Pushchair advice from experienced twin mummies please

[donnalb1981]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum as I'm currently just 16 weeks pregnant with twins. We're over the shock...I think :-) and are now getting really excited about having twice the love, fun and chaos in our lives.

We're just in the early stages of starting to work out everything we're going to need so we can get out and start shopping (and spreading the cost!) over the next few months or so and the first thing I'm struggling with is finding the perfect pushchair/pram/travel system.

We know that we really don't like the ones where one baby is stacked underneath the other so we're ideally after something that's either one behind the other or side by side. I also have a small car (a ford fiesta) so something that folds down as small as possible would be essential. It needs to be suitable from birth as I know a lot seem to be from 6 months+. And the final thing I'm considering is whether or not we need one that car seats can clip onto. Several friends have said that this is a life saver but that then seems to limit our choice even further with twins as many buggys seem to be designed for just one baby car seat and for one older child. We don't mind spending a decent amount of money on this but, if we do, then it needs to have longevity i.e. I don't want to have to buy a different style once the babies get to a year old because it's no longer suitable.

Any advice from you experienced twin mummies would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hello and congratulations!

How much do you use your car now, and will that change when the babies are here? (Eg do you use it mainly for work). I didn't go for a buggy that could take car seats as had other priorities, and only really use the car at weekends. Other people go everywhere in their car so it's a very personal preference. Also babies don't stay in infant car seats forever, but use a buggy for much longer.

There are various umbrella fold buggies (Maclaren style) which lie flat for newborns that might fit in your boot? Or baby jogger city mini, which folds really flat so might fit in on it's side.

Do you have a local twin group? You might be able to try out other people's buggies in your boot!

Congratulations on your twin pregnancy! We have the bugaboo donkey which we had from birth (our twins are now nearly three) and it's been great! You can buy them secondhand (and then resell again) but are great for side by side with the car seats (especially if you have the isofix bases in your car). The wheels come off so the fold can be really small if you reduce the frame to single mode too. It is still our most used buggy even now, three years on - even though we also own a McLaren twin turbo and a Phil and teds. We do have two single cheap umbrella buggies for holidays and weekends when both my husband and I are around - better for restaurants or places if you are not sure how spacious they will be.

We love our mountain buggy. Same width as a wheelchair - we found the donkey didn't go through our front door, and you can get clips for the car seats (we had maxicosi pebbles) to fit onto the frame. We also got the carrycot+ which were great when the babies were too wee for the seats. The carrycot+ can convert into parent or world-facing seats after. We're just about to sell our carrycot+ (they're usually £120 each) and car seats and car seat clips if you want to pm me? Every little helps when you've got two on the way! Congrats though, twins are awesome. What type are you having? We had dcda twin boys.

We have a Nipper 360 which is just fab. It is a good price and so easy to steer. I would really recomend it. I also have a Ford Fiesta and this buggy fits, just!

I was also 16 weeks pregnant at the end of May in 2012. Babies were due early November but were born end of September.

Congratulations :)

I'd second the mountain buggy! We adapted it with bits and pieces but it was good from the beginning until our girls were out of buggies altogether.

The only other I'd recommend is getting a cheap single pushchair or one that easily converts to a single so you can take one out at a time without lugging the huge buggy around. When taking DTs out together we quite often had one in a sling and one in a buggy, which was really handy.

Congratulations! Twins are fab!

If you don't mind babies facing away from you, the Out N About Nipper 360 V4 is a great pushchair. It's lightweight, easy to manover, reclining seats and easy to fold.

A third vote for the mountain buggy, it's bulky but lovely and really light to push

Congratulations!!
I went for the city select - which I used for the car seat clipping on stage! When they turned one I sold that and got an out and about buggy. A lot of my twin friend mums changed their pushchair after a year just like me.
It really is handy in the early days to be able to clip the car seats on.
My advice would be is to get brand new car seats, but find a second hand pushchair for this first stage!

Oh and second the idea about visiting a local twins club. There should be a lot of pushchairs there for you to look at!

We've got a baby jogger city mini GT and I'm not that keen. Folds flat but is very heavy, wide, not parent facing and now that they are older doesn't sit up enough so twins don't like it either. A friend had mountain buggy and I love it; it an fit the two car seats on, has parent facing option with car seats and is a side by side.

My biggest issue was trying to find stores thats stocked display models- ended up going around a few but that meant I couldn't compare alongside each other. It's a mine field!

Loved our out'n'about nipper 360. Lots of the mums at my twin club started with other buggies and ended up with a nipper

I can definitely recommend the bugaboo donkey (it is quite bulky though although all double buggies will be to some extent). I liked the option of having the babies parent facing which most double buggies don't offer. Pricey but worth it as we're now using it as a single for our third child. We had a Maclaren twin turbo for taking on holiday (easier to take on plane as it folds up in one piece, hard work to push though).