Dear (Fill in the Blank Store):
I know it’s not your responsibility to make sure that your store accommodates the small population of mothers who have more than one small kid, but let’s face it – moms with small kids will eventually become moms with big kids. Building a little bit of goodwill now really can’t hurt and might only help you in the long run as you build an inventory of loyal customers.
What am I talking about, you ask? I’m talking specifically about your shopping carts. If you’ve ever been shopping with two or more little kids, you might understand what I’m referring to. Shopping with two young kids in tow is difficult and the shopping cart situation is often a cause of frustration for many moms. I am asking you to regularly check all of your double seated carts to ensure that they’re working, and MAYBE consider replacing them with more mom/kid-friendly styles.
In my household, my husband is great at doing small errands like picking up milk, but I still do most of the big shopping. I try, whenever possible, to go shopping when my kids are asleep or during my lunch hour, but there are some days where this is impossible. Usually, those “impossible” days are on weekends during your peak hour, where crowds are completely insane and people have zero patience for a mom with two young kids, let alone one with two kids in a double-wide shopping cart.
Half of the time, the double carts that are available are disgusting – overdue for replacing, covered in some unidentifiable sticky substance. 99% of the time, the safety harnesses are busted. Several of our large supermarket chains (and I mean NATIONAL chains!) have no two-plus kid carts at all.
I generally don’t complain because I know that I represent a TINY portion of your clientele and I have a high threshold for discomfort. But please know that this has meant that I have either skipped your store altogether, or have left without going inside when I couldn’t find a cart that worked. Don’t tell me to put one kid in the seat basket and the other in the cart because the kid that sits in the cart inevitably ends up crying because it’s neither fun nor comfortable for them either. In this case, I’d just rather skip the shopping.
If you think you’ve been accommodating, consider these situations:
Over the holiday season, I had to go to the supermarket before our holiday dinner. Our local Stop & Shop had holiday displays where the shopping carts are usually stored and therefore the carts were moved outside. The wire carts were OK – they were under the awning right outside the entrance – but the double carts were moved to the uncovered side of the building behind some wooden pallets. It was pouring rain out – the wetness of the carts wasn’t an issue because I regularly carry a roll of paper towels in my car; however, I was unable to get the carts out from behind the wooden pallets without actually moving the pallets which meant that I would have spent 15 minutes out in the pouring rain while my kids waited (alone) in my car. I even asked the guy collecting carts to help me and he told me that he couldn’t help.
On another occasion, I went to our local Stew Leonard’s* during an off-peak hour. My kids and I walked over to the area where the shopping carts are stacked and there were two double carts available. The first one I pulled had a bolt missing which connected the caboose to the cart, rendering it useless. The other cart I pulled out had something very sticky and gross all over the seats – I wiped it all off only to find that the harnesses were cut off (why, I have no idea). I turned around and left without ever setting foot in the store. I even wrote a note to customer service stating that both of their available carts were not usable, and they responded with an apology but they didn’t fix the situation.
I’m not asking you to make a massive change (because that would be impractical) but I am asking you to consider being a little bit more kid-friendly. Stocking your store with shopping carts that are not giant buses and checking them periodically to ensure they are in working condition would be a great start.
Sincerely yours,
A Mom of Young Twins
* One of the Stew’s stores (Newington?) has double seat wire carts, but Norwalk has the old fashioned wagon carts. Stew’s recently did a promotion on Facebook where they said that they might consider bringing in the double seat wire carts to all of their stores if there were enough “LIKES” on their Facebook post. It got what I would have thought was enough LIKES and yet, they replaced only their regular carts and never replaced their double carts. Very disappointing.
A Primer on Double Seating Shopping Carts:
The Race Car, Multi Tier Carts – awesome, awesome, awesome. Two of our local family markets (shout out to The Village Market and Caraluzzis, both in Wilton, CT) have multi-tier carts. The top tier has racecar seating with TWO steering wheels (very important!!!) and the bottom tiers are shopping baskets. Even when the seat belts are broken (rare because these two stores check the seatbelts regularly), the kids are able to sit safely in the cart. The turning radius is pretty much the same as a normal shopping cart and more importantly, the kids are within arms’ reach of mom so that she can break up any arguments that are likely to arise. The attention to detail and family friendliness has has made me a loyal customer for life at these two stores.
