The buggy is the piece of baby equipment that warrants the most discussions and dedicated shopping time and it's also the item that you're likely to spend the most money on. But what does your choice of buggy say about your parental personality?
This season's must-have buggy
You only need to flick through the pages of any gossip magazine to find out what's 'de rigueur' for the yummy mummy about town at the moment. Svelte looking celebs will be photographed power walking one of these around some heath or other trying to shed the last of their non-existent baby pounds.
This type of buggy will usually require you to remortgage your house and increase your insurance policy but who's going to notice a bit of possit on your Prada T-shirt when you're pushing junior around in the buggy equivalent of a Lamborghini? You're the type of parent who probably coordinates your baby's outfit with what you're wearing and wouldn't dream of leaving the house with baby clad in clashing colours or a mismatched two-piece. You buy organic nappies but tend to save them for special occasions: perish the thought of turning up at baby yoga and exposing a supermarket nappy!
The travel system
These huge contraptions are like baby camper vans as they're generally laden down with an incredible amount of worldly possessions, most of which are completely unnecessary. However, if nuclear war is declared while you're out, stick close to someone pushing one of these - they're bound to have everything you'd need to survive for months.
Owners of travel systems are generally first-time parents who've been duped by a clever sales pitch and the debilitating haze of late pregnancy: one bus or plane journey and you'll be swapping it for something that folds up small enough to be tucked into a handbag. In the meantime, you spend your life either apologising for getting in the way or thanking people for getting out of the way.
As they have to walk everywhere, travel system owners are usually quite fit but they'll often have a slightly famished look about them as they spend hours searching for a café with enough space to manoeuvre the buggy to a vacant table. Once found, they're liable to sit in said café for days, which is why they never leave home without at least three full feeds for the baby or enough spare nursing pads to stock Boots.
The three-wheeler
You probably bought this in the heady days of pregnant bliss when you were convinced that you'd be able to fit in a couple of step classes every week. You had visions of jogging to the gym behind your sporty 3-wheel buggy, pausing to take sips of a skinny latte. As it is, the enormous wheels attract so much mud and dog poo that your floors are dirtier than the pavement and the buggy fills the entire living room.
Rose-tinted visions of parenthood led owners of these buggies to confidently book their Pennines walking holiday months before the baby was born. However, a couple of trips to the supermarket, where the all-terrain suspension system has negotiated the aisles with a limited degree of success and a lot of swearing, have resulted in a swift booking change to an all-inclusive hotel with child-minding services.
And finally...
Finally there are the one-of-everything types. These are the parents who couldn't make a decision on one particular buggy and so managed to produce a reasonable argument for owning one for every occasion. The obsession may have started innocently enough with that all-important second buggy, before spiralling into an uncontrollable product frenzy. There's no room in the hallway and you can't really remember what the buggy at the back of the stack looks like anymore, but you still keep an eye on new releases for the Holy Grail in buggydom that will allow you to rationalise the fleet to a single chariot. Maybe.
