The Brutally Honest Truth About the Orbit Baby Stroller System

It was raining, obviously. I was standing in the parking lot of the Trader Joe’s on 4th Street, wearing yoga pants that hadn’t actually seen a yoga mat since sometime in 2017. Maya was strapped into her car seat screaming about a dropped goldfish cracker, and I was trying to heave a massive, cumbersome baby stroller into the trunk of our Honda CR-V while holding a lukewarm oat milk latte in my teeth.

I twisted my back. Hard.

Like, that deep, terrifying lower-back spasm that shoots straight down your leg and makes you instantly regret every life choice that led you to this exact moment in the rain. I dropped the stroller frame in a puddle. I spilled the coffee down my chest. I literally just stood there and cried in front of a woman loading organic kale into her Prius.

That was the exact day my husband, who treats baby gear research like he’s trying to buy a used Ferrari and needs to check the Carfax on the suspension, declared we were getting an Orbit baby stroller. I had literally just typed "lightest baby str" into my phone with one thumb before my brain short-circuited, but he was already deep in the Reddit threads. He was obsessed with this thing called the SmartHub. I was just exhausted. Anyway, the point is, we bought the Orbit Baby G5, and it completely changed how we left the house, but also, it's not for the faint of heart. Or the weak of bicep.

That spinning thing completely saved my spine

Okay, so the entire claim to fame for the Orbit baby ecosystem is this 360-degree rotation feature. Instead of having to physically pop the heavy seat off the frame, turn it around, line up the little plastic grooves while your baby is crying, and snap it back in—you just squeeze a lever and spin the whole thing.

It sounds like a gimmick. I absolutely thought it was a stupid luxury gimmick for celebrities who don't actually carry their own groceries.

But oh god, I was so wrong. If you've ever had a C-section, or if your lower back is basically just held together by hopes and sheer panic after giving birth, this feature is a literal lifesaver. You can rotate the seat 90 degrees so it’s facing sideways. Then you just step right up to it, load your squirming, angry infant straight on without having to awkwardly twist your torso, buckle them in, and spin them forward.

It's smooth. It's seamless. I didn't realize how much the tiny, micro-twisting motions of getting Leo in and out of his old stroller were absolutely destroying my lumbar spine until I didn't have to do it anymore.

My doctor's thoughts on looking at my face

There's also this whole developmental side to the spinning seat that I didn't even think about until our four-month checkup. Dr. Miller—our doctor who has known my kids since they were covered in amniotic fluid and who always wears these wildly distracting bowties—mentioned something about how parent-facing strollers are actually a big deal for early development.

He was saying that newborns have incredibly fragile nervous systems, and when we just blast them face-first into a busy sidewalk with sirens and barking dogs and strangers, they get completely overwhelmed. Facing mom or dad helps them control. I'm pretty sure I'm butchering the exact science here because I was heavily caffeinated and trying to keep Maya from licking the examination table, but the gist was that seeing my face makes Leo feel safe when the world is too loud.

With the Orbit, if we're at the loud chaotic farmers market and a golden retriever barks and Leo starts to lose his tiny mind, I don't have to stop and rebuild the stroller. I just casually spin him around to face me. Instant calm. Well, mostly calm.

The teething incident at the coffee shop

Speaking of mostly calm, let's talk about the downside of having your kid face you. You can see exactly what they're putting in their mouths at all times.

One Tuesday, we were at this overpriced coffee shop downtown. Leo was in the Orbit, facing me, and I realized he was aggressively gnawing on the stroller harness like a feral little raccoon. Just absolutely soaking the Oeko-Tex fabric in drool.

Thank god I had the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy Soothing Gum Relief buried in the black hole that's my diaper bag. Honestly, this is probably my favorite thing we own right now. We've tried, like, seven different teethers, and most of them just get chucked onto the floor immediately. But the Panda has this flat shape that Leo can really hold onto with his incredibly uncoordinated little fists.

Plus, it's 100% food-grade silicone and BPA-free, which stops my anxiety from spiraling. He sat there chewing on the little textured bamboo part for a solid forty-five minutes, which meant I got to drink my entire coffee while it was still hot. A genuine miracle. I just throw it in the dishwasher when we get home. If you've a kid who's currently trying to eat their own hands or your stroller straps, you need this thing.

We also have the Squirrel Teether Silicone Baby Gum Soother with Acorn Design, which is undeniably cute—the mint green is so aesthetic—but the ring shape was just okay for us. Leo dropped it a lot more than the Panda. Maya honestly ended up stealing the squirrel to use as a "gourmet donut" for her dolls, so at least someone is getting use out of it.

Let's talk about the weight because it's a lot

Alright, I promised to be brutally honest, so we need to talk about the sheer physics of this stroller.

The Orbit Baby G5 is heavy. I'm not talking "a little bulky." I'm talking thirty-three and a half pounds of aerospace-grade aluminum. The frame alone is basically twenty pounds. Lifting this thing into the back of an SUV requires you to engage your core, plant your feet, and pray.

