Tips?

[Jbr]

If you're caught short when you're out, head for a disabled public loo. They have enough room to bring a buggy and your shopping in with you. (fb)

What's the difference to saying "just use a disabled parking space?". That is terrible.

Done it many times (the loo thing, not the parking), I feel as a mum with a baby you are entitled to as much special treatment as you can beg, steal or borrow. Mind you, if I saw a differently abled person outside desperate for a wee I wouldn't necessarily cut them up so I could change my daughter's nappy.

In one shopping centre in Cambridge the attendant is happy to come and unlock the disabled loo for you to use if you are a mum on her own with a baby in a pram/pushchair. I discovered this after the attendant (who was cleaning the Ladies) saw me struggling to get my sleeping daughter in her buggy into a normal loo with me. Of course if a disabled person was waiting I would let them go first, but if the alternative is to leave a small child unattended I will use the disabled loo any time. The difference from using a disabled parking space is that I'm in the loo for a few minutes, I don't use it for hours at a time!

I could argue but really can't be bothered.

JBR, not up for an argument - that's not like you! What's wrong with using the disabled loo - generally that's the only place where the pull down changing table has been installed anyway. And if I'm dying for a pee I'm darned if I'm going to perch on a regular loo with the door open and the buggy sticking out.

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I use the disabled loos but I dont push in front of a line of disabled people waiting to use it. In alot of cases the changing facilities are in the disabled toilets anyway. I will not leave ds outside the toilets when I am able to take him and pram into a disabled one. I wouldnt use a disabled parking space though. I have never seen a disabled person using a toilet so thats why Im happy to do so, have you JBR?

Exactly what does a disabled person look like, Joe1?

Here we go, sorry did I not explain myself correctly. If there are people waiting outside a disabled toilet, whether in a wheelchair or not then I assume they need to use that toilet for some reason or another. I know not all disabilities are obvious (if thats what your getting at) as I have disabled people in my family.

Yes, Jbr why bother starting the thread if you can't be bothered to answer?

Can I ask you the question a different way round? You are shopping in a busy shopping centre and there is a queue for the toilets. Your 3 month old baby has just fallen asleep after screaming for a good 30 mins and you want to get on with your shopping and get home before baby wakes. You're tired and stressed. To use the ladies toliet would mean waiting for a long time and you wouldn't be able to get the pushchair in the cubicle. Its busy so you wouldn't trust leaving baby outside as you never know who might happen to be there. This means you would have to wake up baby and hold him while attempting to have a wee. There is a disabled toilet with no queue that you can fit the pram into - and you wouldn't use it?? Really?

This is going to turn into one of those nightmare, argument threads, I can tell so I'll move on.

My 6 year old son and I have used one today due to the fact he is too embarrassed to go in the ladies and I won't let him use the mens on his own. So there's another reason why. R.

I'm pregnant. That to me is pretty disabling. I'll use the disabled loo every time!

In my local Woolworths even the disabled can't use the disabled loo unless they buy something to eat at the restaurant first - the receipt has the combination to open the door!

We have to be a customer to use the loos in mothercare too!

Apart from the really grotty public toilets (those horrid cold steel ones), the only other toilets available are the ones on the third floor of Debenhams!

Whichever we want to use, better not be desperate!!

As for using 'normal' toilets when you're pregnant - there's never really enough room to comfortably move the 'bump' around.

That is awful Ailsa! I maybe daft but I understood there was osme kind of law/rule which means a shop cannot refuse a pg women use of their loo. Therefore if you have to be a customer, particularly in a shop like Mothercare that is C**P. To me a customer is someone who maybe buying that day, so maybe the next, does it matter.

All I know is around town I know exactly where every loo is, and where the disabled ones are too. If you have two babies, or a toddler and a baby there is no way a normal ladies will be big enough.

My other gripe is baby changing places. Why oh why is there no loo in half of these? Sometimes with a baby, and a toddler I need a loo and a potty, and a changing mat. I go to our local Asda as this is the only one that provides all three in one room. Other wise I have to do one first, them go into the ladies (with a trolley and a baby and a toddler) to do the other two!

