seat / baby carrier combinations (AKA: travel systems) to try and figure out what the heck we wanted to register for…
The difference this trip was that we (well “I” at least) finally felt armed with enough information about how to match what you want to look for with your lifestyle and what products were poor. Jess had been doing most of the research on this stuff using the good ol’ internet, but all she really came across was information on specific products and reviews from folks who had used those products. Nothing really pitting the current crop of products against each other and talking about how to match them with your daily routine.
We had been given this book some time ago that had this information in it all along. For some reason I didn’t until today really start to look at it… maybe because I’m trying to read like three other books right now on top of all the reading I normally do just to stay up on tech. Funny though…. one of my best friends was telling me yesterday how he swears by this particular book, which was enough for me to consider dropping everything and looking it over, and then we ran into some good friends today who also couldn’t speak highly enough about it. Without further ado, the book is Baby Bargains.
Great book and I highly recommend it. The 6th edition of this book it out now (the one I linked to), but we have the 5th edition from a couple years ago that was given to us by one of Jess’ co-workers. This book is chock full of really good info on just about everything you might possibly need for a new baby… and there are enough updates/changes in this new edition that I would recommend getting it from Amazon, but not paying full retail for it.
So through this book we were able to narrow down our selection to one of two strollers, which then determined the infant carrier / car seat we’ll be getting (which fortunately had really good marks in the book as well). All the products are from Peg Perego, an Italian manufacturer and considered one of the best worldwide as far as quality goes. (Siro will be so proud.) And we’ll either be going with the Pliko or Aria strollers, and then using the Primo Viaggio car seat / carrier with it.
I never dreamed in a million years I would become so well versed in the intricacies of strollers and car seats…. 
I find it very interesting how I have been reading Baby Bargains for quite some time now, flagging pages, making notes, raving about the book, keeping it in my car or purse at all times, and James decides he will take a look at it when a friend of him suggests he do so! In all the other trips to Babies R Us I was expecting him to give his input, offer suggestions, be helpful, etc. I didn’t just bring him along to the stores to get the strollers off the shelves! Silly man. James was very helpful this last trip… I will give him that.
After spending about 1.5 hours at Babies R Us to test out all the strollers, we were able to finally narrow it down to two (as James mentioned). Of course I would like to go back, test drive the two strollers around the store, open and close them several times, etc just to make sure I pick the right one. I also heard rumors that the Grago Snugride can fit into the Peg Perego strollers! We will have to check that out! Could save some money! I am sure this is all very interesting to you!
Comment by Jess — 4/12/2005 @ 11:32 am