Before my daughter was born a year and a half ago, I poured over information on breast feeding, baby bottles, and diapers. I felt confident in my choices of BPA-free items for feeding and “greener”, chlorine-free disposable diapers over the traditional. I was new to raising a “greener baby” and was unaware of phthalates in plastics, such as in the baby bathtub I chose, or fire retardants in her crib.
My education of greener choices started with observations of my daughter followed by research. Such as the day I was out with my daughter in her stroller and she was chewing on the shoulder straps of her stroller. Like most babies, everything went into her mouth. As I pushed her down the street, I wondered what was in the material.
From that point on, I started noticing other things that I hadn’t considered before. Like the day it started raining and I was about to place a PVC plastic rain cover on my daughter’s stroller. After a lot of research, I found a PVC-free option made by Orbit Baby.
A few months ago, I was given the Orbit Baby Toddler Stroller to try out and review. The first thing that impressed me was the use of Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 material for the micro-fiber upholstery fabrics on all their Orbit seats.
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Orbit Baby’s Toddler Stroller
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Toddler Seat fully reclined
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Orbit Baby’s Toddler Seat
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Sunshade Extension
Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 is an international certification that sets limits for over 100 harmful chemicals, substances, and emissions in textiles. It’s the only valid certification of its kind and tests for compounds ranging from harmful heavy metals like lead and arsenic, to many known allergy-inducing and irritating chemicals. The list includes pesticides, phthalates, dyes, and VOC emissions.
The stroller itself is not PVC-free, however, Orbit Baby responded to my quires about this issue with this statement:
“Since one of Orbit Baby’s main priorities is the safety of the materials your child touches, we are committed to being the first baby gear company to rid our supply chain of PVC, PBDE, and other harmful chemicals.“
“We are not 100% there on our PVC-free goals, but we are further along than other gear companies, and can say that no surfaces of Orbit Baby products in contact with or near your child contain PVC. The remaining traces of PVC on our current products are on small tags and internal cable coverings – the amount of material constitutes a very small fraction of the overall material content of our products, and most of it neither you nor your child would likely come in contact with. That said, since Orbit Green: PVC-Free is an ongoing initiative, our future productions will have reductions in even these small quantities of the material. We are not 100% there on our PVC-free goals, but we believe we are further along than other gear companies“
Other features I really like about the Orbit Toddler Seat and stroller are the seat’s ability to easily turn to all four directions (forward, backwards towards the person pushing the stroller, and to either side) without lifting the seat, the bonnet’s Sunshade Extension that blocks almost 100% of UVA and UVB radiation (which can be used at any point in its range of motion), the reversible cool aero-mesh and warm micro-fiber upholstery pad for easy cleaning, its ability to easily fold when putting it in the trunk of a car and its maneuverability. The Orbit Stroller frame comes with a Cargo Pod bag that hangs under the seat. It easily converts to an on-the-go diaper bag with its attached shoulder strap.
The stroller’s back wheels are a bit wide (24 1/4 inches) so it did take some getting used to. I haven’t found the width to be an issue while strolling through store aisles, though. It also doesn’t have a foot rest, which I thought would be a problem, buy my daughter has improvised by placing her feet against the stroller’s frame while the seat faces me. It should also be noted that the seat back doesn’t go completely flat.
Orbit Baby offers the Orbit Infant System (this stroller was not reviewed) which includes the stroller frame, infant car seat, and base. The Orbit Toddler Seat can be purchased separately to attach to the stroller frame that came with the Orbit Infant System, or can be purchased along with the Orbit Stroller frame. The stroller frame can take a child from infancy to 40 pounds with the two separate seats.
You can order Orbit Baby strollers and products directly through the company. To find a retailer who sells Orbit Baby strollers, click here.
I am not an employee of Orbit Baby. The Orbit Baby Toddler Seat and Stroller Frame mentioned in today’s post were given to me to review by Orbit Baby. I am never paid to review a product by a company and I always give my true feelings about any item mentioned on my blog.
