Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

Soft Play Etiquette

69 replies

Waltermittythesequel · 21/03/2016 12:49

Just pondering.

Woman with baby who looks around 1 - 1.5 years allowing baby into over 5s area where older children are playing.

Is she being U? And if baby gets hurt, accidentally of course, WSBU to be annoyed.

Second question!

Adult man, walking two toddlers up the giant slide in over 5s area, with his shoes on.

IHBU?

OP posts:

YoJesse · 22/03/2016 06:48

Am I the only parent who actually enjoys soft play!

It's fun to run around with ds and I love a ball pit. Other parents can wind me up though.

paxillin · 22/03/2016 08:45

You are the only one over 8 who loves them, YoJesse. You should run one, you'd also be the only owner or staff member of soft play who looks like they want to be there !

TheWitTank · 22/03/2016 09:29

I think you are on your own there YoJesse! Ball pits are germ infested, spit and snot ridden (and other bodily fluids), smooshed cafe food and fruit shoot drizzled hell holes heaves

Original poster

Waltermittythesequel · 22/03/2016 09:34

I always think the parents who follow their kids around are being a bit precious but you've proved their just big kids, Jessie

OP posts:

Lamu · 22/03/2016 09:36

I don't mind them per say, it's the lack of natural light, awful food, sticky dirty floors/ equipment and naughty children that I despise.

There's a lovely indoor soft play centre attached to a nature reserve in Norfolk that is just amazing. It's in a purpose built building with all sorts for the kids to do, immaculately clean and lovely food too. if only all play centres could be like Pensthorpe

YoJesse · 22/03/2016 09:39

What I really want to do is go to those soft play for adults places with giant ball pits. I'd want my birthday party there

FeckOfffCup · 22/03/2016 09:44

I begrudgingly take DS every week because he loves it and it burns off a lot of energy. Ours is for 18mo to 5yo, but no way would I let him go on an over 5s area! So yes the mum was BU. Shoe man was also BU imo.

When you go in at our place they say 'no shoes or food on the play area' yet every fucking week it's like the aftermath of a food fight, especially in the bouncy castle and I'm constantly having to confiscate quavers and biscuits that DS has found on the floor in the play area and decided to scoff. It drives me nuts, how hard are two simple rules?

dreamingofholidays · 22/03/2016 09:47

I hate these places. Only been a handful of times and always promise myself I won't go back. Some parents just don't seem to care what their kids get up to so I have to stop them kicking and smacking my 20mo DD. She's quite robust but I do object to a 4yo rugby tackling her to the ground and then sitting on her! Childminders seem to be the worst. Seen them just sit and natter while the kids they're being paid to look after just run riot.

Bambamboomboom · 22/03/2016 09:52

YoJesse There are play gyms for adults! I went to one in Swansea once for a bday party. We were all in our 20s not a kid in sight and there was a giant and really scary slide (pretty much vertical!). It was great!

MiaowTheCat · 22/03/2016 09:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Bambamboomboom · 22/03/2016 10:01

Anyway in terms of play gyms for kids, theres no etiquette at all in these places you just have to accept it or don't go.

MangoBiscuit · 22/03/2016 10:28

I love taking them to soft play. They burn off a ton of energy, I don't have to cook. We either go with friends, and have a catch up while the kids play together, or I go alone, and get to read or get some work done in relative peace.

Mine are 6 and 2. DD2 would NOT be happy if I told her to stick to the baby area of ours. That said, the main area doesn't have a minimum age, just a max. She's also big for her age, doesn't cry if she's bumped, or pushed past, and is pretty damn quick scurrying about the play frame. I would only be annoyed if another child hurt her on purpose.

MintSource · 22/03/2016 10:52

I use these threads to stop me taking DS to soft play, in the same way as I used to occasionally walk through the children's shoe department of John Lewis on a Saturday afternoon as a form of contraceptive before I had children.....

paxillin · 22/03/2016 12:45

The turd in the ball pit did it for me. I bet there is one in every ball pit, usually spread as a thin film over all the balls.

Original poster

Waltermittythesequel · 22/03/2016 16:04

The turd film is making me queasy.

OP posts:

Hygge · 22/03/2016 16:24

The worst one we went to had an open area with soft things in it, not a baby area but giant shapes for slightly older children to build a kind of maze or house with.

DS was probably about four at the time, and was playing quite happily when two grown men decided it would a great idea to see which one could get the other in the best wrestling hold and throw them over the side into the padded mats.

They almost flattened DS, and I thought DH was going to punch the pair of them, actually I think I might have gladly punched them as well, but this tiny woman working for the soft play place reached them first and laid into them like you wouldn't believe before throwing the entire family out.

God knows what they were thinking or how they missed DS. It was like in a film where someone leans back just as something heavy lands in the spot they were in the moment before and misses them by a millimetre.

FinallyFreeFromItAll · 22/03/2016 18:19

Am I the only parent who actually enjoys soft play!

I used to love it too. Can't physically manage anymore (injuries and auto immune conditions).

I have a childless friend who loves the chance to go with my DC. The first time she stuck in the baby bit with my youngest, until I told her if she stayed near DS to "help him" (not that he needed help) that no one would bat an eyelid. She disappeared in there for an hour!! Shes always so egar to come with us.

Also I think I must have been lucky in the two different areas I've lived that the closest soft play had good cafe standard food and were not badly priced either.

Maisy313 · 22/03/2016 18:58

Someone once asked me to keep my 3 year old quiet in the park (running around, calling to me, laughing) not screaming because she was trying to get her baby to sleep! I pointed out it was a play park and she swept off in a huff!

Natsku · 22/03/2016 19:44

I quite enjoy soft play too FinallyFree I always let DD in the bigger bit from one year old so that I could "help" her and get to play. I would never get upset if she got knocked into by an older kid, that's the risk I had to accept by taking her in that bit (the sign always said younger ones allowed in with an adult)

Shoe man was definitely being unreasonable!

Flip

1 2 3