Independent buying guides
For parents buying a stroller, car seat or crib once and wanting the measurements first. Each guide settles one question, shows how long each stage lasts, and links the safety rules it quotes with check dates.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Measure the trunk, the door and the stairs before you shop, then pick a stroller and a car seat by stage, folded size and the rule each one must meet.
Photo: Alexander Migl · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Divide by months of use, not by price. What an infant seat, a crib and a stroller each cost per year, and why diapers outweigh all three put together.
Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Safety
Slat spacing, corner post height, mesh size, the stroller standard and the back-seat rule: the baby gear checks with a published number behind them.
Photo: Tobias Begemann from Saarbrücken, Germany · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Spreads purchase price, consumables and repairs over the years you expect to keep it.
cost per year = (purchase price - expected resale value + consumables per year x years + expected repairs) / years
Replacement intervals turned into a yearly cost for filters, pads, pods and brush heads.
replacements per year = 365 / interval in days; yearly cost = replacements per year x unit price x units per change
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Cschirp · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
Standards, warnings and the checks worth doing.
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Photo: Jjunoo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What changes as a child or pet grows.
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Photo: Alexander Migl · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Order, frequency and how long a bottle lasts.
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Photo: Missvain · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Fixing it before you replace it.
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Photo: Tobias Begemann from Saarbrücken, Germany · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
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