Conveyance

You can spend an obscene amount of money on baby conveying accessories.  With a plethora of options how is a first time parent supposed to guess which items will actually be practical and what isn't  as convenient as advertised.

Lets start with car seats, as you will not be allowed to take your child home from the hospital without one properly installed in the car you intend to go home in.  You start with an infant carrier (which seems huge compared to an infant) you can even buy pads to fill the space some so your child's head doesn't flop about so much as your car takes the turns of the road.  Be sure to read what the upper weight limit is as this will vary with manufacturer.

Then you have the standard rear-facing car seat, there will be a pamphlet telling you when your child is ready for a forward facing car seat.  Though the general wisdom on the matter seems to be; keep your child rear-facing for as long as you can.  Switching to forward facing when your child no longer has space to sit comfortably.  We got a car seat that was usable both rear-facing and forward-facing.

After your child outgrows the car seat you then bump them up to booster seats.  And there they stay until they reach the magical height of 4'9" (in the USA).

Now when deciding which infant carrier / car seat to buy it is worth going with the same brand as the stroller you might want to hook the infant carrier into.  When brands match they fit together snugly and safely.  And while we are talking about strollers, you will find your options are quite vast.  There are strollers that only function as strollers when you latch your infant carrier to the top (like a basket on wheels).  There are strollers that work well by themselves but allow for an infant carrier to snap into place.  There are light weight umbrella strollers (a must have) that fold up small and don't cost much.  There are jogging strollers with gigantic wheels and large price tags.  And we haven't even touched on strollers for multiple children.  (I have a strong preference for the strollers that line kids up one behind the next as opposed to sitting next to each other. As the former is easier to steer than the latter by quite a bit.)

Moving the baby without wheels of any kind is possible too.  And again you will see many options.  Let me recommend against anything with a big heavy frame.  Your child weighs enough as it is, how much weight do you want your harness to add?

I enjoyed an admittedly cheap fabric harness that I wore as a front pack.  You have the option of letting your child face in or out.  Generally you start with them facing in and once they are better able to move their heads about you let them face forward.  How long is this practical?  I don't know, how strong is your back?  Infants weigh next to nothing and it's nice to have your hands free while "holding" the baby going from point A to point B.  Once the front pack is no longer manageable there are also a wide variety of baby backpacks that I didn't bother with but you might like.

As you can see there is a lot of stuff to get, which is part of why baby showers are a thing.  If you get any baby conveyance second hand be sure to do your home work and make sure that it is still up to safety standards and isn't damaged.