to expect to use a disabled toilet when I'm out with the pram?

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I can't use the ladies when I have my baby with me in the pram. The only thing I can do is wheel him into the disabled toilet with me. But the disabled toilets have special locks on them, which presumably disabled people have special keys for. I appreciate that they want to stop able-bodied people hogging disabled toilets but what else can I do?

Bronze:

'Those with disabled children (for arguments sake ina wheelchair) what do you do when you (the carer) need a wee but your child doesnt? '

It varies tbh; on the rare occasion I dont wait I would take ds3 in and did the other day: PITA as he tries to open the door but I did and would. DS1 is 9 and I wouldn't take him in the ladies now, apart from the fact that he'd deck me if I tried (toilet signs are an absolute for him) i've seen enough threads on MN about younger kids in the changing rooms to know better. As he cannot be left alone due to his aggression I would take him in a disabled toilet yes, his diagnosis statement says he needs 24 / 7 care for a very real reason sadly.

Well exactly HateSponge - that is what they have done at my sports centre. But it's okay for me to use it because there is a sign on the door with a picture of a baby buggy on it. So even though it is identical to the disabled toilet in the shopping centre except for the fact that it doesn't specifically say it is for the use of parents with children, I can use this one without anyone getting cross.

Hear hear playdough. Am waiting for an answer to that too....

I can't officially use one unless dd1 is with me - so whether I Have dd2 and 3 in a trolley or dd3 in a buggy - I would not dream of using it cause it is not my place to do so.

A few years ago the parent rooms that I speak of were not around BUT they have come about cause retailers realise that actually they meet very valid needs and possibly mean people stay longer and spend more.

so you playdough you think it is reasonable to expect that you are able to use a disabled toilet when you are out with a pram - putting aside whether it is appropriate or not.

That is what I don't get - you expect to be able to do that and do not see that it is not appropriate.

I have used disabled toilets in this way in the past, but this thread has given me something to think about and I'll think twice before doing it in future.

Quite how I'm going to manage it with a 20 month old and a three month old baby, I'm not sure, especially as I can't get my double buggy into normal toilets due to lack of space/doors being too narrow. I do feel aggrieved that I should be expected to abandon my children in a busy shopping centre or supermarket (and in my local supermarket blocking a fire escape in the process) whilst I go into the toilets so am three doors away from them (outside toilet door, inside toilet door and cubicle door), or else wrestle them out of the pram and leaving it (again that fire escape problem) and manoeuvre a not long walking toddler (who would love to paddle in anything she finds on a toilet floor) and a baby into the toilets.....especially with my ravaged pelvic floor/bladder that I am having physio for whilst I wait for a consultant appointment and the fact that I have a hold of the toddler with one hand and resting the baby over the other arm, and oh yes, using my other hand to take down my trousers and knickers and then wipe my arse and change my effing tenalady

Whilst I agree that people shouldn't use disabled toilets indiscriminantly, surely there needs to be a bit of perspective here and that someone nipping in for two minutes with the babies still in the pram is in some cases excuseable?

If anyone needs the loo at cribbs causeway in bristol go to john lewis where on the 1st floor conveniently near the baby section is a feeding room with a parent's loo attached.

In Bath - disabled loos tend to have baby-changing facilities in them which i agree is rubbish.

I'm more of the hold on till i get home school myself because i generally hate public loos.

However must confess until reading this thread hadn't really thought of the implications of using a disabled loo when with pram and toddler.

Its all just generally pretty rubbish though that there aren't enough loos for women/parents/disabled users.

Really hoping not to be inflammatory here, but how many women have used a disabled loo when out with a buggy? Sounds like lots.
How often are those with a disability or with a child with a disability made to wait for a disabled toilet to be vacated by a parent with a buggy? I bet it does happen, but compared with how many women obviously feel the need to use one? I think those that do use disabled loos do so because of parental instinct to keep their children in sight, rather than a blatent disregard or ignorance of the needs of those with disabilities.

Well said GreenEggs.

I have never done it to disrespect anyone who is disabled.

Actually thinking about it I have never used a disabled loo unless it also had baby changing facilities in it. But really that doesn't solve the problem of people with disabilities who need to use the loo NOW does it? I'm still taking up the loo

What about carrying a baby sling with you (or backpack type thing for bigger child), transferring baby into it, then hanging it on the hook on the back of the door?

Have considered it, honest

I used the park at the end and leave door open tactic. Alternatively would ask someone else with children (banking on them not wanting any more), or sensible looking older lady to watch them.

When older I would keep asking them questions through the loo door so I knew they were still there.

But generally hate public loos and keep shopping trips short.

actually I have had dd1 have an accident and have had to wait a few times whilst parents who came out with buggies. However in the shopping centre I now use - not a problem cause everyone's needs are met - those parent rooms I describe are there and so disabled toilets are not used except by people with disabilities. I have also been abused by someone in a wheelchair who could see that dd1 was upright and standing and therefore in their opinion did not need a disabled toilet.