Double Seat Double Wide Shopping Carts – Costco has these GREAT shopping carts – basically a giant version of your traditional shopping cart. The seating is double-wide, allowing you to put two little kids in the seating area. They are a little bit tall (but that’s my problem, not theirs) but they make it SO easy to shop with more than one kid. My kids never complain about the cart when we are shopping there. Sadly, the massive size of the shopping cart also allows you to buy WAY more than you’d normally buy. It’s no wonder why I can’t make it out of Costco without paying a few hundred bucks!
The Cozy Coupe – several supermarket chains have these. They are basically regular shopping carts with plastic cars attached to the front. They are super cute and seem like a good idea, except that whoever designed a shopping cart where two little kids are outside of arms’ reach of Mom clearly hasn’t experienced the slap-fest that inevitably ensues between two young siblings in such close quarters. This is besides the fact that the turning radius is WAY larger than most shopping aisles allow. Great idea, poor execution.
Wagon Seat Carts – our local Stew Leonard’s (Norwalk) has these. Try navigating the maze of aisles at Stew’s with one of these and you will never want to do it again. I have gotten nasty looks and actual comments from people who are annoyed that I bothered to go shopping with my kids. The ones at our (Norwalk) store also tend not to have working seatbelts and at least two of them are unbolted from the shopping cart on one side. Because the seats tilt downward slightly, my kids end up sliding off. Awful idea, awful design.
The Disaster of a Double Cart – Whoever designed these carts needs to reconsider their calling in life. Wal-Mart and Target carry the first cart – the kids face each other, the space is limited in the kiddie cabin, the turning radius is non-existent. Some supermarket chains carry the second cart which is pretty much useless if you have kids under about 2.5 (they slip off and fall forward when ever you move) and in the 90% of cases where the safety harness is broken, forget it. With both carts, you are better off just carrying both kids around (hello, toddlerwearing?) instead of using this cart. To the retailers who carry these – you are not doing moms a favor here. Please take a cue from Costco – get rid of these carts and get the awesome ones they have!
CT Working Moms 
[…] shopping cart examples. Credit (from left to right) to The Toy Channel on Flickr, https://ctworkingmoms.com, […]
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Thank you! Yes, to everything above! Except, I dont have any near me with either of the top two options. My Walmart doesn’t even have the bottom one, at least i have never seen it. My Meijer has the race car on the bottom front but has doors, not a big improvement. My Target had the last one but recently switched to the first one of the last kind, again not a big improvement. My Aldi does not have any double, nor does my Kroger and I live in a big city. How do I get my stores to carry double carts?
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Those enormous Target carts are especially awful because the regular seat up on the cart is usually blocked off. So if you have a child under 2, or a wiggly 2 year old that can’t handle the plastic seat, tough luck! I usually end up with my oldest walking, the baby in the seat and the 2 middle ones (now 3 and 5) sitting in the basket. I once had someone comment that putting a kid in the basket was dangerous and I replied, “oh, are you offering to walk through the store with us and hold her hand?”
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[…] version: Back in January, I kicked off the new year with a rant about double shopping carts. In it, I called out my disappointment in Stew Leonard’s (Stew’s), a store whose […]
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This post makes me so glad to have chosen the only child life. My little one is with me all the time, and loves going grocery shopping. Thankfully either from parenting, personality type, having so much one on one time and attention from being an only, my daughter is a very easy going and well behaved child. I have not had any grocery store outing tantrum or meltdowns and only one tantrum at a restaurant, (thankfully before we had ordered so we could follow through on our word that if she ever misbehaves in a restaurant or any place in public we are turning around and going home). She loves the car carts, but knows that we can only use those carts when we go to home depot or lowes and I’ve never had any issues with the carts there. We only use there because there are fewer people to navigate around and the aisles are much larger.
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I do believe that when you have two, they play against each other. My two actually rarely cause a ruckus when we’re out shopping (notice I didn’t say “NEVER” because it *has* happened…). However, the logistical side of navigating the narrow aisles with the massive cart (the store I mentioned above, Stew Leonards, is really bad about having very difficult-to-navigate aisles because of the crowds and layout of the store) combined with the fact that the carts are often busted so that little kids can fall or slide out of the seat is the main challenge. That’s why I LOVE the racecar carts. They are pretty much the same as a regular-sized shopping cart and they have a lot of space in them.
I don’t think that stores are deliberately ignoring the moms – I think that they’re just unaware. Likely what is happening is that they believe they are doing a service by providing those carts, but may not be aware of the condition or just how challenging it can be.
