Travel systems

[socktastic]

Going demented now! Honestly no idea what's good, what's reasonable and what's just out to steal my money!!

On a budget of no more than £500-£550 and we want a 3 way system, carry cot, car seat and pushchair. So far looking at the Jane Matrix, Graco (can't remember the model) or a Hauck (which I've never heard of in my puff)

Can someone please please give me some advice? Or just tell me what to do?

Then we'll repeat the process with nursery furniture!!

Not sure about pram as we went with new and shiney.

Check out nursery savings on EBay they have Mothercare and John Lewis furniture. We got our whole set for £300 instead of over £1000. Took the risk of waiting till each one came up but it worked and was well worth it!

They also have buggies and lots of other bits.

I also wouldn't bother with the baby event. I booked the personal shopper instead.

I second try icandy peach. You would need second hand for your price range, but it has an extendable handle. My friends DH is 6ft6 and pushed it happily. My Dad is 5ft 2 also pushes with ease!

I love love it, used it pretty much solidly for 4 years now and it is great!

We have the silvercross wayfarer and I love it. It's really well built and DS finds it so comfy. The carrycot was great when he was newborn and the buggy seat is so comfortable he naps in it every day at nursery for up to 2 hours. You can get it with a free car seat at the moment I think, and is around your budget. It folds up well and fits very comfortably in our megane boot. I find it pretty light, but not too lightweight or flimsy (quite the opposite!)

In terms of car seats usually maxi cosi are considered to be amongst the safest. They also fit the largest number of pram. Bizarrely the graco and Hauck infant car seats get fairly good safety ratings. At least in the past the jane lie flat car seat has done extremely poorly in crash tests. Same used to be true for some mamas and papas infant seats.
The graco and Hauck buggies tend to be not great. Quite plasticky, poor suspension, go rickety after a while. One of the best prams I have used was the bugaboo chameleon. Got it second hand, bought new hood/liner and sold it for slightly more when I was finished with it. I am quite tall but ar the time I had dd1 aged 10 and ds2 aged 11 who loved pushing DD3 in her pram and both found it equally easy to handle. It's nice and light. Only problem is the eat unit is small so after 2 you need to look at something like a lightweight buggy.
Ikea cots and mattresses are perfectly fine.
Don't like mamas &papas prams, they are very plasticky and not overly sturdy in my opinion.

Uppababy vista was fantastic for us - DD slept in carrycot for naps so didn't need a Moses basket, fantastic on all terrain, large shopping basket. Absolutely fantastic travel system - several other people have had it on my recommendation and have all loved it too.