It depends what you mean by expect. I don't expect routinely to use disabled toilets just because I have a pram - I never have done so to date. So far in my parenting life I have either gone home early bursting for the toilet or I have struggled or I have been lucky enough to be somewhere with a parenting room like John Lewis. But what I haven't done either yet is leave a baby or toddler (or two) outside in a place I feel is unsafe. If it came down to a choice between doing that and using a disabled toilet (so other alternatives not possible for whatever reason), then I would use the disabled toilet. And what makes me angry is the attitude from some people that that situation, that choice, is irrelevant or false and someone with a pram should never be able to use a disabled toilet, nope, not ever, if ever they do they're just lazy and selfish.

I think we personally all have a joint responsibility to keep special toilets free for those who truly need them most. Filtering who goes in according to official disability status is sometimes a crude way of doing that that will leave people in genuine need outside, while letting some people who probably aren't that desperate at that particular moment in with a rightly clear conscience. Fair enough, it's the best offical way to do it. But when we're all talking about it, it's sad to see people treating the 'officially disabled' status as something giving something like a true moral entitlement and defining anyone else as having the opposite (i.e. as being lazy an dselfish by definition if they ever do use such a toilet).

So all of you people who say you or your child would really struggle to have to wait for the disabled loos - what do you do if there is a disabled person already in there? You have to wait then surely? So the fact that it is a mother and child in there is no different?

I don't think anyone on this thread who has said that they have and do use disabled loos if they are out and about with babies/children in buggies has indicated that their needs are greater than those of a disabled person. But surely it makes sense that if there is nobody using the disabled toilet then a mum can pop in and use the loo with peace of mind?

As I said I have used disabled loos in the past but I think that was mainly at airports. There has never been anyone coming out as I was going in, in there already or waiting. So I don't think I inconvenienced anyone.

It incenses me if I see someone parking in a disabled spot when they obv don't need it and it would equally annoy me to see disabled loos being misused but there has to be some common sense surely? If the disabled loo is free then it must be ok to use it.

playdough - just use the goddamn toilet but if someone who has a disability chooses to have a go at you - don't be surprised.

Dd2 at 4 gets that it is inappropriate for us to use a disabled toilet unless dd1 is with us and needs it why is it hard for others not to get it. It is not about morality for god sake it is about common decency and respect.

At the point that my dd1 who has a physical and intellectual impairment says I need the toilet and will wet or soil herself in the next minute or so - her need is more important than your need at that point in time - it is not a moral issue it is a fact - it is a given.

You have options that people with disabilities do not have. That what it comes down to. It is about common decency and respect not about morality and being more entitled.

The OP said I can't use a toilet when I have a pram - so I feel I am justified in using a disabled toilet. But plenty of posters have given viable options and plenty of workable options and woe is the poster because people have been violating the use of disabled toilets so much that now they lock them.

GreenEggs, yes I have had to wait before for someone with a buggy, but it was a combined loo and baby change so fair enough.

To all of you who keep saying that you would never go in before a disabled person, can you please see mine and Peachy's posts re disabilities not always being seen, Peachy I totally join in your shout of not all disabled people are in a wheelchair - this is just getting me too upset and wound up, it's hard enough having a disability and it affecting the whole of life without being doubted at every turn because I don't 'look' disabled. Come on, stop being so narrow here!

You know - when the buggy is pulled into the doorway - no one can see anything seriously. Most people tend to gravitate to the sinks closest the door and the dryers - you watch next time. You will be surprised. Just try it as a little experiment.

my ds1 has something called a paralytic bowel which is linked to his cerebral palsy. At 11 he is not clean, and never has been. He is able to hold his bladder, but not his bowel. If you saw my Ds1 in a shop you wouldn't know he was disabled, until you watched him walk, then you will realise something is 'wrong' But as a result of his bowel problems, he doesn't feel himself 'filling up' and his muscles cant hold it in. If he needs the toliet he needs it there and then. He does use normal toliets, but if the disabled one is nearer then of course he uses that one.

What do people do if they have a side by side buggy?

peachy - we go to the toilet before we go out, we park in the car park next to JL, then we go to the toilet as it was a toilet with 2 toilets side by side, go shopping then return and go to toilet again.

DD1 has a weak bladder and cannot hold it very long, more often than not I also have emergency potty under the pram too.

If another adult is with me, I would never use the disabled toilets, it's only for that very rare occasion I'm on my own with them all.

You are adults. Can't you wait until you get home if a suitable toilet is not available?

Eidsvold - I don't think you've understood what I was saying and I can't be bothered to explain it any more. For a start you seem to have missed the point that I said I've never yet used a 'godamn' disabled toilet (except in small cafes where there's only one toilet for everyone).

I agree it's about respect. What I don't agree with is that the world is divided neatly into officially disabled people whose needs are genuine, and not officially disabled people who by definition can never ever have a genuine need. Sometimes their need can be genuine too. That's all.

...that was kind of my point knickers. I can't take my side by side into a normal toilet; it just doesn't fit and some places where I shop the toilets are in a fire escape corridor, so you can't leave the buggy outside, with or without the children in it. Short of growing an extra arm, there sometimes isn't any other option.

coming late to this - but I'd like to know how you fit a fecking long Quinny inside a standard toilet cubicle without it sticking 3/4 of the way out of the door and people risking falling arse over tit over it!