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Great post ,I got lucky my local market actual cares I decided to say something after my then 6 month old was chewing on the side of the infant seat which was made of foam and was in sad diss repair I was having a hard time keeping a teething baby from biting it abd he was pulling it apart totally gross I was very surprised to see the next time I shopped all the seats were replaced and so were the safety belts on the double carts
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Awesome that they responded! Our local markets (as opposed to big box stores) are great – the two pics I have of the racecar shopping carts are from each of our two markets and it’s where I do most of my shopping simply because I like to “shop local.” Unfortunately, there are times when the big box supermarket cannot be avoided because there are some things that the smaller markets don’t carry…usually those times are during holidays or other big shopping days (when we are planning to have company over!).
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I had twins when my oldest was 20 months old. I often skipped shopping because I had to wear one kid and push two so if the cart wasn’t good it just wasn’t happening. BJs has the same carts as Costco and they were my only option most of the time!
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LOL, I used to do the wear one, push one in the cart thing too, but I only had to PUSH one as opposed to pushing two!! That’s quite a feat! I think I’d be sopping wet with sweat if I wore one and pushed those massive carts! With us, the choice of who was where was a no-brainer. My girlie LOVED to be worn as long as she could face outward – I just had to remember that I had this massive “bump” in front of me because sometimes I’d bend over to put something in the cart or reach on a shelf and end up accidentally bonking her into the shelf or cart!
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A krogers store I used to go to always leaves their double carts outside and the farthest location possible from the entrance.. And to top it off, in either the rain or direct sunlight.. Which is a safety issue in the summer. I have had to put paper towels on the seats to avoid my twins getting burns on their legs (think playground slide in direct sunlight in the heat of summer in the south and having to sit directly on it to shop). And most of the times, all the buckles are broken.
Also to note, with the carts with the cars on the front, apparently no one thought that if you don’t walk directly in the middle of the aisle, you either end up with items in the car that little hands grabbed, or worse yet, one grabs and after handing the item(s) over to the other child, the second child systematically tosses each item out the other side leaving a trail of items like hansel and gretel down the middle of the aisle…
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LOL, love the imagery of Hansel and Gretel. I’m always afraid of snapping off my kids hands in those things because I can’t see them. They reach out and pull things off the shelves and I keep thinking I’m going to bang another cart, a pole or a shelf when I walk by!
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complain, complain. Why on earth can’t Mothers use the old original carts and push one and pull another? Always worked when I shopped for my two boys that are 14 months apart… They knew my expectations to behave well and they did, I didn’t need special carts to entertain them.
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yes, another mother who ensured that her children had expectations! I am one of those moms that will say quietly to my child when we observe another child in public throwing a fit or misbehaving, if you do that …will happen. if you expect more from your children, even as toddlers they will learn how to stay within their boundaries! My husband and I have taken our daughter out with us since she was 2 months old when ever we needed to go to the grocery store, and often on our dates since I was BF. if you acknowledged, encourage and reward the good behavior from an early age, and also acknowledge and react to the negative behavior from the beginning your child will have the boundaries they crave and you the peaceful experience of a fun public outing with young children. I am always so proud of my child, she gets compliments all the time from friends, family and even strangers on her happy easy going personality and great behavior.
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Thanks for your comment. I have done the push/pull with either the stroller or another cart when needed but this can really only be done during off peak hours if we want to avoid inconveniencing other shoppers; although, there are times where, as you said, you just have to get it done. It’s a lot easier now that my two are walking easily because I can alternate between letting one walk and the other sit.
As I said to one mom below, I don’t think that stores are necessarily ignoring moms and the point is not to complain about that – I think they think that their intentions are good by providing the massive carts but they’re not necessarily aware of the issues; between the broken belts which cause the kids to slide out of the plastic carts, and the narrow aisles. Even if one store is made aware of this and makes a small change, we can make life just a little bit easier for other moms out there.
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You know which store frustrates me the most? Babies R Us (and, of course Toys R Us). Really? No double carts? Stores that specifically cater to those with small children that don’t have double carts to keep my small children safe? Get a clue BRU!!
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LOL, I didn’t even realize that until I saw someone else post on Facebook that they don’t have double carts! How ironic!!! Kinda funny, too!
