that a dad should be allowed to use baby changing facilities?

[notcitrus]

Went for a family get-together on Sunday, to a branch of a chain of restaurants that boast about being child-friendly. With 3 babies, we double-checked that they had a baby-changing facility, and their website confirmed they did.

So in the middle of the meal MrNC takes our baby off to change him. And returns five minutes later very apologetic, but the only baby-change table is in the ladies loos, so he wasn't allowed in. We checked - he had asked the staff if it was OK, and been told no, he would have to get someone else to change his baby, and no he couldn't do it elsewhere in the restaurant.

AIBU to think it's out of order both to advertise baby-change facilities if half the population aren't allowed to use it, and that if a changing table happens to be in the ladies loo, that a chap ought to be allowed in to use it?

I would have kicked up a polite fuss at the time but certain family would have been mortified, so will have to write a tetchy letter later.

Apart from baby changing, it can be hard with older kids going to the loo with opposite gender parents. Its ok when they are little, but there comes an in-between age when DD is too old to go into gents with dad (urinals!) and too young to go into ladies unaccompanied (in most places). Usually if DD goes out with DH they use the disabled - is that what everyone does?

There's a few places that have 'parent and child' facilities - you'd think that these ought to be de rigeur at zoos, museums etc, wouldn't you?

Pizza Express, Putney. No disabled loo, loos upstairs. I've always taken gendered loos as a guideline myself - use gents if no ladies, my MIL can't do stairs so uses gents if it's on the same level, so never occurred to me that a bloke with a baby would be a 'problem'!

I'd be impressed at any chap who could leer at anyone at the same time as changing a nappy!

Right, one snotty letter coming up...
In contrast, when we were in the local branch of PE, the manager intercepted MrNC to apologise that there was no changing facility, so invited him downstairs to his office where A was changed on top of a pile of pizza boxes! Suspect that is against H+S so not naming...

The Whitgift Centre in Croydon has a changing room and feeding rooms off it on the top floor. Makes a pleasant change for wheelchair users not to have to wait for zillions of parents to get out of their loo.

disgusting that he couldn't change the baby, and must be sex discrimination

Thanks for naming them nc...another one to add to my list. My sister became disabled soon after giving birth to her DS so her DH has had to do all the nappy changing and now is her carer too. She now can't eat by herself let alone get to the toilet unaided. I could just imagine the conversation when a manager tells her that her DH cannot accompany her to the ladies loo.

I would have told them that there was no one else to change the baby and that they either gave him a place or he would have to find his own spot. I would write and complain.

Isn't it against the law to not have disabled facilities? Wasn't there a disabled act was passed a few years ago which stated that restaurants,public buildings etc had to have disabled access and facilities.

My local Pizza Express has a disabled toilet on the restaurant level and the ladies/gents is down the stairs, the baby changing is in the disabled loo.

the disabled act would have been past for diasable people not baby changing

i was feeding ds a few weeks ago in mothercare and this fella came in to change his babys nappy. a member of staff asked me if i wanted him to leave so i could have privacy. ermmm no i said, the baby still needs changing weather or not i am feeding...
i'd complain if i were you

2shoes, notcitrus said there was no disabled loo hence the comments about that being against the law.

linnet - it's only against the law not to be accessible where 'reasonable'. So no new building should lack a disabled loo or have only steps to the main entrance etc, but given the vast majority of buildings in the UK are old, most restaurants still don't have accessible loos or even access to the restaurant itself.

Spend a day out sometime checking every time you have to go up a step - it's depressingly instructive.

pisces - I'd have been all up for not being able to change the baby, but delicate family ties precluded it. SIL did the honours.

wonder what they would have done if he had handed the baby to the nearest waitress and said "here, change this please"

(of course he wouldn't have done this, but that seems to be what they obviously expected him to do!)

That is unacceptable.

It should be in a unisex area.

I've just goggled the act I was talking about,should have done that first, and it seems the act I was thinking of only applies to Scotland. In 2004 up here in Scotland a disabled access law was introduced under the disability discrimination act. I remember getting training on it at work. I'm not sure if there is something similar in England, but still would have thought that it was illegal to not have disabled toilets as it's discrimination.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3706192.stm

Still I digress, back to baby changing facilities, yes write and complain and suggest that they should have a pull down baby changing station in the gents as well as the ladies.