What’s The Best Buy As A Stroller For Big Kids?
I’ve owned a lot of different strollers over the years. I was faced with an interesting dilemma with our second child that I didn’t really expect to have to face. He was growing like crazy, which is great, but we was getting a bit too big for the stroller that his sister grew up in. She was pretty much standard size as kids go, and fell nicely into the normal part of the growth curve. He did too for about the first month of his life but after that he starting to stretch out rather rapidly. By the time he was three and a half he was far too big for the standard stroller. Fortunately he liked to walk most of the time,but he still couldn’t walk all day. And often as not, if we were out for a long day, he would fall asleep at some point. If he didn’t have time for a nap, he would get pretty cranky, like all kids. This is nothing new.
How To Choose?
The criteria I use are pretty straightforward.
- Needs To Last – Since this was not likely to be our last child, I figure I wanted something that would last for another child, or possibly two. We more or less planned three kids, maybe four but either way it needed to survive this little guy and probably one more.
- Reasonably Priced – This is always on my list. Sometimes this is in-congruent with built to last, but I need to know that what I am buying is priced reasonably compared to the competition. Also, since this was an unexpected purchase the budget was important
- Easy To Manage – I’m not the main user of the stroller, my wife is. So it either has to be light, or come apart easily and quickly. Both is best, but that’s hard to find at a reasonable price. She needs to be able to man handle it into the van without too much trouble
- All Terrain – We take our stroller in places besides just the mall. Most people do, so I wanted a stroller for big kids that could go all terrain. The beach, nature trails and sometimes a bit of snow. There is nothing worse that struggling with a crappy stroller through slush and ice in a parking lot
- Cup Holder – Do I really need to go into detail here? I don’t function well without coffee when I’m walking my kids. And when I’m jogging my water bottle is an absolute must also. The cup holder on the Schwinn Turismo is first class.
- Kids Are First Class – It’s important that your kids are comfortable and happy when they are in the stroller. There’s lot of room and the seats are large. And the kids have their own tray and cupholder as well. They are treated like first class citizen as they should be. Because if they are happy, you will be happy. More importantly if they aren’t happy you definitely won’t be.
A Jogger Is The Best Buy
In my experience the easiest solution to this is to be a decent jogging stroller. A lot people start with a jogging stroller and just use it as their main stroller as well as their athletic stroller. They are a little heavy for some people to use as a main stroller.
Joggers Are A Bit Heavy
The Schwinn Turismo that we chose weighs in at about 35 pounds, but it folds down so this isn’t as much of an issue. They are very well built, have big air filled tires typically and will make your child very comfortable. They typically have those big wheels to help them roll over virtually anything.
The Schwinn Turismo Single
If you want a really good stroller that will last then the Schwinn Turismo Single Jogger is the way to go.
It’s the choice we made. It covers all of my criteria and more. The price is reasonable, it’s well made and folds down easily. It has big wheels to help it roll easily over rough terrain, folds down easily and is reasonably priced. Check it out here on Amazon