If you live in a third-floor walk-up apartment, don't buy this stroller. If you rely on the subway and have to carry your baby gear up and down broken escalators, absolutely don't buy this stroller. You will hate your life. You will curse my name for even mentioning it.

It's a luxury neighborhood stroller. It's meant to be pushed over cobblestones and cracked sidewalks with its fancy Quadshock suspension while your baby sleeps peacefully like a tiny angel. It glides beautifully. You can push it with one finger while holding a toddler's hand with your other arm. But taking it in and out of a car trunk is an athletic event.

They do make a compact travel version called the M+ that you can pull like a suitcase through an airport, and there's a double attachment called the Helix+ if you've twins, but honestly my kids are three years apart so I didn't even look into those.

I'm terrified of toxic foam

One of the main reasons my husband forced the Orbit issue was because of the materials. I barely passed high school chemistry, and I don't totally understand the mechanics of "off-gassing," but I do know that a lot of cheaper baby gear is basically just a cocktail of chemical flame retardants and toxic plastics.

When you take a cheap stroller out of the box and it smells like a tire fire? Yeah, that's the chemicals.

Orbit uses fabrics that are Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certified, which basically means they test the crap out of it to make sure there are no pesticides, harmful dyes, or weird heavy metals touching your baby's skin. It’s Prop 65 compliant in California. It gave me a lot of peace of mind when Leo was doing the aforementioned feral chewing on the straps before I found the teether.

If you're currently having a 3 AM existential crisis about what's seriously safe to put near your kid, you can browse some honestly safe baby essentials here and save yourself the Google panic.

Napping on the go and staying cool

Because the suspension is so smooth, Leo honestly takes decent naps in this thing, which is rare for him. The sunshade is massive and blocks out almost everything.

When we're out on really bright days, or when there's a weird breeze, I always drape our Bamboo Baby Blanket | Sustainable Organic | Colorful Leaves Design over his legs. I'm so paranoid about him overheating—because of course I'm—but this blanket is 70% organic bamboo and 30% organic cotton, so it breathes incredibly well. It’s crazy soft, like buttery velvet, and the watercolor leaf pattern is just gorgeous. It doesn't trap the heat in like those cheap polyester blankets do. It just keeps him cozy without turning the stroller into a sauna.

So should you really buy this massive thing

Look, parenting is basically just a series of highly expensive compromises.

If you want a stroller that weighs three pounds and folds up into the size of a burrito, this is not for you. But if you walk your neighborhood every day, if you've a history of back pain, and if you care deeply about non-toxic materials touching your newborn's skin, the Orbit baby stroller is honestly incredible.

The 360-degree spin isn't just a party trick to show off to other moms at the playground. It fundamentally changes how you interact with your kid on a walk. You don't have to twist your spine, you can easily shield them from the sun by just rotating the seat a few inches, and you can spin them to face you when the world gets to be too much.

You just have to figure out if your back can handle lifting a small, beautifully engineered tank into your trunk, while also making sure you don't drop your coffee in a puddle ever again.

Before you fall down another Reddit rabbit hole about luxury baby gear and stress yourself out, check out Kianao's sustainable essentials to round out your nursery with things that are seriously safe and won't make you crazy.

Messy questions I get asked all the time

Does the spinning mechanism get stuck?

Honestly, I thought it would get jammed with crumbs because my four-year-old eats crackers near it constantly, but the SmartHub is completely sealed. We've been dragging it through mud and sand for months and it still spins totally perfectly. It’s basically the only thing in my house that works the way it’s supposed to.

Do I've to buy their specific car seat?

No! This was a huge dealbreaker for me at first. Orbit used to lock you into their own car seats, but now you can just buy an adapter for like sixty bucks. We used our Nuna car seat with the Orbit frame and it clicked in just fine. You just have to make sure you check their compatibility list before you buy anything.

Is the fabric really machine washable?

Yeah, thank god. You can strip the seat fabric off and throw it in the wash. I suggest washing it on cold and letting it air dry so it doesn't shrink, because trying to stretch tight fabric back over a stroller frame while sleep-deprived is my personal definition of hell.

Is it worth the money compared to an UPPAbaby?

They're totally different beasts. The UPPAbaby has that massive storage basket underneath that holds like eighty pounds of groceries, which the Orbit definitely doesn't have. The Orbit's basket is much smaller. But the UPPAbaby doesn't spin. If you want cargo space, get the Uppa. If you want the spin and the eco-friendly materials to save your back, get the Orbit.

Can the stroller grow with my kid?

Yeah, the seat goes up to 50 pounds, which is pretty standard. By the time Leo hits 50 pounds he better be walking himself, honestly. They also have this skateboard attachment called the Sidekick that you can stick on the wheel for older kids to ride on, which Maya is currently begging us for.