As every parent knows, when you hang shopping bags off the handles of your pushchair, you'll be leaping to catch it as it falls backwards when the child gets out. The creator of Hamster buggy bags claims that, when clipped on to the sides of your pushchair, the bags ‘redistribute additional weight so that the buggy does not fall backwards when your child is not in it’.

And the dad who tried these out for us agreed, adding that the biggest advantage of using the bags was that his pushchair was still stable even with both bags full - with and without his child.

He said: ‘Before we starting using these, we could only carry a very small amount of shopping before the buggy would tip over and be potentially dangerous.’

Attaching the buggy bags

Our parent tester found these bags easy to fit (to his Maclaren Triumph pushchair), said they fold up very small when not in use and thought they seemed very durable and waterproof.

He added: ‘We use the bus quite a lot and it was easy to fold the pushchair even with shopping in the bags.’

However, he feared that if you tried to go down the aisle of a bus with the bags attached to a pushchair that wasn't folded, you might run into problems.

Using one Hamster buggy bag

Each bag holds nine litres, which is roughly the size of a full plastic shopping bag. The bags are currently sold as a pair, costing £29, but our parent tester thought it would be good if they were sold separately.

He said: ‘We generally kept one attached all the time and carried the other one around in case we needed it.’ He had no problems when just using one bag and thought that not everyone would need two.

You can buy Hamster bags from Amazon, Mothercare, Kiddicare or directly from the Hamster bags website (www.hamsterbags.co.uk).

Hamster buggy bags fit pushchairs with a front frame diameter of 2cm - which the company says will include most umbrella-folding buggies (those that shrink in width when you fold them, such as many Maclaren strollers). It offers a list of the pushchairs that have already been tried with Hamster bags, as well as a diagram showing which part of the buggy is the front frame.

Pros: They make your pushchair feel more stable, are easy to fit, fold up small and each hold nine litres

Cons: You can only buy them as a pair

Check out our pushchair first look video reviews to see our first impressions of new models on the market, or if you are a member log into our pushchair reviews to see which models we rate as Best Buys.