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With a very active dog who demands loves LONG walks, a great stroller was a necessity on our baby registry. We can also walk to our grocery store, Walgreens, the post office, and some restaurants from our house (a luxury in the Kansas City suburbs), so I was excited for some stroller driven post-baby exercise.

Before landing in Buy Buy Baby’s strollerland, I assumed we’d get one of those stroller/carseat matching travel systems. The giant front wheel on jogging strollers just felt odd to me. With some help from the stroller guy, I fell in love with the Baby Jogger City Mini. Small, lightweight, comfy. Perfect.

Then stroller guy showed us the next size up, which included an extra feature: it could expand to hold two kids. Once my husband learned about that option, he was smitten. However, the handle was different, and it was too tall for me. Dealbreaker. Goodbye, City Mini. It was a fun five minutes. I still think of you when I try to get through any non-accessible door.

Forced to keep looking, we discovered Britax. It was a new brand to me, but I quickly learned that their car seats are super safe and amazing. We loved the B-Safe model. The coordinating, expandable B-Ready stroller was really two parts: a frame with a seat that clicked in. The Britax B-Safe car seat would click in the stroller seat’s place without any extra attachments. This meant that for the first six months, I only had to move the frame in and out of my car. It was a light enough frame to easily move it in and out of my car.

We were warned in the store that the B-Ready was a little wide for small mall stores, but was otherwise awesome. Considering that my regular shopping trips included the grocery store and Target, I wasn’t concerned. The stroller also had a large basket and a handle bar that was comfortable for both my husband and me. Sold.

Soon after Baby was born, we also invested in the coordinating Britax B-Ready Bassinet. When Baby was really little, he hated being in his car seat. I would swaddle him and put in him the bassinet for walks. At home, I put the bassinet on the coffee table in the family room, and Baby napped there during the day.

My favorite thing about the stroller was that all of the attachments could face in or out. I had read about about how important it is for babies to bond with their caregivers in the first year, so I loved that Baby could look at me (and me at him) during long walks.

I love the B-Ready. It’s perfect for walks and was awesome as a frame for Baby’s car seat. But as a full blown stroller? It is HEAVY. And WIDE. And my trunk? Not so much. I also learned (after going back to Buy Buy Baby to ask for help), that it cannot collapse while the seat is facing backwards. To avoid the extra step of flipping the seat each time we used it, I finally started having Baby ride facing out (I wasn’t thrilled about it).

When I was pregnant, I sincerely believed that the B-Ready was all I’d ever want. I wasn’t going to be that mom who had a million different strollers (ignoring the fact that the stroller already morphed into three different contraptions with parts that weren’t so easy to store when not in use).

With Baby finally on a somewhat predictable schedule and us getting out to do more and more fun things, lugging the B-Ready in and out of my car has gotten to be too much. I need a smaller, lighter option.

I love you, B-Ready. I really, really do. I promise that you will still be our go-to stroller for daily walks and other big adventures. But it’s time to share the spotlight. An umbrella stroller is in our future. I hope you’ll be able to welcome her to family, too.

What stroller(s) did you start with? What’s your favorite lightweight stroller?

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