AIBU starbucks and others policy on heating babyfood

[aaronmum1]

i went to debehams cafe today and it took them 30 minutes to heat up the babyfood in a small bowl of boiling water - still not warn enough but couldn't wait any longer. they say they do not put into micrwave for 20 secs for "health & safety reasons" this gets me so mad! starbucks used to hand you a precariuos bowl of boiling hot water yet would not put in the micro ! this is crazy - is it just an excuse to discourage parents and babies?

I stopped at a Little Chef and asked for water to heat up a bottle - was told they had to do it themselves. I gave it to the waitress to heat up and she came back several minutes later to say she had forgot and it was probably a bit warm. It was scalding and took half an hour to cool down. What H&S policy do they rely on when they refuse hot water to parents but provide scalding bottles to babies?

i have managed several restaurants over last few years and in the last 12 months it is now more or less policy, every where that is not an independant, not to microwave baby food as yes people have sued several big chains. everyone is just doing their job by saying no.

Can't you just mix some hot water into the food to heat it up that way? Yes it will make it a bit runnier but will warm it up enough for a baby to eat.

I do think the H&S rules have gone overboard on this. Why can't they have a rule that they will microwave for only 20 seconds on medium or something?

I think the h&s rules are crazy too - whatever happened to people taking responsibility for themselves? you heat my babies food, and I take responsibility for checking it.

I know it's not the fault of the staff, but if that is the policy then the policy is stupid! And surely a shop manager has the power to overturn that policy if deemed necessary. It's like at school they advise us against taking the kids out if it's damp as they can skid and hurt themselves. If you never take risks as a kid how can you judge them as an adult! But that's another story...

It just makes life so much harder as a parent to not have food heating facilities. Now he can have sarnies it's ok, but he was on purees (and with very limited ingredients) then.

And in stark contrast, in Waitrose another time they saw me take out a bottle and offered to take it upstairs to the staff kitchen and heat it up for me. I know a bottle may be different to food, but what a difference in attitude. I didn't even have to ask!!

as the shop manger you could tell staff to say yes but then you would also but taking personal responsibility if anything happened.
you can really blame individuals for this situation its the current "claim" culture we live in.

*cant

Starbucks microwaves are far more powerful than the standard models, and so it's very difficult to judge how long to heat stuff for if it's not a Starbucks thing. When my sister worked there they used to get people wanting them to heat stuff up for twenty seconds, but twenty seconds in a Starbucks microwave would virtually have vapourised the food or milk and certainly have rendered it scalding hot.

While it's marvellous that bunnyhunny wouldn't try suing for somewhere serving scalding baby food, but not everyone is so reasonable. And those who aren't so reasonable don't go around with it tattooed on their foreheads. Also shouting at minimum-wage members of staff isn't behaviour best-calculated to convince anyone of your reasonableness.

i am a waitress and we aren't allowed to hand out hot water for bottles. i give them a teapot with boiling water in it. don't see how it is any different to them ordering a cup of tea or coffee and if my manager walks passed he just assumes they've ordered a pot of tea

we are allowed to heat up baby food in the microwave.

some places are only allowed to give you the hot water to do it yourself incase they make it to hot. other places only the staff can do it incase you spill the water. that's what confuses me. they say their way is cos of health and safety but then why can some places do it the opposite way cos of health and safety?

also the parent saying how long they want it heating for wouldn't take away the companies responsibility if anything happened because restaurant microwaves are much more powerful than normal ones. i once had someone say can you heat it for a minute i did it for 15 seconds and even then i had to put it in a bowl of ice to cool it down.

and i'm sure some idiots if they checked it themselves and it burnt them would still sue anyway.

here are some simple solutions:

take a wide neck thermos of hot water out with you and stand the jar in the lid to warm food

get your DC to eat room temperature food

give finger foods

don;t take them out when they are due lunch!

our local tesco uses a baby bottle warmer to heat up bottles and jars does take a bit of time but atleast they do it

Why can't you heat the food up at home and pop in a food flask to keep warm until the food is needed.

Lots of places sell wide necked flasks and this makes it easy to feed straight from the flask. You know that the food will be hot all the way through without any "microwave hotspots" and you know that the food is clean.

You don't need to ask anyone to heat the food for you and can give it straight away without having to wait for 30 mins for someone to heat it.

This type of flask - keeps food hot for 6 hours, if you are taking a jar with you on a trip not much hassle to warm up food at home first and pop in one of these

www.kiddieskitchen.co.uk/store/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=50&cat=Food+jars&gclid=CIfr_vSdm5ACFSe1EAo d7HuXpA

i used to superheat my food before going out and it cooled down over time to a nice temperature

I simply never served it warm. Easy.

didn't use jars but can they not be served room temperature?

I fed my dd her food from the jar as it came, room temperature unless I was somewhere suitable to warm it for her. Her bottles were also offered to her from the cool flask in a similar way - I never had any complaints from her . Summer babies are so much easier to deal with.

Btw, cafes abroad often happily microwave baby food or bottles for you.

some mumsnetters seem to just have a very defeatist attitude to this issue - i started this thread because i am angry about this stupid H&S excuse and it is an excuse - because some places do heat it up for you without any H&S silly talk. i could buy another thermos - already have one for bottles and a thermabag but the point is --WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO??? it is ridiculous that some places have started to feed us mothers this excuse. it is really really stupid and we sould start a boycott of places that do it! it is another anti baby nail in the anti family culture of this country - feel like ranting today!!

nonsense. It's perfectly possible to feed babies without microwaves. People have been doing it since the dawn of time. haven't you heard of bananas? Or jars at room temp? Or bread? Don't be so neurotic.

Don't go shopping at a time when your baby/toddler needs to be fed.

Or if you want to, then take your own food or give your dc a bit of food off your plate.

mercy and ozymandius - that is fine when they can / will eat solids properly, but if they are still on purees, and you aren't blw (not everyone does!) you can't just expect them to eat 'real' food when you are out. And in my case, ds has food allergies - including banana - so a jar may not be appropriate.

scottishmummy - I ended up doing just that!

I agree it's another family unfriendly policy for the uk. Other countries manage to take kids out with them, but in the uk, h&s rules make it more difficult than it needs be. I agree that people managed without microwaves in the past, but we also used to live in trees but I'm not gonna [sarky grin].

i can also rant about this! Why make life more difficult when they CAN just heat the food up?!

Just give them real food instead of jarred muck then! I don't believe that you couldn't buy anything that they could eat. They can eat almost anything once they are old enough to wean.

Message withdrawn