London - please help

[Sony3203]

Me and OH are thinking of going to London for the day this Saturday or Sunday before Christmas. We will also be taking our 12 week old baby with us. I want to go for the purpose of shopping and seeing what London is like over Christmas and OH has never actually been to London so I thought it would be a nice day out for us all. As we're not familiar with London or that area at all we're really struggling to figure out how to do this. We were thinking we would drive down and maybe park outside London and get the tube in. The only problem with that is that we'd like to visit multiple locations in London so we'd have to jump on the tube with the pushchair quite a bit. Also need to think about feeding LO every 2-3 hours . Would it be easier, better and more practical to just pay the congestion charge of £11.50 and drive through the center of London ourselves? What would you recommend? Thanks so much in advance x

I live in central London and had to go into the West End last Sat afternoon (hair appt!) and as expected, it was beyond miserable. The tube was rammed (to rush hour levels) and the weather was wet, cold and windy so my usual walking everywhere instead of getting public transport wasn't an option. All the cafes, restaurants etc were rammed with people. I can't even begin to imagine how bad Oxford St must have been.

I think its tourists and people outside London that have this obsession about going into London just before Christmas. As you can see from this thread, every Londoner avoids doing it because we know this is the path to misery and hell on earth. And doing it with a 12 week baby? That's just stupid and won't end well.

Driving won't help. You'll be guaranteed a seat (so better than the tube in that sense) but the traffic will be horrendous as this is the big Christmas getaway weekend, plus there are gazillions of roadworks. It won't be a good idea at any time but the last weekend before Christmas? No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honestly OP, go between Christmas and NY, London is lovely and quiet yet the shops are open. The weekend before Christmas will be horrifyingly busy, I wouldn't do it and I live there.

Agree with PPs that going between Xmas and New Year would be lovely, I'm 10 mins on the train from London Bridge and wouldn't dream of heading into Central this weekend. If you let us know roughly where you're based we can recommend which tube to drive to, or whether the train journey is actually easier.