3 days in Paris with a baby - hotel and other ideas?

[duzida]

DP and are are taking 8 month old to Paris for 3 days, mid-week, in April. A bit spur of the moment, we didn't really think about where we were going to stay. I've been to Paris several times in the past, although not for about 5 years, and never with children. The idea is to wander about museums and shops, with food in between, showing DP how lovely Paris is...probably should have done this pre-baby.

Has anyone got any recommendations for not-too-expensive hotel (under 150 euros/night?) that will have a cot and not be too scummy/unfriendly? Doesn't have to be central, but in arrondissements 1-12 near a metro would be lovely.

I'm also interested to hear what it's like to take your baby to restaurants and cafes in Paris - do they usually have highchairs? Do they scowl at you if you try to bring a buggy in? I can speak/read French, so if there's a good book on paris avec bebe that anyone knows of, perhaps I should order it now.

anyway, any tips very gratefully accepted!

We stayed here with our DD when she was almost 6 months old. Very nice and in a good location. You should be able to get a room for under 150 euros if you book in advance. You can have a nice breakfast in the hotel although there is a bakery next door as well (I think where they get most of the breakfast to be honest!).

We had no problems taking our DD to cafes and restaurants. We never had a highchair though - she either slept in the pram at dinner time (those were the days) or sat on our laps.

The Metro is not terrible pram friendly but we mainly walked everywhere. The station nearest the hotel was, however, pram friendly which was great for getting to and from the Eurostar!

No advice on hotels, restaurants etc but really want to emphasise what skimummy has said about the Metro. We stayed at DLP and CP near Paris last year and stupidly travelled by train to Paris for the day. We had DD aged 2.9 and DS 5 months and took our Phil & Teds. HUGE mistake. The french to us seemed very 'baby unfriendly'. We struggled to get the P & T onto the Metro but found it wouldn't fit through the bars on the doorway so we couldn't get on the train in time. We had to wait for the next one and then realised that there are only certain doors you could fit through. What was really annoying was the passengers, both getting on and off who almost smirked at the trouble we had trying to lift the P & T on. A lot of stuff including baby's bottles fell out and one rolled under the train and some passengers were actually laughing

If you are planning on Metro travel, PLEASE take a small folding buggy.

This is not really relevant, but my parents went to Paris when I was 8 weeks old, my mum sat on the grass near the Eiffel tower breastfeeding me and a gendarme was walking around telling everyone to get off the grass, then he saw baby me and said "Ah, c'est naturelle!" and walked away without telling her to move

thanks for this advice, we will definitely take a small buggy and see how we get on. I've just found out that there are quite a few new B&Bs being run out of people's spare rooms in Paris so we are going to try one out instead of a hotel, but the one Skimummy recommended does look nice...maybe we'll try it out if we get to go again!

If you have one of those portable high chair thingies, I'd take that. As PP has said, not often will you find a highchair there.

this here, totseat