BHS: Baby Change Facilities

Let’s face it, it can often be quite a challenge to find baby changing facilities that are little more than a board in a disabled toilet that is usually locked and requires a key – emergency poop situation does not allow you the time to find a blimmin key!!

Therefore, I was actually pleasantly surprised in BHS, Poole Dolphin Centre Dorset, to find that they have a baby changing room with the added bonus of there also being a toilet in there for mum. One of my pet hates is a baby changing room with no loo for mum, I mean where do we put the baby if we have to use the regular toilets and are on our own?? On the floor??!! Anyway, I digress but needless to say there was a toilet and plenty of space for me to wheel in the pram I had with me…

There was also a counter to put the baby bag on which I also like as again, I am hesitant to put it on the floor of a public toilet no matter how clean they are. Another plus for me was that the sink had both a hot and cold tap. Most in baby changing facilities only have a cold tap, hence the reason I always carry boiling water with me (see post What’s in your bag?) which means that no matter what I could use cotton wool to clean Alyssa rather than wipes. There were plenty of bins, that weren’t overflowing and the changing mat looked clean.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of downsides to this changing facility, though they are minor and mostly cosmetic. Whilst it was brilliant to have a hot water tap, the sink area itself was quite dirty…

The look of this made me use my own water. Now I understand that shops get busy, but this was 2.15pm on a Thursday afternoon, in term time and I used the shop as a whole, the baby changing area and the restaurant and it was not a very busy time, so I think bathroom checks possibly need to be made on a regular basis, for which there was no rota or sign sheet up for like you find in a lot of public restrooms.

The final point, is that due to lack of care taken when decorating, or repairing, the room just looked shabby and a bit dirty in places (other than the sink) .

As you can see it looks like there has been some sort of water damage at some point and it is a shame because it doesn’t give a good impression. This is also one of the few baby changing rooms in a smaller shop that provided a chair in the room so that mother’s can feed their babies in privacy which is a huge plus, however the above picture is the view you have from the chair, and it is not necessarily the cleanest view to have.

Overall, many more positives than negatives to this baby changing facility… the biggest one being that they actually have one. So BHS, Poole I give you…

*** A TuTu rating of 3 out of 5 ***