Pram Shopping

iCandy Peach Cerium Special Edition

We've been very organised so far with planning the alien's arrival however, there's a particular activity Mr H and I have been putting off  for a while now and that's the dreaded pram shopping. Every time we started to research online we felt so utterly overwhelmed we just stopped looking full stop because it felt like there were so many options, so much conflicting information and so much expense!

I decided I wanted to try each pram out to test their weight, usability and design and compare them against each other, with this in mind I booked a two hour personal shopper experience with Mother Care dedicated to pram and car seat testing as they offer the broadest range of brands and pram options all under one roof. I also thought expert advice would be helpful and with such an important (and expensive) purchase.

We arrived at Mother Care and were greeted by our brilliant personal shopper Sophie, she asked us a couple of questions re budgets, lifestyle and what sort of pram we might be looking for and off we went!

After chatting through the basic options, we decided a travel system would be the best option for us as it would see us through until the alien is a fully fledged toddler (a scary thought!) and that a pram which could turn into a tandem was also a sensible idea as we currently plan to hopefully have another alien within the next few years.

Please excuse my make up free face and VERY swollen ankles

We started off with the iCandy Peach, I quite like the design of the pram and the colour choices however felt the frame looked a little plasticky (is that a word?!) and I wasn't a fan of the folding mechanism - you had to be quite rough with it to get it to collapse. Add that to the fact that the pram was £1,000 excluding the car seat for the standard version or £1,300 for the Cerium special edition, we decided this wasn't the one for us.

The Bugaboo Fox

Next up was the Bugaboo Fox. Not a tandem pram but everyone raves about the Bugaboo and it has some cool features like being able to move the back wheels so it can be dragged through sand/ snow so we thought we'd have a look... if I'm being entirely honest I really didn't like it. I thought the carry cot was very boxy and ultimately quite cheap looking (which it certainly isn't with a price tag of £1,100 excluding the car seat). Another con was that despite the outer materials of the pram being made of recycled materials, the internal cloth elements are 100% polyester Added to the fact the pram can't be made into a tandem this one was definitely a no.

The Egg - we had such high hopes for this one!

Our personal shopper swiftly moved us on to the Egg which Mothercare offer in an exclusive pewter grey. Given that this can be made into a tandem and is called The Egg (which is what we call Mr H because of his bald head) we thought this could be the one. I must say it's a pretty lightweight pram with a one handed folding system however I didn't feel like it was all that sturdy and the handle was awkwardly wide so it felt a little uncomfortable. Again I thought this pram was very plastic looking and the material parts of the seat & carrycot were 100% polyester, with a price tag of +£1,000 excluding a car seat I wasn't convinced.

The Silver Cross Wave in Granite (left) and one of last seasons colours (no longer available)

Then we came to the Silver Cross collection. I'm not going to lie, I love these prams not only do I think they look beautiful but I love the history of this very British brand.

Silver Cross Camden (influenced by contemporary open plan London interiors and embraces urban living)

I loved the look of the Silver Cross Camden which is another Mother Care exclusive. The pram is a gorgeous grey light grey mix textured colour with a tan leatherette handle (my favourite) and a chrome chasis. It looks ultra stylish and had a very easy collapsing mechanism, like all Silver Cross prams it is slightly on the heavier side however not so heavy that it isn't manageable. Mother Care had a special deal on which included the chassis carry cot, pram seat, Simplicity car seat & iso fix base plus the matching changing bag for £1,225 - which worked out less expensive than a number of the other prams we'd looked at once you added the cost of the car seat on top of them.   This pram ticked all of our boxes except for the ability to turn it into a tandem. I still put it at the top of my list of wants and reluctantly moved on to look at the next pram....

Silver Cross Wave in Granite

And I am so glad I did! Next up was the Silver Cross Wave and I knew almost straight away it was the one! The pram is beautiful, very classic in shape and design, it has a tan leatherette handle and we opted for the gorgeous granite colour which is a gray/navy. The pram has an easy collapse mechanism which doesn't involve any handle slamming (my biggest bugbear with the other prams we saw excluding the Silver Cross Camden) and is very smooth to push. 

The carry cot and seat are made of luxury jersey material and the carrycot has a bamboo lining and mattress and can be either parent or world facing which I really liked. Another selling point is that the carry cot is ventilated which means it's suitable for occasional over night sleeping when visiting family. Given whenever we travel we'll have not only our stuff and all the baby paraphernalia but also everything for Spec our dog, anything that saves space is a winner! 

The biggest selling point for the Wave though, is that it has the ability to become a tandem pram with 16 possible configurations, it's also very sturdy feeling and looks very well made - I didn't have any doubts it is made to stand the test of time.

Again sorry for the no makeup and fat ankles!

Mr H looked rather nervous as prior to the trip I'd talked a lot about how much I like the Silver Cross prams but how expensive they are in comparison to others on the market. Luckily, Mother Care had an amazing sale on and we got ourselves a mega bargain. The Wave normally retails at £1,450 which includes the carry cot and the pram seat for 6+ months, however we managed to pay £1,100 for all of the following: 

• Chasis
• Carry Cot
• Pram Seat
• Simplicity Car Seat
• Isofix Car Seat Base
• 2 x rain covers 
• 2 x mosquito nets
• 2 x aprons
• Cup holder (as a coffee addict this was a major plus)

The Wave in granite bundle buy to include pram chassis, carry cot, pram seat, car seat and isofix base

To top it all off, we found we could buy it for 10% less at an online retailer, although they couldn't match the price they also included the luxury foot muff which retails at £95 and we would have had to buy anyway... winner!!! 

I'd definitely recommend the Mother Care personal shopper experience, it made the whole pram buying process feel a lot less overwhelming and our personal shopper Sophie was really knowledgable of all the products and great at highlighting what would and wouldn't work for us given what we'd told her about our day to day lives/ routines. Final winning point was that they arranged for home delivery so we didn't have to carry all the boxes in the car back down to London and less than 4 days later the whole delivery had arrived at home.