A Day With The Cosatto Ooba

Leo and I have been big Cosatto fans since Leo was a baby, and over the course of those baby days we were very excited to join forces with Cosatto and become brand buddies! Over this time we got to try their products first hand and share are experiences on this here blog. To this day we still love Cosatto and their mission to save the world form boring baby stuff!

Yesterday we were invited along to the Birmingham Baby Show at the NEC with Cosatto themselves, and asked to take the latest pushchair addition to their lines out for a spin. The Ooba! I have been admiring the Ooba from afar for a while, it comes in two colourways Marizpan Yellow and Duck Egg Blue. Personally for me I am not a huge lover of the Marzipan as I find it a little garish, but I have pegged it as a marmite trait... You will either love it or hate it. 

The Duck Egg Blue Ooba on the other hand tickles all of my pushchair fancies, and I was really pleased to be presented with a brand spanking new Ooba in Duck Egg upon my arrival at the show. We were given free reign with the Ooba and able to take it all over the NEC, and although the time went fast we definitely got a good feel for the pushchair. 

So this post is all about our day with the Cosatto Ooba!

I always think it is good to have expectations when it comes to trying anything new for the first time, and giving a new pushchair a spin is no exception to this. Having only really ever seen the Ooba from a far and having never pushed one with my toddler at the helm, I thought that the Ooba looked like it may be a bit heavy, especially with my almost 3 year old in the driving seat. I loved the over all look, the colour and the accessories and I was looking forward to see how the Ooba and I were going to get on.

First Impressions

Having met the Ooba and got my rather tired toddler strapped into the seat, I began to push the Ooba and was instantly impressed with just how well it pushes. It was so smooth and even with a chunky 2 (almost 3 year old) in the seat, it handled beautifully. I did struggle with the straps and found that they were quite stiff, so I couldn't pull the strap tight very easily, but I put this down to it being so new.

The over all pushchair is nice and solid, and there is absolutely nothing flimsy about the Ooba and for me it was love at first push, Leo was comfortable in the seat but it was apparent to me that he is very almost outgrowing the Ooba. Leo is a tall toddler and his head reached right up to the hood, but they estimate that it will accommodate a toddler from birth right up to around 3 years of age. Granted Leo is a tall toddler for his age, and you could definitely see this.

A Day With The Cosatto Ooba

With the Ooba as our wheels of choice we were unleashed upon Birmingham Baby Show. We had a number of admiring comments from passers by, people who were admiring the Ooba. And we began to make our way around the show to visit all of our favourite brands. 

We were getting on really well with everything that the Ooba had to offer, and I decided to have a look at the different features that this pushchair has to offer. One of my biggest loves about this model is just how easy it is to make the change from parent to world facing. It really is a doddle and you just need to use the buttons on either side and then push the handle over the top until it clicks in the other side. You can even do this with a child in the seat unit! I decided to give this a go just as we left the Baby Show to get some lunch, this was when I discovered that the brake is actually on the handle bar! For a moment or so I couldn't quite work out why the wheels had locked up... Suddenly it clicked but no matter what I did I couldn't work out how to release the brake. So here we were just outside the Baby Show entrance, and I could just see Nancy (Cosatto's Head of Marketing) in the distance. So what did we do? I guess you could describe it as shuffling! I shuffled Leo and the Ooba back inside and asked for a little bit of Ooba assistance. 

It is probably always a good idea to know how to release the brake when using a pushchair, that's a lesson I learnt very recently!

The basket is a good size and depth, we managed to store all of our Baby Show loot in the bottom. If my changing bag hadn't been quite so full I would have been able to store that in the basket instead of on the handle bar. The Ooba stayed strong and sturdy even with my big heavy bag on the back and showed no signs of struggling to carry the load.

The wheels on the Ooba I first thought were air tyres, they look like they are. But actually upon discussion with the lovely Cosatto team I learnt that the wheels are actually foam. I thought this was a rather nice touch, as it eliminates the chance of having a wheel pop or having to fill them up once they have deflated a little. So if you didn't know already... You do now!

As we only had the Ooba for a couple of hours I can only tell you what we experienced during that time frame. I can't even begin to tell you how to put it up and down as this is something that I personally didn't experience, but I can tell you that over all we really did LOVE the Ooba.

We loved the way it handled and the way that it looks, and I almost shed a tear when we had to hand it back at the end of the day. It truly is a beautiful pushchair, and if it can sit my big 2 year old comfortably at the top end of the weight/age bracket then you can see just how long the Ooba would last you, right from birth until the end of days when you no longer need a set of wheels for your baby.

The Ooba retails at £800 which does make it the most expensive pushchair model out of the Cosatto range. but that price includes:

- Chassis, carrycot and seat unit

- Cosy Toes with reversible zip off liner

- Coordinating changing bag with changing mat and messy bag

- Patterned raincovers for pushchair seat and carrycot

- Spacious storage basket

-Hold car seat adaptors (Hold car seat sold separately)

You do get a lot for your money with Cosatto, I have found that they are always very generous with the accessories and completely kit you out for every occasion you could imagine. Everything that you would have to buy as an extra is pretty much included in the initial package,  everything except for the hold car seat which is sold separately. 

If you are heading to the Birmingham Baby Show this weekend, make sure you pop by the Cosatto Stand and say hello to the amazing team. They will be more than happy to show you the Ooba and their other models in as much detail as you would like!

Disclaimer: I was invited along to the Baby Show and loaned a Cosatto Ooba for the purpose of this post. All views and opinions expressed are completely honest and my own.