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By the way, people who act like mothers shouldn’t take kids shopping irritate me. Sometimes, I don’t have a choice. And how else will I teach my children to act right in public if I refuse to take them? I make sure that I don’t shop at night with tired kids or at nap time. I expect my children to be polite. But, I sometimes wonder if not having enough shopping carts for families is a way to discourage shoppers like us.
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Teaching our kids how to behave in public is key! On Fridays or Saturdays, I sometimes need a little break and suggest that we take the kids to a local greasy-spoon or place like Friendly’s. My husband used to cringe because he was afraid that my kids would disturb other diners, not because they were misbehaved (they’re not) but because they’re toddlers and acted like toddlers. I told him that they need the exposure to learn how to eat in restaurants, and that if he looked around, he’d see that most other people eating there are in the same predicament (given that we eat at 5:30/6:00). Exposure is always good training!
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As a mother of 19 month twins I can totally relate to this article. I hope you don’t mind if I print it and attach it to my own letter to my local supermarket.
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Absolutely – please print it and enclose it! Anything we can do to make life that much easier for multiples’ moms!
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What a great idea! Show them all these great comments too! Sounds like this is a big issue nationwide!
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THIS IS SO TRUE! Thank you for writing about a problem that so many moms face. I don’t think I’m that unusual. I have a toddler and a baby, and I struggle to find carts that work for us. I think these stores are underestimating the importance of moms of young kids. We will be doing the bulk of the shopping for an entire family for 20 years or so. We spend two or three or four times what other people spend. So, if they have to add a few functional, clean carts to keep us (and our kids) happy, you’d think that would be a small price to pay. I think the people designing carts and purchasing them for stores just have no experience with how difficult shopping with more than one child is. And might I point out that the size of the average American family includes TWO children… By the way, I can’t believe you were out in the pouring rain trying to get a shopping cart, and a store employee refused to help you. I’d never shop there again!
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I love your comment because you really got the message of this post! I do believe that the people running the logistics and /or purchasing the carts probably are unaware of the challenges and it doesn’t hurt to bring it to their attention. It’s also very evident where the stores really “get it.” Our local market that has those awesome carts…the woman in charge is a mom of several kids, now grown. She makes a point to make her store as family friendly as possible and I like to think that it’s because she’s been through it all before!
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LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this!!! I agree with every word in this post!!!! I have been complaining about this stuff (in my head) for years! I hope stores read this and consider changing their cart styles. Between work, school and clinicals my husband is gone and about 120 hours a week. I am a stay at home mom, that home schools, so I do all of my shopping with all of our children. My husband and I have 5 children ages 2,3,4,6 and 8. We live in TN and I love to shop at Publix because they have the race cars with steering wheels and Aldi because they have the double seated wire basket. Most other stores are a pain in my rear end. Especially the stores that have the cute little shopping carts for kids to push….Now I have 5 kids that all want to push little shopping carts…ummm NOOOO! If I had one child that would be okay but you want to talk about stressful shopping! That would be a catastrophe for the store, me and everyone near us! It’s bad enough my 8 year old has to push one cart with 1, sometimes 2, kids in it (depending on the attitude of the 6 year old) and I push another cart with 2 kids in it… Every time we leave the store the back of my legs and my Achilles tendons look like they have been in a war! LOL Thanks for sharing this article… I love knowing I’m not the only one that gets frustrated by shopping carts!
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Your comment made me giggle a little bit because I can picture 5 kids pushing those mini carts around the store!!! I can only imagine how stressful it is to convince your kids that “no…you can’t have one of those!” Also, the achilles and back of leg thing… I think I have permanent scars on the back of my heels from bumping it with the cart when I’ve done the push/pull thing! You are an amazing mom!!!
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Thank you so much for writing this article. I too am a mom of twins (girls) and I also have a son. I also try to go on their off times so I wouldn’t have to take them but more often then not they would need to come with me. Our local jewel has the ‘car carts’ only about 4 of them which are always either missing a wheel, or the belts are gone. My girls are a bit older now so they at least know not to stand up or get out while we’re there but the safety of them is always an issue. But the one thing that bugs me the most is when parents with only 1 child are taking the double carts………like ALL the time! I have turned around and left the stores more often then not because there were no double carts available. I have also, while shopping alone on the rare occasions, have seen very older children, whom half the time get out of the cart and WALK, in the double carts. There are only 4 or so double carts available in these stores. If you have only one child stick them in the regular cart please. ALL carts should be Costco carts 🙂 or the should have way more double carts available for family’s with more then one child.
