Love N Care TwinGo Review

The Love N Care TwinGo is probably the dream pushchair for most parents who like a side by side pushchair, (and even some parents like me who usually prefer a tandem!).

The Love N Care TwinGo is ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!

First of all the Love N Care TwinGo is a rare side by side – both seats click onto the chassis seperately. Therefore both seats can both outward face, and parent face independently – so that should you wish both children can face the same direction or opposite directions. PLUS the TwinGo is only 74cms wide, so should easily fit through any standard doorway. The TwinGo also has optional bassinets for one or two newborn babies. The only pushchair currently available to buy in the UK, which has these seating options, and can fit through a standard doorway, is the Bugaboo Donkey. But unlike the Donkey, both the TwinGo seats can be fully reclined in either direction, and the fold is much slimmer than the Donkey.

But at this point, I must mention that the TwinGo is not available to buy in the UK and that this TwinGo was been imported from Australia. (However, we believe that the higher specification US version of this pushchair, the Stroll-Air My Duo, will hopefully be brought to the UK market soon).

Over the summer I had been researching the Stroll-Air My Duo, but reviews had talked about narrow seats, and with a tall almost 3 year old, the cost of importing the pushchair felt like a risk. But when I saw a new Love N Care TwinGo for sale in the UK, which looked almost the same as the Stroll-Air My Duo, I HAD to buy it!

The TwinGo ticks almost every box that I need from a side by side pushchair. As I said at the start, the seats are seperate units which click on and off the chassis very easily. The release buttons are red and so are easy to locate. The seats can face outwards if your child wants to see the world or parent facing if they want to see you (or you want to see them!), or you can have one child facing one direction, and the other child facing in the opposite direction – great for siblings of different ages!

The seats are tall with long footrests (up to 24.5cms long). I love the adjustable footrests which enable me to get the perfect seating position for each child. My 3.1 year old daughter does not dangle her feet in the TwinGo – a rare event!!! The seats however do look narrow. When I first saw them I thought that my eldest would never fit in the seats widthways. But once in the seat, I could easily put both my hands down each side of her thighs, so I had no worries at all about her being uncomfortable. The measurements are comparable with other side by side pushchairs. Believe me, if my daughter was uncomfortable, she would tell me! The seat units in Australia are recommended for children up to 18kgs with a maximum weight limit for the stroller as a whole of 42kgs. Each child has their own removable bumper bar which is great to have.

The hoods are absolutely enormous – HUGE!! I think they are even larger than the Baby Jogger hoods, and thats saying something!! There is fold, after fold and then even more folds! On top of that, the hoods hide a secret – behind a zip, there is concealed a mesh cover which means that when it is hot, the rear section of the hood can be either simply lifted up, or zippered off to allow air flow to the baby; and for the baby, and you to see each other whilst the hood is fully up shading them from above. We love this feature. There is also a peekaboo window on top of each hood which can be rolled back and held with a toggle. The only downside of the hoods is that the hood fabric is not as thick as we would expect here in the UK, but we appreciate the TwinGo is made for the Australian market, not the UK one. But having taken the TwinGo out several times when its been cold and windy, my daughter (who hates it when its “blowy”) hasn’t complained at all. So there must be enough thickness in the fabric to give shelter. The thinner fabric does mean that the hoods are fairly floppy when fully extended, but for normal use the spare fabric for the lowest folds coils neatly inside, gives the hoods strength. I dont see the hoods as an issue having used them.

What is an issue though is the size of the harness. We have had problems trying to do the harnesses up around both children, but more so the eldest. We have been unable to get the harness to fasten over her shoulders partly because the harness was too short to feed through the upper height setting, and so we were forced to use the TwinGo harness as a 3 point one to start with and in the photos (but our daughter is 3, had the 3 point harness on and the bumper bar to hold onto, plus she was parent facing), but we have since added on an additional harness. The harness on our 15 month old is at the extremities. We have looked at altering the harness, but sadly we have been unable to remove the seat liners easily. We think to remove them would involve a pair of scissors and some cutting, and we do not want to so that at this stage although it could make a difference to the crotch harness at least. Our other issue with the harnesses is that although they are 5 point harnesses, the shoulder straps need sliding onto the top of the waist straps each time. This is incredibly fiddly to do, especially when trying to see past winter coats and snow suits. I think if you were doing these harnesses up every day that you would soon get cross and start to seek out an alternative!!  However we do like the velcro-down crotch pad to stop little fingers fiddling with the harness and the buckle from digging in.

Being unable to remove the seat liners has presented us with another issue with the onset the cold winds of autumn. There was not enough harness or seat space to add on a cosy toes. Ideally the liner needs removing to reduce the additional bulk. Twins-Store suggested using a 7 A.M. Duo Blanket. We thought it would be tricky when parent facing, as the TwinGo has a central bar and nothing to attach it to, but the 7 A.M. Duo Blanket works brilliantly on the TwinGo. It velcros around the central bar and can be split for each child if one is sleeping and one is sat up.  BUT I must stress that the harness and the seat liners really are minor niggles (although safety is vitally important and we have addressed our issues) compared to the bigger wonderfulness of this pushchair!!!

