...to buy radar key online to use disabled loo?

[Marigo]

I’m not disabled and neither are any of my children, however I’m often out with my 3 under 2.5 and in our local shopping centre loos there’s no toilet in the baby change. The ladies is impossible with double buggy plus buddy board and the disabled requires a radar key. Same for the loos in the two big department stores so I just can’t go out into town unless it’s the weekend and my husband can come in case I need a wee! I’m struggling to leave the house for this stress but my mom is disabled and I know how shit it is when she can’t use the large cubicle she needs. I’m really conflicted about what to do.

They are intended to be accessible not necessarily for people who may suffer from urgency
No, they are accessible for those with disabilities, not all and sundry.

Disabled toilets are not the same as ‘accessible’ toilets. Only use disabled toilets if you are (even temporarily) disabled. Accessible toilets can be used by disabled people but are not reserved for them.

She needs an accessible toilet because she has three young kids who she can’t leave unattended. She has also just had twins and can’t necessarily wait. I don’t get all the hate against mums - this is supposed to be mumsnet.

It’s not hate against mums. It’s annoyance and frustration against people who blatantly abuse resources allocated for the most vulnerable in society simply because they can’t be arsed making a bit of effort.

It really shouldn’t be complicated. If you don’t have a disability that means you can’t access any other toilets don’t use the disabled toilets.

Having a baby, or three, is not a disability.

Disabled toilets and accessible toilets are the same. Just different names. Both designed to provide one facility that disabled people can actually use to allow them to go out.

I don’t get all the hate against mums - this is supposed to be mumsnet.

its a site for parents. a lot of parents have a disability or care for someone with a disability. no one hates mums (I am one) but may hate people who use the disabled facilities when not disabled.

"Disabled toilets are not the same as ‘accessible’ toilets."

They are the same thing. Accessible is the more accurate term since a toilet can't actually be disabled.

There isn't a hate against mums. There is frustration when people start claiming things like they have to use an accessible toilet because they can't manage the behaviour of one NT child in the standard toilets.

Underhisi how you know that child is NT?
How many parents battle on for years to find out later actually the child has ASD or ADHD?

I do get the frustrations of disabled people when people use the facilities because they are lazy and can't be bothered to wait in the que, or walk a bit further to standard loos.

But actually taking buggies and little people out is a mission in its own right. I think people forget what it's like to have babies and toddlers.

The days of happily parking up a pram and going out of sight of it, into shops or toilets are long gone.

so why don't parents campaign? I have been here 16 yrs. these threads come up often. yet no one has ever started a campaign.

maybe because the problem is for such a short time.....compared to a lifetime of disability.
I do remember when my nt child was little , it was a doddle compared to my severely disabled child.

Nope. Accessible means just that.

There is a requirement to provide facilities that disabled individuals can access but this does not mean they have sole right of access.
Pregnant women and people with pushchairs or luggage are included in that.
Obviously the moral code says don’t use the facilities unless you need to, but there is no law stating you cannot.

A few weeks ago I was at a museum/science centre near where I live. The disabled toilet is down a little corridor. So I was wheeling down it go for a pee and a woman rushed past me to go in it first. But she didn't go in, she stood in the door looking over me. I was a bit confused, but then a bloke arrived and passed her a toddler and a changing bag over my head. These parents had seen a disabled person heading to the disabled facilities and had raced to get there first.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the museum has baby changing facilities on every floor, the one on this floor can be seen from where they raced from, and the whole basement level is for babies and small kids, with soft play, several changing rooms, food prep areas etc. But there is only 1 disabled toilet. That's where this sense of entitlement leads.

One of the most entitled and unreasonable AIBU’s I have ever read. You chose to have kids. No one chooses to be disabled.
Ask your shopping centre to provide better mother and child facilities.
As someone who works with disabled people, I would only utterly judge you if I was waiting to assist one of my clients and out popped you and your brood...and yes, I am a mother, and I have struggled through the buggy/baby changing/toddler phase whilst out.

I remember what having babies and toddlers was like. A hell of a lot easier than having a disabled 10 year old.

And I am not naieve enough to not know we have it much easier than many disabled people do at the moment. Or to know that things aren’t likely to get much worse.

"Underhisi how you know that child is NT?"

