The Lullaby Trustalso state that, ‘a room temperature of 16-20°C – with light bedding or a lightweight, well-fitting baby sleep bag– is comfortable and safe for sleeping babies’. iCandy carrycots have a vented base panel with studded feet, as well as a ventilation panel within the canopy to keep air flowing. Your little one will be ready to move from a flat carrycot to a pushchair seat when they can sit upright unaided and can lift and support their head. For most babies, this happens around six months of age, but every child is different. Some babies reach this stage a little earlier, some a little later. How to put a baby in a carrycot pram? A sun visor (the longer, the better), a floating follow-the-sun canopy, or an option to unzip a panel and extend the hood is always an advantage. If you need to use it, you will; and if not, you can leave it as it is. Newborns and young babies need to lie flat in a carrycot at first when you go for walks. Smaller babies don’t yet have the muscle strength to lift and support their upper body and their head. Lying flat also helps the development of their spine. Put simply, lying flat in a carrycot keeps them both comfortable and safe.

Another - and a rather good - approach is to choose the stroller system with a seat unit you like and just survive any carrycot that' fits it for those first few months, no matter how large or functional it i In the end, unlike the carrycot, you will use the seat unit for much longer, and most of the disadvantages of the carrycot are bearable or easily resolved anyway. Lying on the mattress inclined underneath the baby's head, the baby often slips down. Even worse, the head may be pushed closer to the chest, making the child's breathing more difficult, which is another bug con of inclining carrycots. Moms often say that the baby wants to have a better view. I disagree - if the baby is big enough for an inclined position, it is time to switch for the seat unit offering a more natural body position while providing your kid with a better view (even when fully reclined). I just can't see the need for an inclining carrycot, where the baby has no other choice than just kind of sit clumsily without any safety belts. So much better to rather use the seat unit. The last argument against the inclining of the carrycot mattress is that the mechanism often gets damaged or broken, mainly in cheaper models. It is highly unlikely that a baby born in spring will need a carrycot over the following winter. In spring and summer, the baby will still be tiny, so the inner dimensions of the carrycot are not that important for such a baby. You should focus on a quality seat unit, in this case, much more. Usually, you are adding the carrycot to the chassis directly (without adapters). However, adapters are often necessary for stroller systems featuring a fixed, world-facing seat unit, as the attachment system for the carrycot has to be added. Occasionally, the adapters can be found in systems with a reversible seat unit as well. There are also those stroller systems where the use of adapters is not necessary, but an adapter is available anyway, helping you regulate the height of the carrycot. Using adapters, the carrycot will be sitting slightly higher on the chassis, thus closer to you, allowing bonding. These adapters are standard for brands such as iCandy or Easywalker. An even more sophisticated related function is the adjustment of height directly on the chassis by moving the attaching point, found in, for example, the Stokke Xplory or the Mima Xari lines. I want to add a short remark regarding the protective sheets and other rubber covers we use to keep the mattress clean. From the point of health and safety of a newborn baby, and to prevent SIDS, it is not recommended to put the baby on any non-breathable materials. Such a young baby can't regulate its body temperature properly, and therefore, it can get overheated, especially in summer. The inclining function

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All iCandy carrycots are suitable for overnight sleeping because they adhere to the following criteria in addition to the relevant standard (EN1466): The canopy of the carrycot, the seat unit, and even the car seat is for sure an important detail to look at. The rule applying to the carrycot canopy is that it's always better to have more of it (and not to use it) than to get less (and struggle with not-protective-enough sun coverage). The most common system for moving the carrycot is a handle that is either integrated into the hood or situated just above the hood. Such a handle offers the most stable and most comfortable manipulation. There are also carrycots featuring side straps, but because you have to hold onto and balance two objects in one hand, this system is slightly less comfortable (although still manageable). The third, rather rare option involves using fixed attachments on the side of the carrycot, where you have to use both hands, which makes the manipulation even less comfortable. With your baby on the way, there surely will be a point when you finally start looking for the right stroller (system). It is also very likely that your search will begin with the right carrycot since it is the first place providing the little one with sweet dreams while being outside. The tiny, vulnerable newborn will need a comfortable and cozy spa - giving many moms a reason to focus, at least at the start, on the carrycot more (compared to other parts of a stroller system). Another extreme sometimes, of course, takes place as well - not considering a carrycot at all... For use on the following Mountain Buggies (2015+): MB mini, swift™, urban jungle™, +one™, terrain™ and (2014+) duet™

