The adventures of shopping with a baby!

Shopping with a baby is not as easy as it used to be before your little one arrived. In fact it can be an expedition!

As a new mum I found that some shops are just not that pram friendly!  You will probably only find this out as you catch your wheels on a rack or shelving display as your sleek new pram starts to feel like a hummer trying to drive down the backstreet alleys!  A similar fate may also await you if you fail to choose a pram friendly cafe.  Numerous times I have found a quiet discreet table in a cafe where I can have a relaxed feed for Charlie while I sip a coffee; only to have failed to consider whether I could get out again if more customers arrived.  So the relaxed half hour is instantly cancelled out as I have to start shuffling chairs, tables and fellow customers to get me, baby and pram out.

I also have found in some department stores finding the lift is not always easy. Me and Charlie have walked around and around following signs that seem to point in a general direction only to lead me to nowhere! And then when you find the lift and push the pram containing your sleeping baby in, press the button and suddenly the voice bellows 'DOORS CLOSING'. Charlie's reaction to this is always the same his eyes shoot open as wide as possible, his lip quivers and then he lets out a wail! Great he is awake and not happy! Que the disapproving glares as I desperately try to calm and soothe him back to sleep! 

So you jave navigated the narrow aisles and, got to the lift, and now you decide to get a new outfit for that social thing you have been debating about going to! I mean socialising as a new mum is a real treat! You finally find one you want to try on! It's the only thing you have found that is suitable for breastfeeding with it's crossover front or buttons but you don't know if its going to fit.  Your body is back to a 12 but your boobs are so huge!  Frankly they are likely to free themselves from most garments - so you need to try it on! But the baby! So you go off to find the disabled changing room which frankly there are not enough of! If the baby has gone back to sleep you can almost guarantee that as you realise you are stuck with your arms above your head because the material has not got the stretch to go over the bust then baby is going to wake.  So by the time you have finished; you are hot, bothered and ready to give up clothes shopping altogether. In fact you may give it up until baby starts school and maybe by then you will have your pre-pregnancy body back! But thankfully your retail therapy can be fulfilled so instead of shopping for yourself your little one is treated to yet more clothes! How can you resist? They are just so cute! 

So you are going to head home but before you do it is time to change baby! So you set off for the changing facilities and realise your bladder is also starting to feel full! But you arrive and the lovely mall have put a dedicated changing room in.  Perfect! So thoughtful and also daddy friendly but how do you now pee?!   So instead you either take baby in to a toilet cubicle with you and sit him on your knee while you abandon the pram outside or your just going to have to hold it! Why is it that when you need a wee there is no disabled toilet/changing combo! 

So you get to your car and you smile to yourself because the reason you love shopping with baby becomes apparent.  Parent and Child parking! Genius! So you open the door as wide as it goes, load in baby! Dissemble the pram, which is now so well practiced it makes you feel like a pro and you head home!

Thank goodness for ASOS hey!