If you’ve ever tried to take a baby or toddler on a trip abroad – or even just on public transport – you’ll know that lots of pushchairs really aren’t geared up for being carted around.
This becomes even more apparent when you’re doing things solo and trying to carry your baby, their usual paraphernalia and their pushchair down 30-odd steps because the train station you’ve stopped at doesn’t have a lift.
Thankfully there are a variety of lightweight strollers on the market which are appealing to parents even more as their little ones hit the six-month mark.
Many of these pushchairs are cabin friendly (perfect for air travel), easy to fold and much lighter than others on the market. Some even come with straps, bags and handles to make the process of carting them around a whole lot easier.
Over the course of the next few weeks we’ll be sharing our very honest reviews of a selection of lightweight strollers on the market. This week it’s the Silver Cross Jet 3 stroller, which is the lightest of the bunch. How does it compare to the rest? Read on to find out.
Silver Cross Jet 3 Stroller
How heavy is it? 5.9kg
Price: £305 from Silver Cross (price correct at time of writing)
Does it come with accessories? A cover bag and rain cover.
A quick lowdown:
- Suitable for babies from birth up to a weight of 15kg
- Cabin-approved travel stroller
- Magnetic Genius™ buckle and a detachable bumper bar
- Super lightweight
- UPF50+ hood with peek-a-boo flap
The review
I was really impressed when I got this pushchair out of the box because of how bougie it feels – the brown vegan leather handle and padded seat make it look really luxurious and it’s certainly one of the more aesthetically-pleasing pushchairs on the market. It also came with a rain cover as standard, which some of the other pushchairs didn’t.
I have to admit I struggled a little bit to unfold it, and you definitely need two hands to do it because you need to be able to clip both the side bars into place firmly to fix the frame steady. Otherwise – and this happened to me on a few occasions – you might think the pushchair is stable and then it folds in on itself as you try to put your child into it. Oops.
When it comes to folding the pushchair back down, it’s a lot easier – you simply push two buttons on the handle, move the handle forward and it collapses in on itself. Unlike other pushchairs, it folds into more of a square shape rather than a flat shape, but this is quite handy as it enables it to stand up on its own rather than just falling flat on the floor.
The pushchair is super comfy, the straps are padded and there’s an underneath compartment for bags – although one major gripe is that it has a bar running across the middle of it so there’s not a huge amount of storage space and it can be hard to squeeze a rucksack-sized changing bag in there.
The UPF50+ canopy provides a good amount of protection and has a peek-a-boo flap at the top which is great for keeping an eye on little ones (aka trying to figure out if they’ve fallen asleep yet).
This is the lightest pushchair of the ones I’ve reviewed – weighing in at 5.9kg – and while this is absolutely great news when it comes to lugging it up and down train station steps, it might also be this stroller’s downfall.
On a few occasions the stroller would tip forward when going up low curbs or hitting an uneven bit of pavement. My child was strapped in tight and was fine, but it was a little bit unnerving when it did happen. I didn’t have this issue with any of the other strollers which were all a bit heavier.
Overall there were so many things I loved about this pushchair – from a comfort and aesthetic point of view, it’s beautifully designed. But the practicalities of the small storage compartment and lack of sturdiness hitting bumpy bits of pavement let it down.