There is a number of ways of providing ventilation to the carrycot. It is always beneficial if some kind of special ventilation system is present, but of course, you can live without it 😉 Fabrics-based carrycots (meaning a lot of fabric used as the main protection factor - and often good foldability) are usually lighter and more compact. How much space they offer depends greatly on the model - they can be really tiny but also extremely spacious. When it comes to material, fabrics are good enough and don't influence the quality of the carrycot much. Sides of each soft carrycot are reinforced with either solid bars or a foldable system, and don't forget - the baby is in every case more or less protected with a hood and an apron as well.There is always a chance you'd like to take the child out of the carrycot to feed him or just to show him the surroundings - it will need to be nice and warm even when outside of the carrycot. Talking about a wind blowing through the carrycot part right on your child is, therefore, absolutely irrelevant, even if the carrycot was made out of thinner materials. It is simply not happening like that 🙂 Things may get more complicated for a summer baby, depending on whether you are insisting on using a carrycot through the whole winter or you are open to a switch for a seat unit. Two of my sons were born in May, and we had switched an average-sized carrycot (approximately 73.5 cm long) to a seat unit somewhere in December / January (when they reached circa 7.5 months of age). Both of them were big boys with a birth weight of over 4 kg, and we, naturally, used a winter footmuff too at the end of bassinet-use! I want to emphasize the important fact that is often forgotten. Your baby doesn't require an extreme amount of space in the carrycot, and it certainly doesn't suffer in a 'smaller' carrycot. By any means, I am not trying to put you off leatherette material. I just think that it is important to consider all the advantages and disadvantages before making a decision based only on the look. Inner dimensions of the carrycot Looking for adaptors for nano™, nano duo™, cosmopolitan™ or pre-2015 Mountain Buggies? See our compatibility matrix here.

The ventilation, as well as the apron, are function-wise closely related to the hood, and thus deserve more attention. Ventilation

What is essential when it comes to choosing a suitable carrycot? Do I even need a carrycot? Read all about bassinets in Strollberry's ultimate guide.

According to the Lullaby Trust, it is essential that you use ‘a firm and flat mattress that is protected by a waterproof cover. This will help keep the mattress clean and dry, as the cover can be wiped down’. Secondly, they state ‘make sure your baby’s mattress is in good condition and that it fits the moses basket or cot properly’. iCandy carrycots come with a padded mattress with a removable, washable cover that is designed to fit the carrycot perfectly, providing a comfortable and healthy place for your baby to sleep. If you are using a second hand iCandy pushchair for your baby it is recommended that the mattress is replaced. There is, of course, no accounting for taste, and I am sure many moms enjoyed having an inclining carrycot. The hood Nevertheless, you may find some justification for an inclining carrycot - a baby suffering from reflux. Some babies do; some babies don't… I wouldn't worry beforehand. You can still go around this by placing a wedge pillow in an ordinary (non-inclined) carrycot. A wedge pillow slightly elevates the head along with the shoulders and torso, which is actually a more ergonomic and safe way in reflux prevention and treatment. You can definitely survive without the inclining function, and I wouldn't consider this function important when choosing the right carrycot.

Some carrycots have a safety mechanism to keep them fixed in the car, and therefore, they may be used instead of the Group 0+ car seats. Such carrycots provide maximum comfort for a child as the baby lies flat instead of sitting arched in the car seat, but unfortunately, the degree of safety is lower, which will mainly be evident in a serious accident. So far, none of the carrycots proved to be extremely safe, so they should be used more for occasional, short journeys only. The most common way of **providing airflow is through the hood*. It could be a zip-open mesh panel, a closable viewing window with a net, or a fabric part that you can pull aside, opening a mesh section. It is, however, an advantage if the hood can be fully covered even - as opposed to the situations where there is a mesh-only panel, which could be a problem when you need to extend the hood in cold weather without bringing extra cold air into the carrycot. Having said that, even a mesh panel is always better than having no means of extending the hood at all. The apron is a functional accessory, and you are going to need it (not only) in winter. Thanks to creating shade and protecting the child not only against the cold, the apron comes in handy during the whole year, including some summer days.