The parent didn't think he wasn't. They also thought trying to wind up those with actual needs was hilarious.
I know what it is like taking a child in a buggy out because my 14 year old still uses one but he punches and bites a lot harder than a toddler when kept waiting to be changed because someone is in the accessible toilet who doesn't need to be.

@kanelbulleking that’s horrible I hope you said something to them about this

@kanelbulleking that’s horrible I hope you said something to them about this

No way. They knew full well what they were doing and didn't care. I feel quite vulnerable in my chair, there's no way I'm going to instigate any sort of confrontation with able adults who are towering over me.

I think you can use an accessible toilet if you need to. That includes if you have three very young children. If you need to change your baby and that’s where the facilities are.

If there’s some reason you cannot wait and need an accessible toilet, then ofc people should let you go first. What you describe kanel is pretty rude and ignorant as there were other baby changes they could use but that won’t always be the case. Many places have accessible toilets and baby change in one and people (disabled and parents) should wait their turn as normal unless there is any particular reason they need to be a priority.

I think their should be signs saying disabled people take priority on the ones with baby change in them. I always think they are badly planned and baby change should be else where.
KanelbulleKing I am not surprised that happened. reading this thread shows a lot of parents have a very bad attitude too disabled people.

I guess the location of the baby change is pure economics.
It's a neutral space big enough to hold a pram.

Shops / shopping centres don't provide facilities out the goodness of their heart they do it to encourage shoppers to come in and spend cash. It's unlikely that people will be put off and shop elsewhere because the baby change and disabled are a shared space.

People do get put off going to places that don’t meet their needs.
The pace where we went with the steps to get to the room, we haven’t been back either the group we took or other groups.
If disabled people cannot use facilities they won’t return. Would you return @KanelbulleKing if that kept happening at the same place?

It’s disgusting this happened to you. And reading some of these comments it sounds like this type of crap will get worse.

Many disabled people can’t go to places because of the lack of accessible facilities. To even believe that people don’t have to avoid places due to facilities shows just how ignorant you are to the needs of those with disabilities

Ffswhatnext I totally get stairs would put disabled people off somewhere. What were the designers thinking.

Sirzy is there seriously somewhere you avoid going because the baby change is in the disabled loo?

I've never actually came across a baby changing facility that has a toilet in it as well which is very annoying. I really admire the PP from the lady with sciatica. She uses the ladies toilets if they are downstairs but if they are upstairs, which she can't manage, she uses the disabled toilets. That's very sensible. Disabled toilets aren't for everyone that is disabled. They are mostly designed for wheelchair users and for people that can't manage stairs and the other toilets are upstairs. Incontinence issues alone would be better served by the other toilets that tend to have anything from 2 to 20 cubicles rather than 1 sole toilet that a disabled one has.

I think the OP should use the disabled toilets. She has 3 children and going for a quick pee would involve taking 2 kids out of a buggy, all her belongings off the buggy and into the toilet, leaving the buggy outside, taking 3 kids into a small toilet cubicle full of germs and them free to touch anything in that dirty cubicle, come out and washing her hands and all the kids hands then reload the buggy with her belongings and the kids. It would put any mother off going out and if like PP, some disabled people can use the other toilets and don't necessarily need to use the disabled one, it will balance out and no one will be waiting a long time. I'm sure she would in there for 2-3 minutes maximum and would wait if someone more needing was behind her about to go in

If disabled people cannot use facilities they won’t return. Would you return @KanelbulleKing if that kept happening at the same place?

I won't return again full stop. It's a wonderful place that has made adaptions to give disabled people access. But the adaptions are clearly designed by someone without a disability.

Eg there was a route that a disabled person could take that avoided the stepped route through. So able people go from one level down to the next in 1 flight of steps through a tropical area filled with birds and monkeys. A disabled person has to leave through a side door, go around the entire outside of the building, then take a lift (which was never the first as they were full of able people) down to the next level, then go all around the outside of the building again and reenter on the display on the new level. Then repeat every time you want to move further through the display.

I started off with a walking frame, then had to send DH for my chair as I was exhausted. Then eventually left earlier before I murdered someone for rudeness.

Kanelbulbullet

Is that in a newish building or recent refurb? Surely they could have put in a ramp or a disabled access lift?

I'd def make a complaint about that?