To not understand why so many parents hate going to Soft Play?

[BlueMoon1103]

I’m at soft play with my DS (9 months) and I actually love bringing him! There are loads of nice soft play near me with baby areas and smaller versions of the big soft play the older kids use. I guess we’re lucky to have so many nice ones to choose from where I am but so many parents say they hate soft play and I don’t get why, both me and my DS think it’s great fun!

This might be one of those things were the move wears off

Because occasionally other children think it's OK to beat the shit out of your dc and if you dare tell them to pack it in and behave their parents then come and shout at you. That's only happened once to us though so I don't actually mind it. My dc are 7 & 8 now and I just leave them to play whilst I have a cup of tea and read on my phone.

I used to send them with my partner.
I went twice. Both times I came out deaf and in need of gin.
Everything is sticky. People seem to have no boundaries either. There seems to be this communal attitude that I do indeed have to put up with another person's bratty offspring stealing food from my table or even my bag.
The worst one (and luckily, my two are now too old for soft play) was this mega huge soft play centre. They charged parents £7.50 each for the joys of there being no chairs to sit on, it cost us as a family of four- and bare in mind my two did not need supervision from us- £40. That was for two hours. No wonder it went bust last year.
Anyway, I queued up for an overpriced round of soft drinks. There was 2 girls serving. I waited ten minutes before getting to the front of the queue. Some awful woman comes along, stands at the counter, completely ignoring the queue, and when the server turned to her all smiles and clearly knew her, I said, sorry, I was next. No tone. No attitude.
At which point this chav and the server goes mental at me. Earrings out the lot, you'd think I had said something offensive. She starts calling me snob and c word this. In front of kids. Server stands there and joins in laughing. A guy behind me actually stood up for the rest of us in the queue, only to be called a paedo for being at a soft play with his children. I walked away and tried to find a manager to be told if I caused "trouble" again, I'd be banned.
Well, we walked out and I asked for half our money back- the girl on the door actually gave me that and apologised saying this woman was in every day and her and her kids always caused trouble.
In the car, other half said he had wanted to go anyway as when I was off being abused and queuing, he had witnessed another staff member physically pull someone's child from the equipment and year strips off him, right in his face and reduced the poor child to tears. Another kid had accused this one of pushing in (oh the irony), but she didn't find his parents she just screamed at him. They walked out just before us.
Hive of lunatics that was.

I love soft play with my 15 month old. We have a yearly pass.
But I do choose when we go.
Weekdays!!

I do hate the parents that sit and let their children run riot in the toddler areas.

I know kids are kids, but they do need to be told, as kids have no concept of the littlens.

'Cause after a while it's hell on earth.

I loved it when I had a 9 month old pfb.

And by children I mean 6/7/8/9 year olds!!

They always smell of full nappies.

I live abroad and it was -1 but felt like -7 here the other day so I am immensely grateful for them when it's hard to be outside, germs and all! It gets very hot in the summer so they are also useful then. The ones here sell decent coffee and the biggest one I go to even sells Prosecco and beer and has an excellent food court just outside the door! They are pretty noisy but it's the sound of kids having fun and I love them. I love that my dc can runaround like a lunatic while I get to drink a coffee in relative peace and I love watching her bounce her little tits off on a trampoline - she adores the trampoline but there's no way we could fit one in our small flat and we don't have a garden. I must admit that I never even mind the big boisterous kids - I think it's good for my dd who is an only child to learn that the world will not always operate around her and that some kids are douche bags - and when they are really awful I muster my best language skills and tell them straight! I love the park and the lake and the beach and everything else but I am another one who sits in the soft play wondering what it is that people hate about them!

I'm just not as awesome a parent as you

The worst incident was on a wet holiday once in Wales. Soft play hell on earth. DS2 (age 2 at the time) broke through the netting into a work in progress area, picked up a piece of 2 by 4 with a protruding nail and whacked himself on the head with it, cutting himself and narrowly missing his eye, all in the blink of a second.

It made me realise soft play wasn’t necessarily safe. At all.

Oh my goodness! It's the NOISE! Places like that send me into sensory hell. I dread to think how some little ones cope with it. Quiet calm play and quiet calm children worked for me.

😂😂😂 you’re well and truly in the baby years. Come back when your dc is 9 and tell us how you feel!

