When I was looking for infant strollers/ car seats...I went with a girlfriend that already had two kids just so I could get help making some realistic choices. We spoke to a CS person at the store and he made a wonderful suggestion.
Travel systems tend to be bulky and cumbersome to use. Especially if you live in suburbia and have to do alot of moving things in and out of the car. You really want something that is as light as possible and easy to fold.
He suggested I get an infant car seat and a infant car seat carrier..
it serves the same purpose in the first 6 months as a travel system but is a LOT lighter and easier to manuever. You just snap your infant car seat into this thing and off you go.
While I was checking one out, a couple of mothers that were using the car seat carrier came up to me and raved about how wonderful it was. My girlfriend who went with me said if she knew about it when her kids were small she probably would have gotten one too.
It's pretty inexpensive too at only $50.
After 6 months you can graduate to a proper light weight stroller which in my opinion is also a lot easier to use than the stroller that comes with the travel system.
Whichever pattern you get I highly recommend getting the Graco Lite. I went to look at them in person at Babies'R'Us and the regular Gracos are kind of heavy and a little more difficult to use, but I think the Graco Lites are great and very easy to use. And as far as patterns go, I really like the counting sheep one for a gender neutral fabric. While I really like the blue/brown ones, I see blue and think boy.
I have this one and I have absolutely no complaints. I have found this one to be easier to fold than the stollers that friends and family have. On theirs, the tray scrapes against the ground and gets ruined. The stroller below kind of folds on top of itself so the tray never touches the ground. The picture doesn't do the colors of the stroller any justice. I get so many compliments on it when I'm out and about.
