Baby Trend Sit N' Stand Double 2.0 review

Most families who need a double did not plan to buy one. A second child arrives, or a toddler stops walking the distance they used to, and suddenly a purchase that was never in the budget is urgent. The Sit N' Stand Double 2.0 exists for exactly that moment: it is the cheapest double we rank, and unlike most things sold at the bottom of a category, it is genuinely workable rather than merely cheap.

It works because of the layout rather than the materials. It is a tandem — one child in front of the other, rather than side by side — with four places a child can ride: the front seat, the rear bench, a stand-on platform behind that bench, and a jump seat. The standing platform is the part that earns the money. A two-and-a-half-year-old who will not be strapped into anything will frequently step onto a platform and hold the bar, and that single behavioral fact is why this stroller keeps working on days a conventional double does not.

The thing to read carefully before you buy is the weight limits, because they run the opposite way to everyone's intuition. The front seat takes 40 lb. The rear seat, the platform and the jump seat each take 50 lb. So your bigger child goes in the back, and the rear positions are off-limits to a child under two and a half.

We have not crash-tested this product and we do not own one. What we did is read the manufacturer's own specification page and manual, record every figure against the page it came from, check the model against NHTSA's recall database, and confirm it is currently sold — all on the date shown in the table below. Then we assessed it against the five criteria we apply to every product on this site.

For a budget double the criteria weight value and daily use heavily, because the reason to buy one is that the alternative is no double at all. We read the per-position weight limits and the age and height minimums particularly carefully, since this stroller publishes four different riding positions with different rules for each, and that is where buyers go wrong. We also looked at the published stroller weight and folded dimensions, which are the two numbers that decide whether a cheap double ends up in daily use or in a garage.

We do not print a NHTSA star rating or an IIHS category for this model. NHTSA publishes an Ease-of-Use rating and IIHS publishes booster belt-fit ratings, but both block automated access to their databases, so we could not read a figure from the primary source. Reprinting an unverified safety number on a page a parent may rely on is not a risk worth taking, so we link the official lookup tool instead. The full method is on the methodology page.

This is the section to read twice. Baby Trend publishes four riding positions with three different sets of rules, and the pattern is not the one you would guess.

Two consequences follow, and both are the sort of thing a listing will not spell out for you.

• Your heavier child rides in the back. The front seat is the lower-capacity position at 40 lb. Most people load a double the other way round out of habit, putting the older child in front because the view is better, and on this stroller that is the position that runs out first.
• It is not a newborn-plus-eighteen-month-old stroller. Every rear position requires a child of at least 2.5 years. If your second child is a baby and your first is one and a half, only the front seat is available to the toddler and the baby has nowhere to go but an infant car seat in that same front position. Check your actual ages against this table before you order.
• The front position is the car seat position. Baby Trend lists the Secure-Lift, EZ-Lift PRO, EZ-Lift PLUS and EZ-Lift infant seats as compatible, and tells you to verify the fit before use. A car seat from another brand will not click on.

The layout decision matters more than the brand decision, and it comes down to where you walk. A tandem is long and narrow; a side-by-side is short and wide. Neither is better in the abstract and each is clearly better in specific places.

If your life is supermarket aisles, apartment doorways and public transport, the tandem shape is the one that works, and that is the strongest argument for this stroller beyond the price. If your life is sidewalks and parks and you have two children of similar age who both want to ride properly, a side-by-side is the better machine and the Baby Jogger City Mini GT2 Double is the one we rate. The full argument is on side-by-side vs tandem double strollers.

The honest version of the trade-off, because this is where a budget double either works out or does not.

At 29 lb this is a heavy stroller before any child is in it, and the weight is the first thing you notice lifting it into a trunk. Baby Trend publishes a folded size of 22.63 by 34.00 by 16.00 in, which is compact for a double but still a substantial object — measure your trunk floor against the 34 in dimension specifically, because that is the one that catches people with a small hatchback.

The wheels are hard plastic and the suspension is minimal, which is where almost all of the saving comes from. On smooth pavement this is invisible. On broken sidewalks, gravel or grass it is unpleasant for you pushing and genuinely jarring for the child riding, and a loaded tandem on a rough surface is heavy work. If most of your walking is rough, this is the wrong stroller at any price and a jogging-style frame is the right answer — best jogging strollers covers those.

The fold needs two hands and some patience, which is the compromise you will resent most often. Every double is awkward to fold; this one is more awkward than most, and you will be doing it in a parking space with two children already extracted from it.

And a brand note we would rather state than skip: Baby Trend recalled its Cityscape Travel Jogger strollers in 2022 over a parking brake that could fail. That is a different product from this one, and we found no recall covering the Sit N' Stand Double 2.0 or the EZ-Lift car seats listed as compatible with it. Check any stroller's exact model number against CPSC's recall database before you buy, used or new — the method is on how to check a car seat recall.

• Buy it if the alternative is no double at all. That is the real comparison for most people reading this, and against that comparison it wins easily.
• Buy it if you have a toddler who refuses to be strapped in. The stand-on platform is worth more than any specification on the sheet.
• Buy it if your routes are narrow — aisles, apartment hallways, buses. A tandem goes where a side-by-side cannot.
• Buy it as a second stroller for a grandparent's car or occasional use, where the push quality matters less and the price matters more.
• Do not buy it if both children are under 2.5 years. The rear positions are closed to them and you will have bought a single stroller with extra weight.
• Do not buy it if you walk several miles a day, or if your pavement is rough. The wheels and the weight will defeat you by month three.
• Do not buy it for twins from birth. It takes one infant car seat, in the front position. Best travel systems for twins covers the frames that take two.

The whole category, ranked, is on best double strollers, and the pairing this stroller is really built for is covered on best strollers for an infant and a toddler. If budget is the constraint across your whole setup rather than just the stroller, best budget travel systems applies the same approach to the car seat and stroller together.