Mine are mostly over soft play now, but we went fairly often when they were younger.
Never had any problems with bad behaviour from other children, but I was always pleased to get out of the noise!

The smell
The noise
Other people's kids
Neglectful parenting
Shite food
Uncomfortable seats
Sticky tables
Rocking tables
Babies that are easily knocked over
Freezing cold toilets
Soap on the floor despite the fact that your kids have socks on
The noise again
Bright horrid colours

They were my idea of hell when ds was young enough to use them. The noise & hoards of small children running wild, I tried anything to avoid going to any.

@MillicentMartha Oh my god that’s awful!

I’m at one right now.

My four year old is hearing impaired, it’s so noisy that the first thing he does when we go inside is take his aids out. A luxury I don’t have!

I’m sat on a three legged plastic garden chair, to remain upright I had to forcibly lean against the wall.

Some children are unpleasant. Left to his own devices my son would be a pusher, as a result I only let him go in a certain area where I can see him properly all of the time.

Some parents do vile things, like changing nappies in the seating area, or leaving food on the tables/floor.

Some parents let big boisterous children into the toddler area.

They’re unclean, when we leave I remove my sons leggings, sock and t-shirt, wash his hands/face thoroughly in the loo and put clean clothes on him.

@doublebarrellednurse unnecessary

I’ve been going to soft play for years as I look after a little girl (now 5) regularly and soft play is one of her favourite things to do! So don’t think it’s a novelty thing that will wear off, I just think it’s good fun for kids and adults. I’m also not afraid to ask other peoples’ children to be gentle where needed if they’re being too rough around my DS!

Noisy, smelly, expensive, dirty, and full of rough kids quite often whose parents are nowhere near

I used to call them Padded Rooms of Doom. So glad mine are too old now. Other people's kids - urghh. Parents kicking off. Expensive food, expensive to get in.

There’s a lovely one in a church near me. It’s volunteer run and they clean constantly, they remove toys on rotation during the day for a wipe down. They even empty and clean out the ball pit every night.
However the cafe was separate so no food/drink allowed.

There’s also a hideous one near me. Cheap, they don’t monitor how long you’ve been in. Full of kids running wild for hours, thumping and pushing kids and parents who couldn’t care less.

DD is past them now. Our park has removed most of its play equipment so it used to be useful to get her a good run about esp in bad weather.

They are hell on earth. It’s a combination of things I hate, firstly there are the parents who rock up pitch up at a table either alone armed with their phone or with a gang of other mums, they then proceed to ignore their children for the entire time they are in there. Meanwhile their little darling/s are causing havoc around the place, completely out of control, they are nowhere to be seen, well they are they are engrossed in deep conversation/head in their phone about 20m away.

Then there are the germs. Now I am not at all OCD about these things but those places are just filled full of them. Coughing sneezing, snotting kids everywhere touching and rolling in the same equipment as all the other children, gross. How do you actually clean a ball pit and all the balls in there? Well you don’t, not regularly anyway! Yuck.

I’d just rather go to the park and let them run around or meet friends I know with children somewhere not in a play centre. Nice, enjoyable, outside, no out of control kids, no germ filled pits.

I just hate them.

Constant high pitched screaming children.
Children thumping each other.
Children being unkind out of sight of their parents.
Parents, of little horrors, not giving a toss what their dc are doing to other children.
Terrible food.
Sticky tables.
Went in a ball pit once to rescue ds. It wasn't pleasant, kind of dusty and sticky at the bottom.

You are still at the naïve stage where you are right next to your 9 month old at all times closely supervising and focused enjoying his pleasure with the new bright big fun play area. Your are not looking around enough to see the horrors around you. (No one has thumped him on the head with a ball or dislocated his elbow yet) Been there. The novelty wears off.

What HeyMac said.

Plus

Knowing how dirty the ball pits etc is
Usually either gloomy in there or strong artificial light
No fresh air
No natural light
Just surrounded by screaming kids

More reasonable a question is why on earth you would take a 9month old there ?
I've only had to tolerate them when taking dc to parties, can't understand why anyone would go voluntarily.

They are hot.
The children are feral.
The other parents are often feral.
They make me slightly pop eyed and feral.
Nobody flushes any of the toilets.