Renting is the New Black!

Renting is the New Black!

Renting is the new black, baby! The growth of the rental industry means consumers can hire not just cars or rent rooms, but you can rent almost anything from Christmas Tree, to clothes, to Fernish, and you can even hire baby equipment too! It is the ultimate green choice, a circular economy with mega environmental credentials. Swapping equipment as your child grows means you'll save space, money and it's eco-friendly! When we first started Stork, the idea of renting baby equipment for more than just a holiday instead of buying it hadn't taken on. But that's changed. Of course, there are some pieces of equipment that are not suitable to rental, but many things that are. When you look at the average family, living in an average sized house and consider the amount of space baby gear takes up, how nice would it be to just hand everything back as soon as you're done with it? That's one of the benefits of baby equipment hire, but there's more... It's environmentally friendly, a huge plus. So much baby gear ends up in landfill as it is notoriously difficult to recycle the parts. You don't have the same big outlay as you do when you buy everything in one go, you can spread the payments over several months. If something breaks, you just get it replaced. If you don't like it, you swap it for another option.
So what baby equipment is suitable for hire?
Anything that is used for a year or less is how I would answer that, which means almost all things baby!
  • Co-sleepers
  • Highchairs
  • Changing tables
  • Infant prams / carrycot attachments
  • Infant baby seats
  • Isofix bases for baby seats
  • Trikes and Walkers / Bouncers
Also items that are only used sporadically, such as I'd include double buggies here too, if you have children of different sizes, because the older child will grow out of the buggy and want to walk, before the little one, leaving you with one child sitting in a double buggy! The typical umbrella style stroller has become an eco culprit in recent years. They are cheap to buy, not very well made and very irritating to use. We see tonnes of them abandoned at the airport at the end of a holiday, and airlines and airport managers are left to try and dispose of them. Unfortunately many of the end up in skips. So before you buy, consider if it's something that is suitable for rental, and if you're not sure, just ask us!