A mother with a new baby doesn't go from home to city to shop to cafe. Instead it's more like - home to parent's room to shop near parent's room to cafe with room for pram and also near parents room.*
When Troggers was born I had a shocking time with my supply (for the uninitiated that means I wasn't producing enough breast milk). I was using one of these which involved sticky taping tubes to my breast whilst simultaneously getting a new born to latch properly while not letting all the milk run out over my shirt. Sigh. Fun times. So I was reluctant to feed in public and parenting rooms which were pleasant to sit in and clean became very important. (Since then I have fed in planes, train and automobiles but that's an entirely different post)
Some issues immediately presented themselves:
1) Not all parenting rooms are created equal.
2) Some are just glorified toilets. Infact, some make toilets look like havens of hygiene.
3) Some parenting rooms are obviously designed by people who have never had children. Or have met any children. Or ever were children.
4) No one wants to tell you where the good ones are.
So, in an effort to make this blog a little bit useful to mums I am going to start doing parent's room reviews.
This parent's room is found near JB HiFi in the Galeries Victoria in the City. It's my favourite City parent's room at the moment.
The pros:
1) It is a bit of a secret so it's very rarely used.
2) Every time I have been there it has been clean and it smells fresh. No over full nappy bin smell!
3) It has a button to open the door as you go in. I hate struggling with doors and a pram.
4) The toilet is large enough to wheel the pram in with you. Crazily enough some parent's rooms seem to expect you to leave the pram outside while you go to the loo.

5) It has one of these thingys. I've never used it and I assume it's only useful if you have a bottle of food rather than something stored in tupperware.

6) It has a sink and change tray/table/fold away thingy.

Cons:
1) It only has one chair to breastfeed in and it's out in the open. As very few people go there it wasn't a huge issue for me. The chair itself is comfortable and roomy.
If you're very lucky Trogdor's feet might appear next to you.

So, there you go. My first review.
* Having one of these is a life saver at times but as Trogdor was 13kg by 7 months a big day out meant I needed to have a pram with me.
There is both a blessing and a curse to this room, there is really only room for 1 mum and bub. This means if you're the one then there isn't any other people there to disturb you. This also means that you might have to wait if it's already in use.
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