The best I've found is Bluewater!! Their facilites are great. The John Lewis has a husge area with about 3 changing stations, a curatined off feeding area, with rocking chairs and bottle warners etc, and a huge loo with a grown up loo next to a baby loo, and two hand basins, one big and one small in the same room! The doors are on automatic switches (no shoving the door with the pram or going backwards into other people) these switches are also to high for the average toddler. They really have thought of everything. Including a huge comfy sofa outside for partners (although the loo itself is unisex). This is one reason I will drive over an hour to shop. Also the creche (expensive at £4.50 and hour), but great to park the toddler for an hour to try on clothes. All in all a great place to shop. Even my dh who is alergic to shopping will go their with me and the girls

It says for disabled people surely that means only disabled people?

Jbr, to quote your very words from another thread
'If it's an access problem it's a disability ..'.

If I can't get my buggy into a regular toilet cubicle, that's an access problem, yes?

I didn't see your reply to Lizzer's question ...?

So does that mean the 'Ladies' is only for ladies? In that case, if you have your young son with you and want to use the 'Ladies' should you leave him outside by himself? (and the same of course for fathers and young daughters) I really don't think so! The signs are there for people to use their discretion and common-sense with. If the disabled toilet is free and someone with a buggy and young kids (who desperately needs that extra space) wants to quickly use it, what harm is that?

Oh I forgot Marks and Spencers, ok, it's upstairs again, not a problem as long as the lift works (for those that still use buggies/prams and those with wheelchairs etc.), they are wonderful, they've converted a cleaners cupboard into the ladies, and the disabled toilet is HUGE and has baby changing facilities too. Full marks to them.

Most disabled people are quite happy to wait in a queue like anyone else, they'd rather not be seen as any different to anyone else. I've never yet seen a disabled person angry because an able person used 'their' toilets.

But it crosses all over into parking, and other disabled facilities. All the time. Some woman with a buggy seriously expected my sister to move her wheelchair on the bus when she was their first.

It doesn't "cross over" with me or any of the others here who use the disabled loos if they are pregnant and/or struggling eith a buggy, as long as there is noone else around.
There is a huge difference between using an empty loo for one minute and nabbing a disabled parking space for an hour ( or even a minute). None of us would condone that.
I get quite annoyed at people who have disabled stickers on their car, say for a relative, and use up a disabled space when the relative is not even in the car. You would think such people would have some understanding of the problems of access wheelchair users have.
Then again, you can hardly accost them and say" excuse me, you don't look disabled..."!

Out of interest, how many of us have emerged from a disabled loo to find a disabled peson waiting? (in other words having held them up). I never have and I've been using them for 2 1/2 years. Parking is completely different as once you leave your car there you have no idea who you are inconveniencing.

I'll front up to using a disabled loo in M&S today. But I had offical sanction, cos the male janitor had closed the ladies for cleaning.

JBR nowhere does it say that 'disabled loos' are JUST for people in a wheelchair - they have been designed for disabled people, but that doesn't mean non-disabled can't use them! I am getting really annoyed at the number of key locked disabled loos there are now. Those toilets are probably used a couple of times a day by disabled people and the rest of the time they are empty - where is the common sense in that?? How many toilet designers (men undoubtedly) have been shopping with a toddler and a baby in a pushchair? a big fat zero I reckon!

I would be curious to know if wheelchair users see the toilets as 'theirs'? I'm sure they'd have more empathy, afterall I definitey appreciate their plight now I'm experiencing the joys of stairs, the train system and pushchairs!! while we're at it can't we ban all able bodied, fit non parents from filling up the lifts in shopping centres?!

I also wonder about this key business. Isn't there a key system that enables registered disabled people to enter because they hold a master key that unlocks any loo in the system? That's fair enough, though it still means you've got perfectly good loos standing redundant for hours at a time.

However, what really gets my back up are those notices you see outside disabled loos: 'key available from security desk/customer attendent' or whatever. How are you meant to know where the said security desk/customer attendent is? They are never, ever, close by in my experience.

This inconvenience must affect disable and abled alike. Given the fact that people often use the disabled loo in a crisis situation, who wants to wander around a large public area at a loss till they find the person with the key?