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I sooo agree with you about how frustrating it is to see someone shopping with one of the double carts and they only have 1 child. I have 4 kids (6, 4 and 2 yo twins). Not long ago I went to a store, all of the race-car carts were taken, so I put one kid in the front seat of the cart and one in the basket. My son in the basket fell out of the basket at one point and hit his head on the floor–and not 2 minutes later I saw someone using a race-car for 1 kid. Ugh, it frustrates me so much!!! When I complained to some other moms in my twins club they said “well, shouldn’t just one kid get to have the fun of driving the race car?” NO!! They are not for fun!! They are for practicality and child safety!!
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You know what, I never even thought about the race car carts being for two kids – I just assumed they were for fun (I have two kids now, but thought this when I had one kid). I usually just stayed away from them with the one kid as I figured if most kids are as germy as mine they were probably pretty gross. I’ve never used one, but now that I have two kids I think I am going to need to – the single cart is getting pretty tight!
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I love the Costco carts! I am just realizing now through these comments that if the stores all had carts like Costco, then the age-old argument of one kid using a double cart would be a non issue.
I do think we need to be aware of the fact that (as someone stated above) some parents with older kids or single kids DO need those carts – special needs being one of them!
Thank goodness for stores that stay open late!! They are my saving grace oftentimes!
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I am a single mother of twins, who are not in school or daycare, so shopping without them is not really possible–.unless I hire a sitter–which really isn’t an option. I have pushed/pulled two carts or a stroller and a cart and have invariably taken a huge chunk out of my ankle when I run the back cart over it–which makes me just that much more angry with that store for not having double carts available or functioning. FYI, I asked our local S & S one day last summer about either fixing or replacing the double carts (with the cars in front) an was told they could no longer order those carts and didn’t have anyone to fix them, and they weren’t going to be replacing thoe double carts with anything else. I told them I wouldn’t be shopping in their store again (and haven’t, but a frien said they’ve totally gotten rid of them now). I assume this is a S & S wide happening that they can’t order new ones.
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Our Stop and Shops have replaced all of the main shopping carts (the traditional ones) and have added little market carts. They got rid of some of the nasty cozy-coupes, but I have yet to see a new one to replace them. I am HOPING they will bring in some new ones.
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Our Walmarts have a cart with a baby seat AND a regular seat for an older child side by side. I love it!! My 4 month old no longer rides in an infant carrier but even if he did I would not balance it on top of the cart. I always use the in-store infant seats if not wearing him, and it is nice that my 3-1/2 year old has a seat next to him. Both kids right next to me. Obviously not a helpful seat for twins or kids closer in age, but I love it. They definitely could stand to be replaced, though.
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I haven’t seen those! It sounds awesome!
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Oh, I wish we had those!
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Some of the stores have order online, then drive in pick up. I loved that when my three were small. Didn’t even have to get out of the car. The online shopping was great too, as you could order you meats special cut, or get the pounds right on the hamburger. That doesn’t help for the fast pickups, but if you are doing the major shopping spree, like for the holidays, check to see if any of your stores have the online ordering. It is really worth it! I used Harris Teeters and some of our Bi-lo’s have it here too.
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We have that, too – it’s called PeaPod. I have TRIED it but I just can’t get my act together enough to figure out how to do it efficiently and inevitably end up forgetting something major (like the roast at our last big gathering!!!). Apparently, I am more of a sight shopper…
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My issue with Peapod is that if they don’t have (or can’t find) something in stock, they either send you a substitute, which may not be what you wanted, or just leave it out completely. They don’t charge you of course, but it’s happened to me a few times and it’s been a key ingredient in a meal I had planned!
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I am a single mother of b/g twins so shopping without my kids in tow before they were in school was practically a non-option. My Graco DuoRider Side-by-Side stroller could hold about $300 worth of groceries and it’s the same width as a wheel chair so I could fit down the isles fine. Once they were 3, I had them walking on their leashes “helping” me (which kept them out of trouble) and now that they’re 7, I try to do as much shopping as I can when they are at school…. which always makes me dread summer vacation, lol.
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I used to do the pull/push thing all the time, but the problem was that I’d have to shove the stuff in the underbasket and the seatbacks. I once was approached by a store manager who thought I was shoplifting… he was understanding when he realized my issue, but sheesh…for a brief moment, he made me feel like a criminal.
