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There's an astonishing choice of pushchairs, prams, strollers and buggies for transporting your baby. Ursula Seymour, who writes for a range of magazines and newspapers including The Sunday Times, picks five of the very best Click to view Top 5 Pushchairs.
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Best All-Rounder (Maclaren Techno XT) |
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 The Maclaren is the pushchair that most mothers wish they had bought from word go. It's inexpensive, lightweight, easy to fold, small enough to fit in the most cramped boot, has plenty of storage and - best of all - this model is suitable for babies of any age from birth onwards, so you will never need to buy another buggy. |
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| While it's easy to be seduced by the good looks and extra features of other, more expensive, buggies most mums will eventually trade in their all-singing, all-dancing prams for a simple, lightweight Maclaren, often when the baby is just three months old, which makes the huge outlay for a big pram all the more wasteful. |
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 Having a new baby is an expensive business, and the pram is one area where you really don't need to spend too much. The Maclaren Techno XT is suitable from birth as you can recline the back to allow the baby to lay flat. True, it isn't as padded or robust as a traditional pram, but you can buy an inexpensive footmuff or sheepskin buggy liner to pad it out, and once strapped in the baby is as secure in here as in any big pram.
The real benefit of the Maclaren is that because it is a simple pushchair, you don't need a degree in engineering to work out how to fold and unfold it. There is a simple lever mechanism and the "umbrella" design means it's really compact when folded, so you should have no trouble fitting it into a the boot of a small car.
It weighs 6.6kg, so it's not the lightest Maclaren on the market – the pared down Volo weighs just 3.9kg – but this is because it is a more padded, sturdy version of the basic design to make it suitable for babies, meaning that you can really use this buggy from birth till your child can do without a pushchair.
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Skip the fancy prams |
 Mumsnet.com users really rate the Techno XT, recommending that mums "skip the fancy prams or three-wheel trendymobiles, and go for a Techno XT", stating that it's "Fabulous for public transport, it folds easily and compactly and turns on a sixpence". Thanks to this praise it has won a Best Buy award from the site, and was also shortlisted for the Best Lightweight Buggy in the 2006/7 Mother and Baby Awards.
While it's not weighed down by features, it does have a UV treated hood to keep the sun off, an extendable foot rest, which is great when your child sleeps in the buggy and a good sized storage basket under the seat, although this can be hard to access when the back is reclined. There are also two generous storage pockets on the back of the seat. There are a whole range of accessories for the Maclaren, and because of the ubiquity of this type of buggy there are many cheaper, unbranded options designed to fit it.
Although there are many reasons to choose the Maclaren there are a couple of downsides. First, if you opt for a from-birth model you won't be able to get the lightest, most compact version and, second, it's not a travel system, so you will have to lift your baby in and out of a separate car seat.
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To buy this product try one of the following retailers. They are competitively priced and reliable:
Amazon.com - The US arm of the online retailer
Amazon.co.uk -The UK arm of the online retailer
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Other great reviews in KidsStuff:
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