Best pram for a small city flat? The Yoyo?

[Dalmatian0]

Would appreciate advice from people who’ve been there!

We live in a small 1st floor flat in a big city. We have our own front door, it opens onto a narrow staircase and our flat is at the top of the staircase. We’ll need to be able to navigate the stairs solo sometimes, with baby and dog in tow.

We have little space to store a pram so thinking something that folds up small will be best. I’ve heard that the Yoyo is good - would others agree?

I recently had a test run of the joolz aer and was super impressed with how light and compact it was! The yoyo is good but have heard it doesn't handle great on some terrains (not sure if you are on cobbles much!). Also super impressed with the bugaboo dragonfly travel system, and butterfly pram

The yoyo is great.
We bought mainly as our travel pram and it’s handled cobbled streets and bumpy paths in parks on our travels fine.
We store ours folded and hung on a coat hook so takes up no space indoors.

Thanks both, very useful to know

I find the yoyo very annoying to push - it’s not stable and doesn’t glide that well. The basket is also too small and awkwardly shaped for a backpack. I’d advise trying out their competitors, which I assume have improved on the Yoyo.

The Bugaboo Dragonfly is a good buggy that folds up small. It offers parent facing which the Joolz Aer/Bugaboo Butterfly/Stokke Yoyo doesn’t.

The Yoyo can’t be folded one handed but the Aer and Butterfly can.

I really valued parent facing, it can be very overwhelming facing away from you for young babies especially somewhere like London.

I vote bugaboo too.

Great point about parent facing options. Better for baby’s language development and just more fun.

I hate my yoyo one of my worst buys!

@pinkfloralcurtains - the yoyo is one handed fold. You fold handle down with two hands whilst baby is still in pram, then you can fold it one handed whilst holding baby

Parent facing has never been a big deal. The yoyo has parent facing for newborn also. We have a large jogger pram for off road as we live rural, and I still think the yoyo pushes nicer

I think everyone probably has a different opinion on this but I have the original yoyo and have been using it for 6 years now (2 kids from newborn) and it’s still going strong and I really like it. I also used to have to carry it up and down the stairs every day and the size meant I could sling it on my shoulder, carry it downstairs with baby and then put them in. I can push it along with one hand, up and down stairs, fold up on buses and airplanes etc. I do agree with pp that the basket isn’t very big but I just hang my bags on the back. Are you needing a pram for a newborn? I see the bugaboo has been mentioned a few times - they look good too but I think the butterfly is from 6 months only and the dragonfly does not fold down as small with the bassinet, so in your scenario where you have to carry it up and down stairs multiple times a day I would probably still pick the yoyo. The joolz I think is also from 6 months?

I’d second this. My yoyo has been in essentially continuous, daily use for 5.5 years (I have a 5 year old and a 2 year old). We’ve replaced each of the two front wheels, but that’s it for repairs I think. We’ve travelled with it quite a bit too.

Another one saying get a parent facing option if you can - you just don’t know what your baby will prefer so good to have the option.

Yoyo is parent facing only when the baby is in the bassinet - as soon as they are sitting up they have to be forward facing. This was fine for one of my DCs but not the other, who would only fall asleep in the pram if facing me. I also just liked being able to see and chat to them - 6 months is still tiny. Pretty sure all the ones that offer parent facing can do both, so you can still forward face them if you like.

That’s not a true one handed fold. The Aer and Butterfly are much easier folds - no mucking around whilst baby is still in the pram. Just hold the button and shake.

There’s plenty of videos on YouTube comparing the folds and it was this that put us off the Yoyo when we saw it in person. We have the Joolz Aer.

You can't beat Micralite Fastfold Micralite FastFold Stroller - Chassis and Hammock Seat - Olivers BabyCare

The bigger back wheels are great if you have to go up or down stairs. It's really light, but stable and secure. You can get a bassinet for when the baby is newborn. (Mum of 3). We had other prams over the years but this was the best one that we always came back to.

No you can use the Butterfly and Aer from newborn if you purchase the carrycot. Same principle as buying the newborn pack for the Yoyo.

It might be worth taking a step back and thinking about the bigger picture.

Baby, dog and pram is a lot to get down the stairs in one go if the baby isn’t in the pram. If you’ve got other stairs in your life it might be that a pram that’s good for bumping up and down stairs is a better option. That generally means bigger wheels.

With the growth of the cabin compatible pram market a lot of compact prams focus on that dimension. Whereas if storage in the house is the issue then the total volume and specific dimensions aspect might be less important compared to the match to the space you’ve got. Eg. Umbrella folks prams go well in corners / behind doors and take up less floor space that the cabin compatible ones, even though the total volume is bigger. I know people with out n about doubles that they hang on wall hooks above a shoe rack as they need the big wheels for their terrain.

My monster size uppababy vista is currently in daughters wardrobe remarkably tucked away as when you take it apart the individual pieces are easy to store.

If you’re considering a Moses basket on a stand, then maybe double up and use a suitable pram. One less thing in total.

Also, do you have a car? In which case, can keep it in the car.

I may have misunderstood but on the bugaboo website it says, “The Bugaboo Butterfly can be used from 6 months of age until 22 kg/48.5 lbs. The Butterfly can be used with a car seat using the Butterfly car seat adapters (available to purchase separately)—in this case, the Butterfly can be used from birth onwards.”
Does that mean the baby has to go in a car seat though if used before 6 months?

I do now see the Aer has a carrycot, but it doesn’t fold up as small as the yoyo with the carrycot option - so OP it probably depends on whether this is important to you or not.

Ah you’re right, the Bugaboo Butterfly don’t sell a carrycot accessory. Joolz do and we had that. It folded up small enough that we could store the buggy with carrycot in the rear footwell of our small car.

I’ve always been a bit suspect of the Yoyo newborn pack as it’s not properly lay flat & you can’t use a sheet/liner, but that doesn’t seem to worry too many people.

Thanks all. So much to think about! Really useful to get these perspectives, thank you

Agree with everything @ScaryM0nster says - try lots out and don't just go by sizes online. We looked at a lot of small pushchairs but ended up going with the Baby Jogger city mini because it's a genuine one-hand fold - we had downstairs neighbours who complained if we left the pram in the hall, so we had to always walk upstairs with baby in one hand and stroller in the other without it opening up again. I could also hang it on a hook from the fold handle, and the shape of it folded up fit in the boot of our old Ford Ka better than some smaller strollers.

We did a lot of city walking which sounds smooth, but is in fact often uneven pavement or gravel paths in the park, so the bigger wheels were helpful, and in particular for tipping it up to get on and off the bus or tube. My brother has a yoyo - it's great for flying, and the wheels are wonderful on smooth pavement/interior floors and not as good as the baby jogger for anything else.

We’ve got a YoYo for travel and compared to our Vista V2 I don’t like it. It’s flimsy, the basket is pathetic, and the wheels do struggle on bumpier terrain. My friend has a Joolz Aer + and I was sold on the ease of the one-handed fold. Another friend has one of the new Nuna models and she paid extra for 4-wheel drive. That might be useful if you’ve got a small space to manoeuvre in. Agree with others to think more broadly than size alone dependent on what you really need the pram to do for you.