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As a mom of twins myself, I can completely agree with everything in your article! I need to add a few more issues myself. My local Wal-Mart stores have a handful each of these double sweater carts. They are always stored outside, which leaves the people wanting to use them to have to deal with snow covered, rain covered or blazing HOT plastic seats from being left out in the weather. There are also those people who think these double carts deserve to be treated as a novelty for pushing around their one child, leaving people who are actually in need of these carts to either double up, one kid sitting, one inside the cart, or even just move on to come back later.
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Our Walmart is the same way – all the kids carts are outside. Really?! I have to clean and inch of snow off the cart in order to shop at your store?!
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US TOO!!!! Although, unless desperate, I avoid WalMart with the kids because my kids inevitably end up having a temper tantrum because they see so many things that they “want” that I won’t let them have… yep, we are in temper tantrum central over here!
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Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but it kind of burns me up when I wrestle my twins and singleton into a store and all of the double carts are taken with moms with ONE kid. Usually that one kid could walk on his/her own. I’m standing at the front with three kids under 3″ tall with nothing but a single cart.
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3″ tall? you could put them in your pocket…
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Three INCHES! LOL! Yep a pocket would do! 😉
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You know what the woman was talking about. Why do you ALL have to be spelling NAZIS?
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Jeez, thanks for making a big deal about the one extra tic mark in the comment. Sorry for typing in a rush. So much for the actual content of the comment.
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Katie we all make typos, not a big deal at all! We all know what you meant. Thanks for coming here to comment!
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Katie – I didn’t even notice the typo!!! 😉
Thanks for commenting!
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Every single “kid” cart at the North Scottsdale Walmart has broken belts. Useless! I put one in the seat and one in the cart. I do like the Target carts and the Costco carts.
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I think most stores don’t think to check the harnesses because I’ve noticed on regular carts, they’re often busted, too (as they are often in restaurant high chairs). They probably don’t realize that some doubles are rendered useless when the harnesses are broken.
To explain to others who might not know what I’m talking about – in a basket seat cart (like the traditional shopping carts), kids can safely still sit in them without falling out if the harnesses are busted because of the safety bar that goes between the crotch and in front of them. In the double carts that don’t have any safety bar in the middle of the crotch, the only thing that keeps the kid from sliding off the seat is those straps, so when they’re busted, they’re very hard to use. Especially since they’re often made of very slippery plastic!
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I had twins and then a single 21 months apart. My favorite was Costco. I had all my kids in the cart and groceries on the bottom.
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LOVE the Costco carts!!! My husband laughs because I am short (5 feet tall) and those carts are pretty tall when the kids are in them. He says I look like a little kid play pushing a shopping cart around since I can barely see above the kids’ heads! Haha.
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This is EXACTLY what I keep trying to explain to my friend who have singletons, or kids that are a few years apart. The only place I can go to shop with my 1 1/2 yo twin boys is BJ’s. I refuse to fight with carts and try to find a special one that has working straps, not gross, etc. Usually I’ll go alone or my husband will go with me, pushing one kid in an umbrella stroller while I have the other in the cart. It really stinks b/c I would love to just take the boys and go grocery shopping! Thank you for this post!!
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Yeah, 1.5 years is a tough age for shopping because they are big enough to know that they want to sit in the carts, but small enough that they can’t sit safely (without straps), can’t walk alongside your cart even if they are already walking, and can’t really be put INSIDE the cart because they’re still a little wobbly in terms of balancing when they sit! I found that the hardest time to take my kids shopping. That’s when I did ALL of my shopping at Costco (I think they have the same carts as BJs) if I needed to, and got really comfortable with the night stocking staff at our late-open stores!
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And maybe they might consider replacing those tiny wheels on the giant carts with ones that are more in line with the engineering dynamics of the larger, heavier cart. Those tiny wheels can’t TURN those big carts without a whole lot of heft behind them. Bravo, Vivian! Great post!!
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Thanks, Ann!!
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I only have one child, but he is on the Autistic spectrum….I let a local store know that I would drive PAST their store to go to a store that had kiddie carts.
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I can only imagine how difficult it is! We moms have to do what works to survive. Kiddie shopping carts is a REALLY big component of our lives! I hope that the local store responded to your complaint??
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I’ve actually complained at my local stop and shop for the harnesses being broken…. Weekly, until they were fixed!
