A day in London with a baby

[Acc0untant]

If you were spending the day in London with a baby/young child what would your itinerary be?

Baby is almost 1 so not in the "happy to snooze and be pushed round a lot" phase but also not really mobile enough for child focused places.

For an adults birthday/day out.

What time of year? Hyde Park and Regent’s Park are nice.

London Aquarium

Swimming at one of the lidos if warm enough.

One of the immersive art exhibitions.

If it is this time of year, you need to stay warm.

The Museum of Childhood V&A at Bethnal Green used to be very hands on. Not sure if it still is since they revamped it, but we lived near there when DC were that age and spent hours in there.

Check if the Science Museum still has their pre-schooler section in the basement. It closed at one point but may have reopened. Again, we spent hours in there just playing with the water and activating the little water mills and locks and toy boats.

Docklands Museum also used to have a great pre-schooler area with a mini soft play and easy things for very young children to do - lift flaps and listen and smell.

Dc also liked Borough Market. I remember carrying DS1 around it in a papoose and him snaffling free samples from the stalls. I kept finding him with bits of olive and feta in his hands and mouth! But the strings of lights, the bright colours and smells are all fascinating too and there's the Golden Hind ship nearby.

My info may be well out of date but these are all worth checking. Museums shouldn't have got less hands-on or child friendly in the last 20 years.

Thanks folks I'll have a read of your responses.

Would be going later this month.

What does the birthday person want to do? I took my youngest to Barcelona at that age and apart from playgrounds, we didn’t do anything ‘child friendly’. I went to museums to see exhibitions I wanted to see. I went out to lunch. Went to parks and shopping. I was also on my own so no one to help with anything. It was great, actually much easier than days out with them now.

Transport Museum at Covent Garden might be of interest but at that age mine just went along with what we wanted to do. What does the adult want to do?

The birthday person is me. The things I'd normally want to do (spa day, escape room, cinema, stage show etc) aren't really feasible with the baby in tow so it's tough to choose. I'm not local to London but wondered if maybe a day trip would be nice.