Baby sun shades iCandy Palm

Joining an increasing number of pushchair sun shades, the iCandy Palm promises to fit easily over the top of your iCandy pushchair and is claimed to offer UPF50+ protection to block up to 99% of harmful UV rays.

We asked a parent with a 17-week-old son to take it out and about with her for a couple of weeks to see whether she thought it was a worthwhile purchase.

Easy to use?

The iCandy Palm is very simple to fit. The fabric stretches over the hood of your pushchair, the bottom section is attached to the leg rest and a security strap goes around the back of the seat.

We tried it out on an iCandy Cherry and it fitted very well, but our volunteer tester found it fitted just as easily on her Quinny Buzz. iCandy markets the product as fitting the ‘iCandy strollers and more’ but there’s no guarantee it will fit every pushchair. You can't buy the Palm online so it's worthwhile taking your pushchair into the iCandy stockist nearest to you and checking it will fit your pushchair.

The Palm fits around the seat, not the pushchair's frame, so it can be used with the seat both rear and front-facing.

Our mum thought that the fitting also felt secure and she didn’t need to use the strap to make it stay in place.

Snoozing under the Palm shade

The darker environment inside the Palm sun shade sent our little tester straight to sleep, and his mother was very impressed as it was the first time he'd slept in his buggy for weeks. She would highly recommend it for ‘anyone who struggles to get their baby to sleep in their buggy’.

She thought the calming effect was probably caused by the fact that although the baby can still see out, everything is darker and less well-defined, so outside distractions become less interesting.

Sun protection

iCandy claims that the top fabric part of the Palm has UPF50+ protection, and acts as a canopy extender or sun visor. There is also a black mesh section that covers the central part of the pushchair’s seat. iCandy claims that this offers UPF3 which, according to iCandy, will block out 67% of UV rays. The mesh section allows air to circulate. You can completely remove this section so that the large canopy section can be used independently – useful if your pushchair’s hood has inadequate coverage.

iCandy makes it clear that the Palm should always be used in conjunction with sun creams, hats and protective clothing. Our tester said that the sun did light up her baby’s face on points along their journeys and when he was awake, he was trying to move his face out of the sun. She would have liked a bit more information on the packaging on how much protection the UPF3 mesh provides.

She preferred using the Palm to a traditional buggy sun parasol which needs constant adjustment, but wasn’t completely sold on the Palm’s 'Darth Vader-like' appearance.

She was pleasantly surprised that the environment inside the pushchair stayed cool and felt that the mesh was successful in allowing air flow.

Worth the spend?

Our parent liked the Palm, but thought that the £35 price tag was a bit steep. She felt that she would find it hard to justify spending more than ‘£25, maximum £30’.

The iCandy Palm is available from iCandy stockists. Visit  iCandy's website to find one local to you.

Pros: Simple to fit, secure, can work as a calming environment for your baby to snooze in, comes in a compact carry case.

Cons: Quite expensive, can't buy online.