Parents Report Their Mockingbird Single-to-Double Baby Strollers Are Breaking in Half With Their Kids On Board

Consumer Reports calls for a recall after many reports of the company's double strollers collapsing

Consumer Reports Investigative Reporter, Lauren Kirchner.

By Lauren Kirchner
Investigative Reporter

Published October 28, 2022·Updated November 10, 2022

From left to right: Consumer Reports tested Mockingbird Single to Double Stroller, Broken Mockingbird Single to Double Stroller Photo Courtesy of CJ Chellin — A new Mockingbird Single-to-Double stroller, shown at left, and a broken one, photographed by a mother after it collapsed while she was crossing a street in New York City.

Update: Mockingbird recalled its single-to-double baby stroller on Nov. 10, saying it will send owners repair kits.

Original: CJ Chellin, a mom of two in Brooklyn, N.Y., had the scare of her life Monday while pushing her kids, ages 4 and 2, in a double stroller across a busy intersection near home on the way to school.

The stroller, a Mockingbird, suddenly cracked in half, causing the 4-year-old in the front to fall face down on the road, still buckled in, and the seat her 2-year-old was in to fall backward into the basket below. A man walking nearby helped pick up her kids and carry them to the sidewalk. Both children, though shaken up, were unhurt.

Chellin says she keeps replaying the vision of her son lying on the road, the way moms do, thinking about what could have happened if it had gone differently.

“It just collapsed, and he was face down on the street,” Chellin says. “It was terrifying. The light was changing, and it was very busy, with a ton of cars. But thank God, my kids were fine.”

Chellin is one of dozens of parents who have recently shared their stories on social media, in private messages, and with regulators at the Consumer Product Safety Commission about the same Mockingbird Single-to-Double stroller suddenly breaking during normal use.

“The frame of our double stroller also recently broke, but in a different spot,” wrote another parent in the same neighborhood Facebook group as Chellin. “Mine broke TODAY,” wrote yet another, posting pictures. “Lots of others reached out that their mockingbird broke in the same spot as well.” A comment below that post says, “that is exactly where mine broke!! Omg.”

Consumer Reports had previously included the Mockingbird stroller in our stroller tests, but only as a single stroller, not with the optional second seat. The stroller is not one of our top-rated products, though we didn’t observe any breakages in our tests.

After CR asked Mockingbird about the incidents, the company emailed its customers and issued a statement on social media, saying that it was aware of some “isolated incidents” involving broken stroller frames and that customers should inspect their frames for cracks while it investigates the reports.

The company did not answer CR’s question about how many incidents the company was aware of.

But based on the number of reported problems, CR’s product safety experts say Mockingbird should issue an immediate recall.

“Children could be at risk of serious injury or worse, months after the company first learned about the potential issue with this stroller,” says Oriene Shin, policy counsel for CR. “While one report about a broken stroller is unsettling, the number of reports about this stroller suddenly breaking during normal use is alarming and must be addressed immediately. Based on the number of incidents with this stroller and the risk to children of significant injury, Mockingbird should immediately work with the CPSC on a recall to remove the product from the marketplace.”

Several days after CR called on Mockingbird to recall the stroller, the company told CR that it "concluded that the the strollers currently for sale are not at risk" and that it would continue to sell the product.

Another parent, Ealeal Ginott of Queens, N.Y., posted a story on Reddit that reads like Chellin’s. Her stroller snapped in half as she was crossing a busy city street with both her kids, collapsing the frame and also sending her 3-year-old to the ground face-first on the pavement. Like Chellin, she says that she was using the stroller normally and that her toddler and infant were both well below the company’s stated limit of 45 pounds of weight for each seat. The toddler put his hands up as he fell, scraping his hands and elbows, and the baby seat fell into the basket below.

“Obviously, it could’ve ended much worse,” Ginott wrote. “Like, I-have-no-words-in-my-internal-mom-dictionary worse, because my children could’ve ended up seriously injured or even dead.”

Half a dozen commenters chimed in, saying that the same thing had happened to their Mockingbird strollers or that they had heard a similar story from a friend. And Ginott says she has exchanged messages with over a dozen families who saw her post online and sent her their pictures of their own similarly broken strollers.

This stroller clearly needs to be taken off the market. Three times isn’t me having bad luck. There’s a flaw.

CJ Chellin

Brooklyn, N.Y., mother

A stroller can be one of the biggest-ticket items a new parent buys, and the authors of the posts describe how shocked they were to have this happen, especially after all the research they did beforehand.

“Premium strollers,” the Mockingbird website says. “All the safety, style, and street smarts you need. None of the headaches or hassles.” The Mockingbird Single-to-Double stroller, which has been on the market since March 2020, is widely considered to be a slightly more affordable copycat of the pricier Uppababy Vista single-to-double stroller, which costs over $1,000. But the double Mockingbird setup still costs $595, which certainly isn’t cheap.

“Here I thought I was investing in something, and it was promising quality,” Chellin says. “It’s very disappointing, and scary. A stroller has to be able to handle streets. We’re not hiking, it’s not going on the Appalachian Trail, it’s going on Brooklyn streets."

The craziest part? This was Chellin’s third Mockingbird stroller that broke with her kids in it. In December 2021, a crossbar connecting the two sides of the frame snapped, but it happened before they left the house. She thought it was a fluke, just bad luck, and was happy with Mockingbird’s prompt and responsive customer service department, which sent her a brand new one.

Then, this past March, after having the second stroller for only three months, its front wheel buckled under the frame and her 4-year-old fell—but relatively safely, onto his back. When she called the company again, Mockingbird representatives asked detailed questions that made her feel that they were taking it seriously. They had her send in the broken pieces so the company’s testers could examine them. The company sent her yet another new stroller as well as a full refund. In hindsight, she regrets not just buying a new, different stroller at that point. But surely the third one won’t break, she thought at the time; that would be nuts.

Chellin doesn’t want a fourth one. And she wants to warn other parents she now sees pushing the same stroller around. She posted her story in several Facebook groups for Brooklyn moms that she’s a part of, and put pictures of her broken stroller on Instagram. She also reported it to the CPSC.

The agency declined to answer CR’s questions about any ongoing investigations into the stroller’s safety, citing a controversial, decades-old law that limits the CPSC’s ability to comment without permission from the product manufacturers.

“This stroller clearly needs to be taken off the market,” Chellin says. “Three times isn’t me having bad luck. Two times wasn’t me having bad luck. There’s a flaw. I want them to do the right thing and recall this.”

@consumerreports
Based on the number of reported problems, CR’s product safety experts say Mockingbird should issue an immediate recall. Learn more at cr.org. #babytok #stroller #parentsoftiktok
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Lauren Kirchner

Lauren Kirchner is an investigative reporter on the special projects team at Consumer Reports. She has been with CR since 2022, covering product safety. She has previously reported on algorithmic bias, criminal justice, and housing for the Markup and ProPublica, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2017. Send her tips at lauren.kirchner@consumer.org and follow her on X: @lkirchner.