Dad using individual ladies loo to change baby – what’s the etiquette?

A) I posted before the OP said the men’s was very small.

B) I was asking what her DH would do going forward.

It sounds like they are completely enclosed toilets with sinks. The kind that usually don't have designations by sex.

No - I said that once the toilet is unisex, it is open to all men, not just those with babies. That would be direct sex discrimination - to keep out any man who didn’t have a baby. Apologies if that wasn’t clear.

For a single occupancy room? I have no issue, I don't really think it makes a lot of sense to have them differentiated by sex anyway. I was in a cafe and some poor bloke waited for over 20 minutes for a fellow in the men's, who seemed to be having some issues. All the time the one labeled "ladies" which was identical was open.

He is supposed to do what women did years ago: ask the café why they have the baby change in the ladies only.

TBH there is an easy solution here. 2 completely enclosed toilets with sink? then the café uses their little grey cells, labels them as unisex toilets, one of which has the baby changing facilities.

Years ago i was at the London Museum of Water and Steam (brilliant) and i noticed that the men's, as well as the ladies', toilets had a baby change sign. I took a photo. A woman working there saw me and said "i made sure there was one in the men's" and she was so happy that someone appreciated that.

OK, so every establishment, even tiny cafes should have....

A loo for the ladies with baby changing
A loo for men with baby changing
A disabled loo for women
A disabled loo for men
A disabled loo for women with baby changing
A disabled loo for men with baby changing
Maybe a loo with no baby changing at all for the fiercely childfree folks.
And lets not get into adults that need changing too.

So a small cafe will end up being a toilet facility with a tiny little counter to pick up a cup or tea from.

Honestly can't believe some of the replies on here. What's he supposed to do? Change a baby in the men's (in the urinal? On the pissy floor?), or maybe on the table in the middle of the cafe where people are eating? Or maybe he's supposed to trog the poor baby all across town until he finds a cafe with a changing table in the men's? Is that before or after he stands arguing with the cafe owner 'demanding' and threatening to sue? Clearly it's not going to be an issue he's changing his baby on the only baby changing table in the place. Seriously, people need to get a grip.

of course it's bizarre.

But unless men step up and do the work, how will cafés know they want the facilities? it is making a point.

No. It's ok for the adult with a baby to use the only available baby change facility. In the same way they do when the changing facility is put into the disabled toilet even though the parent is not disabled.

Oh fgs. Have you even read the thread? He needs to change the child. The changing table is in that cubicle. No women would have been harmed in the changing of that child. What a waste of energy to have a problem with that.

It isn’t the “women’s toilets “ it’s a single occupancy space if you read the ops post so can you specify what the issue is exactly with a man going in to change a baby ?

No. It’s ok for this man to go into the only available baby changing space because he’s a parent.

So hang on MN… it’s okay for this man to go in the women’s toilets because he’s a Dad….??

Peak MN!

DH has been asking for this to change since dss was born and he was a single dad. dss is now 28 so it's a slow message to get across!

Nobody is proposing that though. People are proposing they are both unisex, with one also labelled baby changing. Not discrimination at all.

I think you are really clutching at straws here

Making the female toilets Unisex, while maintaining that the Mens toilets are for men only is sex discrimination. Which is relevant to what was being discussed there, men taking children into the ladies, notvthe use of a single occupancy toilet.

There was no baby change in the men’s communal toilets in Portugal the other month, so my husband went in the women’s! I thought it was most strange given it was an airport but I totally agreed he’d done the right thing, nobody seemed to mind when he told me what had happened (I was looking after the other child at the time)! There also wasn’t even any priority seats for me to sit to breastfeed the baby either so the whole set up was most bizarre given how few seats there were to the number of people..

Anyway when a baby is dirty you are hardly going to vote with your feet, you need a solution then and there quite frankly!

Anyway our baby is a girl so I mean it was only her parts out as it wasn’t even a change station in a cubicle 😂.

Obviously too much bloody common sense for some on here

If they are single-occupancy self-contained rooms with locks, what exactly is the issue? There wouldn't be any women in there anyway. Thousands of cafes in the uk only have one toilet and both sexes use it with no problem.
If the rooms were both just labelled "Toilet" then men with babies could just crack on, but as they aren't, a bit of common sense says just let the man use the "ladies" toilet to change his kid. You're not going to catch a y-chromosome from a toilet seat and grow a beard.

Disabled women have to share the same loos with disabled men. Never heard anyone complain about that at all.

You are the one that said 'it is if it's labelled Ladies/women/female' in response to a PP saying it wasn't a single sex space to change only female babies.

You directly said that making toilets unisex is discrimination. I believe you're wrong. Your comment doesn't make sense to me in any other way, even in response to that poster.

A) the men were allocated a very small space according to OP. There was no room
B) none of your suggestions address the situation. The baby was there and the baby needed changing. The baby’s needs come first in this scenario.

But in this situation the baby needed changing regardless of who was changing it. It wouldn’t matter which parent did it - the female loo would still be occupied in the process!