Aesthetics are not something a parent particularly cares about when choosing a stroller. You're more interested in what will make your life easier and safer. Yet, on a recent trip to London, I kept seeing parents pushing around the sleekest little strollers topped with canopies in millennial-friendly colors like pink and sage green. Turns out they were all pushing the Babyzen YOYO.
I decided I needed to give one a try.
Video of the Day
Video of the Day
As a home design editor, I am the type of person who does actually care about aesthetics when it comes to baby products, which is why I was so drawn to the Babyzen YOYO, but what I discovered was that it's actually one of the most brilliantly designed strollers on the market. Here are a few of the features I think are most important:
- It's incredibly lightweight at only 13.6 lbs. (For comparison, our previous stroller is a hefty 23.8 lbs.)
- It has a shoulder strap for easy portage.
- It folds up in a snapping fashion — when done right it looks like a magic trick.
- Add-ons allow for toddlers and kids to ride outside the seat.
- The base model is $449, which is a lot cheaper than other strollers.
Setup:
Setup wasn't too difficult, but it did prove to be confusing at times. The provided instructions and illustrations weren't enough for me to figure the canopy out, so I had to find multiple YouTube videos, rewinding and rewatching several times to get items in place. If I had to grade setup difficulty, I'd give the Babyzen YOYO a B.
Use/Experience:
I decided to give our Babyzen YOYO a try on a recent trip to New York City with my two-year-old daughter. The last time we had made the trek from L.A. to NYC, our old stroller had been such a pain that we were considering ways to leave it behind — until we heard about the Babyzen YOYO. The idea of a stroller snapping up in a moment and being able to carry it on your shoulder up and down subway steps seemed almost too good to be true. Luckily, promises were fulfilled.
Figuring out how to snap and unsnap the stroller definitely had a learning curve. It took a few days to fully understand the mechanisms and maneuvers. The action is certainly not as magical-looking as Babyzen's imagery, but it is seriously impressive. It takes about 15 -20 seconds to fully switch to compact mode. The carrying strap is also a fantastic bonus. Here I am, cool as a cucumber as we wait for the subway:
When I first set up the stroller, I was worried that there wasn't very much storage. After all, any compact stroller isn't going to have a ton of storage — kind of defeats the purpose. But we were pleasantly surprised by the compartment below the seat, which was big enough to hold snacks, a pack of wipes, water bottles, diapers, and a coat. There's also a zippered pack near the handle where I could store my wallet, phone, and an extra hat.
One of the reasons I was so excited to try this stroller — beyond the Babyzen YOYO looking so cool — was the ride-along attachments I had seen in London. We tried out the YOYO board, which allows your child to ride on a bike-like seat from the end of the stroller.
This ultimately didn't work for our child. She couldn't figure out where to hold on and didn't like that she had to turn her head to see (if she looked straight ahead, she was buried in the back zippered pocket). When she stood up, we felt she was too unstable. Another con of the YOYO board is that you can't really fold up the stroller in the same fashion and it adds a lot of bulk.
Other than that, however, the Babyzen YOYO totally changed my mind about stroller size. If I had to redo my baby registry, I would without a doubt select a Babyzen stroller (they do, by the way, have bassinet attachments). I realized that larger strollers may offer a lot of storage, but ultimately, you can figure out how to get away with less.
Final Thoughts:
The Babyzen YOYO stroller, in my humble opinion, is the best stroller for city-dwelling parents, and a great option for those in less urban areas. It is high-quality, easy to use, great-looking, and fun — there are lots of different color options as well as attachments to entertain your kiddos (I'm sure they'd get a kick of of the YOYO skis, which make your stroller look like a snowmobile.)