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I have 4 y/o twins and a soon to be 3 y/o. That last cart seems perfect for my needs as the always, always end up fighting/kicking each other in the other designs. This one at least has a space buffer.
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LOL. Buffer is key!!!
The second to last pic, I keep seeing moms with three with one in the shopping cart basket kicking the head of the one right in front of them! I totally know that THREE little kids in a cart is a whole different ballgame! Kudos to you!!!!
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I knew this had to be written by a mother of twins! I 100% agree. The racecar shopping carts are the absolute best. I have twins who are 2 and a 1 year old, so I actually like the target carts because they can fit my whole crew 🙂 I actually just filed a comment at our local stop and shop because they did a whole renovation and brought in all new shopping carts but kept the old, bad kiddie carts with the giant car in the front. So frustrating! Thanks for a great post!
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Haha, misery loves company, eh? And it seems no one is listening to our complaints! Our S&S did the SAME thing. They brought in ALL NEW carts, and left the old multi-seating kid carts. The least they could have done was given us a few more CLEAN ones!
Have you ever done the push/pull thing? I used to bring my stroller into the store and push that with one hand while I pulled the shopping cart with the other. The only way you could really do that is when the store is empty, but in a pinch, it worked!
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I did have to do the push/pull thing one time when they were really little. Most of the time I just brought in my stroller and shoved the groceries in all the nooks and crannies. Plus Pea Pod was a life saver 🙂
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Feel like I was reading what goes through my brain every time I shop with twins and my oldest !! Great job
Maybe we can rally up together on this !
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Hahaha, Teodora. I have to say that the comments that I’ve seen on the MoMs page that gave me some inspiration to write this!!
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I have two kids and usually try not to shop with them just like you. Maybe there are more people out there than we think that would benefit from these carts – maybe we’re just all leaving our kids at home because the carts suck! 🙂
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LOL, that and the fact that we constantly have to endure, “I want that,” “I like that,” “I’m hungryyyyyyyyyy,” “I’m thirsty…” and “WAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” Hahaha.
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I have never seen those!!!! They’re like unicorns to me!!!
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LMAO.
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I totally agree with this post!!!!
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Ohhhh don’t get me started on the beastly two seaters at Stew’s! UGH. I second the race car carts that sit two at the top. Lowe’s and HD have those, too. I have no idea how I’d shop with two toddlers of the same age. With us, it started with one in the ergo and one in the cart, and now one in the cart and one walking.
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I once ran into a lady at Stew’s who had two little kids (both under the age of 4) PLUS twins probably about a year old. She had the twins in the bench seats, the third child in the cart seat, and the oldest one walking with her. I wanted to cry for her because she was struggling SO HARD.
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I have nightmares like that…LOL!!
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My wife and I alternated shopping without the kids. Carts were never an issue because they did not visit the store that much. They were also never on an airplane until they were 5 and 7. There were just certain things we refused to do with kids in tow. Shopping was one of them.
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My kids haven’t been on an airplane yet and my in-laws are bugging me to take them TO ASIA. Uh, hello…they haven’t even been on a one hour flight, you want me to do SIXTEEN HOURS??!!!
LOL. In any case, yeah – I try not to go with the kids shopping, but there are times that are just unavoidable. Luckily, we have one store that’s open until 9PM near me, and another a little further away that’s open until 11. However, given that I rarely go with the kids and the few times I’ve gone have been just terrible shopping cart experiences, I’d hate to know what moms who have to go regularly are encountering…
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I wish that I was afforded this luxury. However, we are military and my husband is gone a lot. And my kids have been on more plane rides then most adults and they’re 5 and 7.
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Not everyone has that choice. I’ve been forced to suck up shopping with 5 littles in tow, spend way too much eating out until my husband is home at an opportune time (sometimes days with his crazy schedule), or let them starve ( not really a practical choice).
Those carts are a nightmare… And you’d think they were covered in blinking flashing lights and spit out candy by the way my kids beg to sit in the stupid things! I always wear my youngest (almost 2), but that won’t last that much longer and still leaves me with 4 other kids to figure out where to put them. Pushing 20-some pounds of cart plus a weeks worth of food while wearing a 30 pound toddler is a good work-out but not exactly my idea of fun!!
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Having only one kid I haven’t had to face this yet but I totally get what you’re saying here. That news about Stew’s is such a bummer – they should have listened to the moms who want better carts!!
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Oh I want to add that BJ’s carts are awesome – they are the same as the one’s at costco etc!
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