i NEED a stroller, but I WANT a bugaboo. someone come talk sense to me.

[swottybetty]

i need a buggy for the car, ideally good with a buggy board. my dcs are just-turned-one and just-turned-two .

i've done some frantic buggy-shuffling that would make the ladies of the pushchair shed proud, and now have £200 left for the stroller. staunchly refusing to go with the sensible but boring XT option - had been assuming i'd go with a BCJM.

So out of nowhere tonight I've been wondering whether there was a bugaboo that might suit my needs? some seem to go quite cheap on ebay. i would love to have a bugaboo even for a small time. are there any that are easy to get in car? i don't know anything about bugaboos. I love the idea of ds rear facing chatting to his sister on board.

this is kind of a hopeless post, isn't it? i am just a bit tipsy and having buggy dreams....

I have an Xplory and get it on a bus so a Bee should be no problem on a bus.

I need a smaller buggy and am having the XT or Bee Plus debate (with myself, lol!!) and I know I will order an XT and it will arrive and I just won;t be happy with it but just can't bring myself to order the Bee cos of the price!

All this time I am wasting dithering and unable to make a decision and now another weekend is upon us where hubby will moan about the Xplory taking up all the room in the boot of the car!!

Oh, issues!!

i have pretty much pushed everything on the market.

apart from most city joggers and gracos as not keen on the plastic look

i adore maclarens (currently have 2 of them ) but they just dont compare to the beeb at all. if you want light, rearfacing, buggy board, good shopping basket, easy to fold, then go for the bee.

if you want a stroller, long fold, bigger seat then go for maclarens.

lol LB, the bee plus is the same as the original bee, just a few tweaks.

my dd1 broke our first buggy, a jane that i LOVED, and it was covered on insurance. didn't need a new entire travel system, so bought the bee. it's a great thing.

Aitch listened to me

What about the Oyster?

Aitch - meant to say, thanks for the info on the buggy board for the Bee on another thread It arrived this week and is perfect ! DS loves chatting to his sis as he stands on the board and I've just been chucking it in the basket when I don't need it

I luurrrrve my Bee too

Love my bee.

Worth every penny imo.

sparky - how old are your kids? i think dd and ds would love the whole board/rearfacing combo.

misdee i was checking out buying the component parts last night. do parts come up often? there are a couple of chassis on at moment - but when i checked out new price of seat units, hoods etc it cam to quite a bit.

i need a job. i spend far too much time thinking about buggies. yesterday i got the MB double i'd been hankering after for ages and then spend the evening wondering what to get next....

Just to add if you have a maxi-cosi car seat you can get adapters that allow you to add it to the bee making it into a travel system (someone on pg1 I think lamenting that it could be used that way)

loved my bee. DS is two next week and it is still ok for him. Like some others I don't have a car, was great for the bus and has a good turning circle (!) TBH when I bought it, I hadn't done any research and didn't know what prams were the most lusted after. I just wanted a pram where he and I could look at each other (and he was rear facing for the first eight months) and was narrow to help me get around. It has been great for all of that.

Is it? Well blow me down etc

My two are 1 and just 4. TBH, DS is being very lazy by standing on the board (we also still use our P&T sometimes too), but for a quick journey round the shops etc - the Bee and the buggy board rocks

'...was narrow to help me get around. It has been great...'

Agreed! Dh had a tendency to dart off in crowds on the high street, dashing in and out of people while pushing the buggy. He has NO idea how rare it is to be able to do that. I used to mind a friend's boy sometimes and she always left her (graco) buggy for me to use, and I never did since the damn thing made me near suicidal just walking down to the park.

Another upside of the Bee (if you are in London as I was) is that provided the baby is still small enough, it was light enough for me to hoist it onto my hip with baby still strapped inside and carry up and down the stairs when no lift/escalator was available rather than wait around for someone to help me or try to shuttle the baby AND buggy up/down [went lots of places alone emoticon]. I would say this stopped being an option at about ten months or so, but I carried with it occasionally until about 1 year.

I did work, so I wasn't a SAHM toodling around with the baby for hours on end, but again, it was our primary means of transport anytime DD was along. IT carried all the shopping and IT carried the change bag and IT carried snacks etc and it had to cope with ALL the errands we would need to do on weekends.

Oh, yes, and at this time DH's spine was fractured, so he couldn't lift anything.

