to use a disabled toilet if I've got the buggy?

[MrsHelsBels74]

Pretty much as the thread title says, if you're out in public & need to loo but can't fit the buggy into a normal cubicle is it acceptable to take the buggy into the disabled toilet? I'd never use a disabled parking space but did this today in desperation. So, is it ok or still a no-no?

Hello. We just wanted to remind you that our Talk guidelines do specifically say we will delete disablist posts.

We can see that folks here are putting forward their genuinely held views and we've seen nothing worthy of deletion so far. But we wanted to make it clear that it could well be seen as disablist to insist that the needs of a disabled person for a designated disabled toilet should come second to the needs of an able-bodied person (however hampered by babies, buggies and bags).

No I meant IBS with my baby in pram in tow. If I was on my own I would use a normal loo, if I had aby with me and I was going to have an accident If I did not go straight away I would use the disabled loo

But the baby changing unit is usually in the disabled loo!

I think Helen has it spot on.

Baby changing in disabled toilets is bad planning on behalf of the place. It doesn't justify using disabled toilets simply because they are there or because you feel you "need" them because you have a baby.

The only circumstances under which I'd use one would be if it also contained the only baby changing station, in which case I'd assume it was intended to be a dual purpose 'more accessible' cubicle.

Otherwise, it's a toilet for disabled people & neither I nor my dc are disabled, so we don't use it.

Never seen what's so difficult about wedging the buggy in the door of the furthest cubicle...you're shielded from prying eyes, assuming there are any in a ladies' loo, & a partition that reaches neither floor nor ceiling doesn't do much to disguise sounds'n'smells...

Medical conditions that cause an inability to wait for the toilet, including advanced pregnancy, are reasonable justifications to use a disabled toilet IMO - having a buggy with you, no.

Well, just spoken to my mother (not just about the loos!) and she said that when she had my eldest sister in 1966 disabled loos just did not exist in this backwater, so she just left the pram (not buggy, big silver cross pram) outside the cubicle with my sister still in situ and went to the loo. A year later she had a toddler and a baby, so the baby stayed in the pram and the toddler went in with her. By 1980 when she had me she had 4 older DC to watch me, so just left me outside the loos completely.

Yes, I've parked a buggy outside a cubicle in order to wee. As people have been at pains to point out, it only takes thirty seconds to urinate. My toddler sings all the time anyway, so I know he's there. Sometimes he will actively sing 'mummy do a wee wee, doop de doop doop bee', in case anyone thought I was snorting coke in there.

Every Asda I have ever been to has a separate baby room with change facilities and a toilet.

I don't want equality. I want ability. Disabled people don't campaign to get stuff that raises them above anyone in importance, but to get the things that often get taken for granted as a given for others, like a toilet that is accessible to them. And I am trying to not get worked up by this thread, but making a comment about someone wetting themselves with regards to disability and equality has prickled my temper a little bit.

I haven't read the whole thread, there has been so many before!

Just want to say that at my local big tesco, there is a ladies with two tiny doors to get through, which would be impossible to get a buggy or a trolley through. The disabled loo doesn't have a changing table, and there is a changing room with no toilet.

So my only option if alone is to take him in the trolley into the disabled toilet. Obviously I'd rather not, but honestly there is no other option. I'm not going to take him into the loo and leave him on the floor am I?

I'm pretty disappointed that a big store like that has such limited facilities. I am always quick, I hate the thought of a disabled person waiting and would be a bit mortified if there was, although it hasn't happened yet.

OP yanbu.

EW! Why would you take a trolley in a toilet?

I have gone to the loo and left the buggy outside the cubicle many times, just wedge the wheel under the door so you can tell he's still there, but the trouble sometimes is that you can't really get into the loo at all, as in this tesco.

Erm the baby's in the trolley, welshmaenad. I'm not exactly pissing on it, don't fret.

I am totally on the side of disabled toilets being for disabled people BUT in an emergency situation, which going to the toilet CAN be (say if you have IBS, or something similar, or are very pregnant, or ill, and you're going to create an awful lot of mess, and no one is presently or about to use the disabled loo and there is no other loo around - I'd say it makes much more sense to use it than to make the mess.

Just like you might use other facilities inappropriately if the urgent need was there...you might steal a loaf of bread if you were somewhere hostile with no access to food for the foreseeable future and no money. That doesn't make stealing Ok, it just excuses it on the basis that the alternative is worse.

Ah well.
DS2 will just piss when he has to. If someone is in the loo he'll just do it outside the loo.

He did it at Trago Mills.

It is incredibly bad planning to use disabled loos as baby change areas.

i used the disabled toilets when i was so heavily pregnant i could not fit into the able bodied cubicles. I also use them now with my buggy, but mainly because due to a bad labour i am now double incontinent, and have wet myself twice.

In the 70's my mum and her friends used to leave babies outside shops because they didn't allow prams in. They never thought anything of it. Nothing ever happened to us. Doesn't mean i am prepared to do the same. Attitudes have changed regardless of whether the risks have.

Doesn't your tesco have a big sign in the door saying not to take a trolley into the toilet ? That skeeves me out.

Shame that attitudes towards people with disabilities don't seem to have changed that much.

Not that I've seen, I go before I start my shop as it's a long drive and I usually need to go when I get there, so no items in the trolley apart from my son. I don't get what you think I should do instead? I can't leave him outside can I, and I'm on my own. Genuinely, what should I do?

Oh FFS
Radar locked loos, or is it only public spaces (shopping centres, libraries etc)

couldnt agree more,usual MN total over reaction

im geting fed up of the same old disabled vs able bodied threads

catdonenow - it's cos they get summink for nuffink init those disabled bods...
they are rolling in cash from the govt and need to be hated on....

The one thing that strikes me on these sorts of threads is that some people seem to only think of themselves and their needs. I'm sure it's very tricky to manage a buggy in the toilet. It is not comparable to the systemic discrimination and oppression disabled people experience.

People in favour of using disabled toilets seem to ignore the question of "what would you do if disabled people hadn't campaigned for years to get accessible toilets?". I imagine you'd find other ways. Many disabled people don't have that choice. It's the disabled toilet or nothing. They can't sit on someone's lap or be in a sling or be held by their daddy/grandma/auntie.

Carry ds into the loo, use loo, then go & get a trolley?

Or the other sentiment - ooh having a baby is sooooo like being disabled.

(brick wall headbutt that one I can tell you)

Hold on a moment. No one is saying that a disabled person should not have priority.

It's just that say you have 200 shoppers in a big store, only a few of them are likely to be disabled, at any one time, and even they may not require the facilities while they are there.

I think there's a difference between using something when someone else wants it, and using it when no one does. (at least when you get there)

also a huge difference between people being entitled to use these special facilities, as and when they need to (bearing in mind they may be temporarily unavailable at very short notice, if someone's already in there) and people being entitled to always have use of them at a moment's notice thus leaving them unused and empty for large amounts of time.

I agree it's important that they should be available to a disabled person as quickly as possible and that others shouldnt use them unless it's necessary.

But I think if it's an urgent need then that's appropriate use of resources.

Exactly, crashdoll. These facilities were not available until fairly recently. I remember my dad having to pee into a plastic bottle in a corner when we went out.