Because we had Nathan and Nora so close together, E and I decided that we weren’t going to buy much, if any, new baby items for Nora. We were going to try to re-use as much from Nathan as possible, with the exception of Nathan’s bassinet (because we bought the SNOO – check out my review HERE). We planned to use Nathan’s UPPAbaby Mesa car seat for Nora. While we weren’t huge fans of it (it is EXTREMELY heavy), it didn’t make sense to invest a lot of money into a brand new car seat when ours was only a year and a half old.
When I was 7 months pregnant with Nora, I participated in a fashion show with Stowaway Collection at Buy Buy Baby in their Chelsea location. At the end of the show, they had a raffle for the attendees. They allowed the models to enter, too, and I actually won! My prize was a Doona. If I am being completely honest, I didn’t really know what a Doona was. Doona is the world’s first infant car seat and stroller in one. The representative from Doona was there and she showed me how to use it, and I was AMAZED. How did I not know that this contraption existed when I had Nathan? It would have made life SO MUCH EASIER. No need to click the car seat into a stroller base or anything. It is all one piece! When it arrived at the house a few weeks later, I was giddy with excitement. Who knew that I could get that excited about a baby product? A few weeks before Nora was born, we had it installed in my car, and that was that!
Fast forward to Nora’s first doctor appointment after we were released from the hospital. My father and I took her and, when it came time to take her out of the car, we didn’t know how to get the Doona out of the car. Ha! Of course. We quickly pulled up a YouTube video and it walked us through how to do it. It was SO EASY. We actually couldn’t believe that we didn’t figure it out on our own.
We both couldn’t get over how easy it was to use, and were impressed with how light it was relative to our UPPAbaby. We have since used the Doona as Nora’s primary car seat/stroller, and are HUGE FANS. Without the Doona, daycare drop off with both kids would be infinitely more difficult. With the Doona, I am able to take Nora, in her Doona, out of the car first, and then take Nathan out. He helps me push her into daycare. It is so cute! E and I will be heartbroken when she outgrows the it. Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen anytime soon!
If you are expecting a baby, I would HIGHLY recommend the Doona. Knowing what I know now, I definitely would have paid for it!
**This post is not sponsored in any way by Doona. I am a BIG fan of the product and wanted to share the love here!
