Baby Shops - all gone?

[30somethingandtired]

When I had my first daughter, 8 years ago, I got most big things from Babies'r' Us, Mothercare, and Mammas & Pappas.

I'm now expecting number 2, and those shops are all gone / going. While supermarkets are great for clothes and nappies, I'm wondering where to buy larger items.

With things like the pram I'd really like to have a look and get a proper feel for the item before choosing. Can't really do that online, and much as I like little independents; the one near me is so tiny it has hardly any selection.

So where is everyone planning on buying their baby stuff now?

John Lewis?

Mamas and papas too?!
John Lewis stored normally have a great range of prams and buggies out. Lots of nursery stuff too.

John Lewis for prams. Or go to a babyfair

Yep was about to suggest John Lewis. Only place left in our nearest city. Apart from a few very a small specialists selling from home etc .

Mamas and Papas is still open. They have just closed certain stores but you can still buy online. Mothercare is predicted to offer an online only service in the UK or relaunch in a few years with far fewer stores - it does far too well overseas for it not to reopen in the UK.

Mamas and Papas are still around here. Otherwise I'll add to the recommendations for John Lewis. They were really helpful when we were looking last year.

Thanks ladies. Our nearest John Lewis is a couple of hours away but I don't mind that as long as I can find what we need.

Totally gutted about everywhere else disappearing though. I was really looking forward to wandering round Mothercare with a big baby bump in a few months time.

Same problem here. John Lewis two hours. We found a small independent baby shop. I was hesitant about price but they have been wonderful. If I bought travel system (which was ex demo) with them I got ten percent off for life. They price match. They brought it to hospital and fitted it into car.

They delivered cot here and built it. Would never go anywhere else now.

We don’t have a John Lewis in NI so now that Mothercare and Mamas & Papas are gone, it’s literally just the independent nursery shops left.

It’s nice to support local, but when you’re looking for something quite specific or specialised it’s usually the bigger national brands that had it in store.

Ikea is great for nursery furniture and second JL for stuff like car seats and prams. Also if your friends/family have babies ask them about their prams and if they’ll let you push it a bit to get a feel for it.

There are some independents dotted about, depending where you are in the country as to how good they are. I liked going and having a browse, but they are just so expensive compared to online shops. A lot of my friends tried prams out and went to buy them for substantially cheaper online, as much as a lot of people want to support retail, paying £100 more for the exact same product isn't reasonable really. If they offered something like baby friendly cafes, baby groups etc to make it a real experience then that would be great. Or even have a function room to host baby showers, on the proviso that £x amount is spent in store or something.

@TerribleCustomerCervix

There's a Mamas and Papas in Victoria Square.

Don't Smyth's toys have a baby section in the bigger stores?

We’ve got two great local stores and a larger shop in the city over that have a website. The local ones are better than mothercare etc ever were.

Have a quick look incase there’s something near by along those lines? Ours has loads of prams n big bits from cheaper brands through to the fancy expensive ones all built up on the floor so you can try it all out.

Depending on what pram / cot you want you can go on the company’s website and look at the stockist section so they can advise your nearest nursery store. There are bigger independent stores about so it’s worth looking around your area.

Some independents are larger and are really good. What city/ies are you near?

I also agree with the idea of looking at stockist lists on brands you like. Sometimes you find a surprising stockist of something that you hadn't realised would even be a shop with baby stuff in it.

For some other stuff:

Ikea have some brilliant baby stuff in their children's section, that's great for the nursery and some toys and textiles (towels, bibs, muslins etc)

Boots do some lovely clothes, feeding bits and toiletries.

Aldi and Lidl when they have their baby events have loads of really nice stuff.

John Lewis is excellent for the bigger stuff now and their price match policy means you can get them cheaper than the other shops that are going.

That has ultimately been their downfall. They've just become too expensive and people could easily find the same thing (if not better) cheaper elsewhere

I got my pushchair from kiddicare.

This is mostly car seat related, but some of these stockists will have other baby gear as well. And a car seat is still a fairly "big" thing to buy.

www.carseatadvice-uk.com/specialist-retailers.html

Try an independent store, when I was looking for a double pram, I went to an independent that had a twin pram store, their service was really good.

Near us there's a big independent pram shop and a natural baby shop which also has a car seat fitting service. Much better customer service than Mothercare!

Smaller indpendent shops will hopefully do better now.

I don't think Jl stock as many prams as Mothercare do, and not such a wide range. I suspect lots of people have gone into Mothercare to look at things like prams and then bought cheaper online deom someone else.

Tbh I don't think John Lewis has nearly as good a range of baby stuff as they used to have.
I bought nearly everything out of JL for my eldest 5 years ago but was really disappointed by their range while I was shopping for my youngest this year.

I'm really lucky though that we have a lot of smaller and one very large independent baby shop in my area, so that's where I've got most of the stuff for my last two.
It's worth having a look to see what independent shops are available in your area

We went to our mothercare today and loved it so gutted they are closing. I'm normally a John Lewis fan but for baby stuff I much preferred mothercare. Saw an article saying people were disappointed with the discounts on offer as well. We loved looking at everything and bought a few bits but as we are only 12 weeks probably shouldn't buy cot/pram/car seat etc. We don't have any independent baby shops near us and I want to go and look at things not go online

When I had first baby I didn’t go to mothercare, mamas and papas or babies r us.

There’s so many other places and the prices were far better, even in John Lewis

No wonder they are all shutting down