Dad using individual ladies loo to change baby – what’s the etiquette?

[horchatatresleches]

We were at a small cafe we hadn’t visited before – just me, DH, and our baby DS. When DS needed changing, DH went to check the facilities but came back quickly saying the baby change was in the ladies so I changed him but it got me wondering about what is the etiquette.

The setup was one of those where the mens and women loos are both single-occupancy, self-contained rooms that open off the same hallway – not communal spaces with stalls. So it’s not like he’d be walking into a room with other women inside and making anyone uncomfortable. I’ve been to similar cafes where both loos are labelled gender-neutral, which seems simpler. Personally, I wouldn’t bat an eye if I saw a dad coming out of that kind of loo with a baby, but DH felt uncomfortable using the ladies even though there was no one else around. He wasn’t sure what he’d have done if I hadn’t been there to help.

Is there an etiquette about dads using the ladies in this kind of setup if that’s where the baby change is?
YANBU - he’s fine to use the baby change
YABU - he shouldn’t go in the ladies there

See, this pisses me off. Men get a WC all to themselves, disabled people have to share with women and parents.

This infuriates me. I hurt myself when my daughter was wee and really struggled to change her when we were out. The number of times I had to announce my husband’s presence so he could go change his child was super annoying. I complained at multiple locations. How ridiculous to assume there are no single fathers or same sex couples or just a dad hanging out with his own child. Absolutely no issue with using whatever facilities there are and I’d encourage you to put in a complaint - had at least two places add a changing table in the men’s room after I shared my feelings about it

He’s choosing to go in the ladies because the establishment has left him no other option because he wants to change his baby’s nappy

Why is a ladies " safe space" though? There's no women in there while a dad is changing his baby. Tl

Last time I stopped at a petrol station, the men’s had urinals and a cubicle but the one ladies’ toilet was also the disabled toilet and the changing facility 🤯

BP by the sounds of it

This!

Why?
The ladies/baby change was a self contained cubicle.

Almost app (possibly all) cases of cameras put in women’s loos for voyeuristic purposes have been planted by men.

This may be reasonable depending on their clientele. Commercial drivers, who are more likely to make use of most petrol station toilets than commuters or leisure drivers, are far more likely to be male. Most cafes, on the other hand, are more likely to have women using the toilet and should probably weight use towards them.

Then they’d have pay for two sanitary bins to be serviced instead of one.

I usually agree with the ‘men shouldn’t be in the ladies’ points, BUT… in the situation of two single enclosed rooms off of one hallway, it’s not really male/female loos is it, it’s just two loos.

I took DD3 into the ‘mens’ on Sunday in this situation, as someone was in the ‘ladies’. We could have waited, but there was an empty room, and she may well have pissed on her feet otherwise (it was a last minute mummy-I-need-a-weeeeeee moment).

I see absolutely no problem with your DH using the ladies in this instance, but would suggest that the best course of action would for the cafe to just have ‘loo’ on both doors and eliminate the entire debate!

Sexist is it not?

The same assumption applies that men will not be in charge of the baby.

If the company want to save on space they continue to give able bodied men their own toilet and push women and babies and the men and women who need the transfer bars into a single Q.

And then there are all the posters who dont see the underlying everyday sexism in having a baby free mens space is accepting that baby minding and baby changing is women work

They really don't cost that much though, it's not much of an economy.

In any case, if they have a reasonable trash bin with a lid that will work too in a single occupancy toilet.

I suspect that when you see this, it's not really thought through. Someone just orders the little signs and gets one of each kind without thinking about it.

Yes, but the fact is that in small places with only one or twoo self contained toilets, it's not really practical to have them differentiated by sex.

What would be your plan for a tiny cafe with only one toilet for men, women, the disabled, and containing a change table? They need to have a whole second toilet for a shop that holds 10 people?

My brothers wife died 5 days after baby was born leaving my brother as a single parent. In these situations he has no choice but to use the baby change in the ladies toilet.
Posters suggesting he goes somewhere that accommodates baby change in unisex or male toilets clearly haven't been in his situation. Is he never allowed to go to a new/unknown place again?

It's not sexist to have differing provision geared to the make up of your clientele. The aim should be that men and women have to wait roughly the same amount of time on average.

The baby change thing is sexist if the loo is supposed to be a single sex space, but my reading of the description was that it was a single room that was for the use of women, disabled people of either sex or anyone needing to change a baby.

Or the social context of not having a baby change in the mens needs to change?

If men need to change the baby they are responsible for they should not need to enter into a womans space because babies are nolonger the sole domain of women?

Most adult males have children and yet the building regs and building design model is a able body male will not need to use the toilet with a baby in tow.

And you missed that able body males somehow end up getting to have their own baby free toilet.

Separation of the sex in a service stations or other areas which have toilet provision in an isolated area is as much for safety any anything else. Few women would feel safe entering a lockable room with a random male stranger behing her.

And if the objective was that both sex had the same average wait the provision for women would be double that of men and disabled men would be in the same Q as able men.

I would have no issues with him changing a baby in there

The safety issue for a single room toilet exists whether you label it women's or women's/disabled/baby change. No one should be coming in behind you, and you are just as vulnerable if there is a man near by regardless of the sign on the door.

Not sure why you think there is an issue with a toilet being baby free rather than with how much demand there is for the room and so how much you can access it.

2 toilets :

1 unit for ;
male able body

1 unit for:
wheelchair access for males and
wheelchair access for females and
female able body and
baby change

1 male with baby goes where?

*Men get a WC all to themselves, disabled people have to share with women and parents."

According to some posters on here this is justified.

Their argument is that The disabled toilets will have to sanitary bin which the so not having a separate women's toilet or unisex cubicle which would need another , saves money

I’m not saying it’s what I’d do, just that for small businesses I’ve known, this would be a common line of thought. So I assume that’s fairly common where this happens.