As mentioned, if OP has a car and therefore won't be walking/taking public transport everywhere, I'm not sure that the Bee would be worth the price, but for us it absolutely was. Now that I have a car to take the baby and the buggy somewhere and DD wants to run wild walk around anyway, my Bee is not SO attractive (gets left home a lot unless we are going somewhere over naptime and I know I will want somewhere to lay DD when she conks out) - but then, I haven't had to buy a new buggy either, since the Bee still folds down to fit in the boot of my mini, unlike a friend who purchased a massive Audi estate car when their buggy didn't fit, even folded , in the boot of the renault!

fwiw, ebay seller "poshbugs" does cute, custom footmuffs and stuff that fits on the bee for less than buying from bugaboo.

Bugaboo are very expensive, but not a waste at all, as their resale value is fantastic, and besides they are so worth the money.
Having pushed pretty much everything available on the pushchair market (I would sometimes change my pushchair weekly if I didnt like it) the bugaboo cameleon/frog is by far and away my fave, closely followed by the bee plus. I have had 4 different cameleons and 2 frogs, each time I sold them thinking I wanted a change, and within a couple of weeks I had bought another because nothing compares pushing wise, comfort wise, style wise, suspension wise. I've recently swapped the cameleon for a bee plus, as I wanted my car boot back, and I am so in lurve.
You dont need a stroller, you need a bee....

Nothing has worked as fantastically as the Bee with a buggyboard for us but the dream of DDs facing each other didn't really take off (DD2 kicked ). 4 year old DD1 fitted in the old Bee with her head resting on the soft hood if she sat in it ever, it didn't look odd and was comfy for her.

XT and BJCM not great with a board at all.

btw in a moment of Absolute Genius i slung a bungee into the boot of the bee and now use it when in town and the shopping bags have gone out of control, you can get a phenomenal amount under the rear-facing seat if you have it bungee-ed in, iykwim?

also, and this is something that people to with buggies in spain and italy, funnily enough, when your children are being unbelievable pitas you can put it down flat, strap in little toddler at legs and sit big kid on the back behind them. not something bugaboo recommend, but sometimes needs must.

also, a bag slung over the handles and feet on bugaboo board can be used as a kinda hammock thing so that older moaning child can sit down as they travel. their feet on the board keeps it from being unstable.

take a look at the m&p urbo too, much cheaper and folds as easily as the bee and compact too, a good sized seat but noway near as expensive.
i've had several bees as unfortunatley a reformed pramaholic but i just don;t get them, maybe because i'm tall but it felt like a dolls pram.

oh yes i saw someone with an urbo today (noticed name cos thought of urbi et orbi, am such a papist), thought it looked good.

I am not into trendy prams either and don't think the bee is all that pretty and it is ridiculously priced. I begrudged paying for it. However it was the only one that does what I want other to and I am pleased I have it. I will use it til we no longer need it and then hopefully get a few quid back from ebay. You can pimp it at snunkie, less than bugaboo footmuff. Hoods same price but prettier.

I have a double bjcm which I also love but it isn't rear facing. If the single bjcm was rear facing, that would be perfect.

lol dd1 does that too. we are determined to wreck ours i think. yes, deffo not about name for me, i loathe the chameleon etc.

dd2 still rear facing at nearly two, lady, i did turn her round but she missed her sister. (dd1 not on board any more but she tends to walk beside me and chat.)

My DCs are 10months and 2.4. We have the original bee and the bugaboo buggy board and its FAB!!

I had some custom fabrics made at snunkie (hood,liner,muff) and it looks great.

Ds1 loves the board and chatting to ds2.(he is still rear facing and he loves it)

I love the bigger hood on the original bee too its great in the sun and (gives lots of shade). When he outgrows it I will get a bee plus off ebay.

Lightweight,small, folds in one piece(even rear facing)and glides when you push it.

HTH

lol, loathe anything with big, off-roading tires - including the chameleon. I'm not taking the damn thing to the sand dunes, I'm walking down to the shops!

And here's me thinking that stokke monstrosity was the pushchair for people who want to show off (HUGE footprint, paltry storage, doesn't fold afaik).

Or no, it's the old-timey looking ones that are a blasted chariot that looks like it should come with its own governess. I'm not terribly tall (5'8") and that handle was WELL below my hands. I would have had to stoop down constantly to push it.

frankie boyle has a stokke. i smirk when i see him.

Is the stokke the one that looks like an office chair?

Frankie Boyle was wearing a sling when I saw him