The shopping basket is HUGE! In fact, I took the TwinGo to the supermarket and bought £90 of groceries including something like 12 litres of milk, 24 cans, loads of jars and bottles, washing tablets and more – ie not a light load (although I have since read the basket should only hold 6kgs! Eeeek! Sorry Love N Care!)!! The access to the basket was very easy. Even fully loaded the TwinGo was no problem to push home, and more to the point I did not have a twinge of back ache by the time I got home from my dodgy back! I was very, very, very impressed. The TwinGo truly is my dream side by side pushchair with the huge, easy to access basket, that I need to get my weekly shopping home! I also like that there are 3 large pockets along one edge of the basket so that your phone, purse etc are all handy – no more fishing around blindly under the pushchair to find your purse! The pockets have velcro flaps too to stop things being seen or being blown away. Its the little touches like pockets that make a pushchair more user friendly when you have keys, phone, phone, muslins, nappies, wipes etc to take with you.

The Love N Care TwinGo seats recline very easily. There is a toggle with a finger hole underneath. Simply place your finger in the hole and pull gently! Too hard and your child will drop down fast!! The strap is velcroed together at the bottom which makes pulling the child upright fairly easy too although I need to make sure that my baby keeps his arms tucked in when sitting upright. Toggle reclines always need a bit of a push of the child up from behind! The TwinGo has one of the easiest reclines I have used on a side by side pushchair. The seat reclines to almost flat. My suspicion is that with the weight of a newborn baby in, that this seat would be regarded as being flat. If anything, the weight of my 15 month old takes the seat to just below horizontal. There is also the option of carrycots for the TwinGo. We have not seen these, but assume they clip into place easily instead of the seat unit. But personally I think the TwinGo seat units with the liner and huge hood are very cosy for a small baby. It is not recommended that an older toddler is reclined, but there is enough slope on the seat, plus support from the hood, to allow an older child to nap comfortably without needing to be reclined. I haven’t always reclined my 15 month old when he is asleep. However the downside to this is that the seats are probably too reclined at their most upright for my eldest. Not having fixed shoulder straps has worked well for her as she can pull herself upright using the bumper bar. If she does lean back too heavily though, on occasions the recline has started to drop on its own! But she is 3.1 years old and we appreciate she is heading towards the upper weight boundaries for this pushchair.

The Love N Care TwinGo is one of the easiest pushchairs to fold. The seat units need to be outward facing or removed. Then simply pull up the centre slider which locks into place, then pull up the two sliders, one on each side and the TwinGo folds in half with the seat outwards. There are two storage straps with clips on either side to hold the TwinGo in place. Whilst these are simple, they are effective, and it makes the pushchair easy to open, as the clips can be undone first, leaving your hands free to flick the pushchair open, so in theory you could open the pushchair one handed. The TwinGo is not huge when folded. It is quite a flat fold for a double pushchair even with the seats on! We took photos for the Mama’s and Papas Urbo at the same time as this set, and amazingly the TwinGo fold was slimmer than the Urbo. As you can see, there isn’t much difference in folded size! The TwinGo does fill the lower area of my car boot, but the flat fold means there is lots of room above it for shopping etc. The wheels all pop off very easily and with the two largest wheels removed, the fold is flatter than some of my lightweight single pushchairs. The wheels are colour coded; red and yellow; so that it is easy to know which wheel goes on which side. The TwinGo does not freestand when folded, however it will lie neatly on its side.

The handle on the Love N Care Twingo is foam covered and is a fixed height. It is just perfect for me at 5ft 6ins. The handle is comfy to hold. In the centre of the handle is a sideways D shape. This is really useful for using as a handle to carry the TwinGo with. The tether strap also hangs from there to keep the pushchair attached to you at all times.

The TwinGo chassis is sturdy and strong. The pushchair has a lovely feel when pushing it. It is easy to push even with my two heavier children on board. Ultimately double pushchairs are all about easy pushability, and the TwinGo excels at this. We had no problems going up and down kerbs even when fully loaded.

We love the chunky brake pedal. It is easy to find and easy to flip on and off.

The wheels are hard plastic wheels. The front wheels can be set to lock or to swivel. We have taken the TwinGo across a range of terrains (cobbles, grass, muddy car park, gravel, smooth surfaces) and it has coped well with them all. I am no expert on suspension, but the TwinGo suspension seems just right – neither too hard or too soft (I notice both of these!) We got the TwinGo pretty muddy at the bonfire we attended, and the mud has simply brushed off the fabric.

All round we absolutely and utterly love this pushchair. Yes, there are some compromises, but believe me when my daughter on our first outing said “This is such fun” followed quickly by “I like seeing you mummy!” believe me this was one pushchair sold to this demanding reviewer!!!! The TwinGo is here to stay at Best Buggy!!

WE LOVE THE TWINGO!!!!!

Please forgive the poor quality of some of the photos. The afternoon light is now not the best.