Bike seat combined with rear panniers?

[LetsEatCake]

Hi. I'm looking for a rear child seat that I can use at the same time as panniers. Is this possible? Plan is to cycle the first 5 mins with my one-year-old in the seat, drop her off at our nannyshare, then cycle on to work. Need to be able to carry a laptop and a few papers, keys and money etc, and also waterproofs just in case. Ideally I'd like to be able to use rear panniers, but my local bike shop said this wouldn't be possible with the seat in position, and that I should consider a backpack - possibly one that would convert to a pannier once the child seat was removed.

Does anyone have experience and/or suggestions? I'm really missing cycling, and public transport feels slow and unreliable by comparison, especially when I'm itching to get home to see my little girl!

I'm new to mumsnet. Please let me know if I haven't put this post in the best place.

Could you try a child trailer instead of a seat? You can get quick release ones that you can detatch and leave at the same place as child. That's what cycling parents do here.

I'm in the Netherlands, I'm sure they do have a rear seat with panniers option, will ask for you.

Alternatively my DH has panniers on the front wheels as well as the back he had them put on in edinburgh at www.macdonaldcycles.com/index is that an option?

Thanks for your messages. I've read great reviews of some trailers, but I think they wouldn't be ideal for congested London roads, sadly, and I'm short of storage space at home. I've posted about this on another forum too, and it seems as if my best options are either front panniers (which I've just looked at following your suggestion Graciescotland - much more capacious than I'd imagined) with baby at the rear, or baby at the front and panniers to the rear. Both possible by the sound of things.