Baby Scoggins

We finally decided on which 'travel system' to buy a few weeks ago. After what seemed like endless trips to look at many different types, and talking to many people we decided to go for this one from John Lewis. It fulfils our main criteria:

• It's light enough for Anne to carry up and down stairs
• The infant carrier fits into our car properly and safely, and clips into the pushchair without requring a degree in physics.
• It folds down quite small without requiring a second degree in origami, and so it will fit into boot of our car and still leave room for other stuff!
• It includes a warm foot muff/sleeping bag arrangement, as our little one will be born in the depths of winter.
• It doesn't cost around £700 (with accessories extra) like some of those you see in the shops (what a rip-off they are).
• It's sturdy enough to last for the nine months or so that we will use it. Although many travel systems claim they're OK for up to five-year olds, we're assured by everyone we've spoken to that within a year we'll have swapped it for the lightest compact folding buggy we can find.

So now we've decided on and purchased the travel system, we've been able to focus on other things. We decided that a 'nursing chair' will be useful as a comfortable place to sit and feed the baby. Rather than fork out many hundreds of pounds for the special chairs with sliding mechanisms that are sold in John Lewis etc, we have bought a basic armchair from Ikea. We haven't gone for the horrible patterned print, but a light brown suede-effect cover. It's nice and bouncy, so will be great for rocking the little one to sleep, or for rocking ourselves in when it all gets too much.

We've also ordered the cot, again from John Lewis. That should be arriving in a week or so. So I think that's all the big items of furniture etc that we need. Sometime soon we'll probably have to take a trip to the shops armed with a big list of other essential items we will need. Including some more gadgets. What fun.