The boys big day out-Baby friendly spaces in Oxford

Hey guys, 

Jess here with a short blog following our first big outing as a family. Today we went on a visit to Oxford city centre for a day out to achieve a couple of goals. 

1. Get out of the house

2. Test out being out with a newborn before we take on bigger adventures

This meant planning feeds, changes, and expressing/breastfeeding on the go or in public. 

We opted to drive up and take the pushchair, packed the bags with enough formula feeds to make up, as well as a back up ready to go feed just in case and plans to breast feed as one of the times I was due to express coincided with this. 

Here are a few of the barriers we faced and others that I also considered. 

1. Pushchair navigation- This will vary depending on what style, brand or size of pushchair you have, We
have the out and about nipper sport- brought primarily for the purpose of running with him once he is older but also being ideal to use with him as a new born for outings, I have plans to take it on the bus for a trial but the long term plan has never been to use it on public transport for daily use. 

For the most part we found the pushchair pretty easy to use, most shops had wide enough aisles, the places we went to that had multiple floors had elevators and the streets were wide enough as well, with it being oxford it was busy and that made some areas more tricky but it didn't matter whether you had pushchair or not it was always going to be tricky. There are a lot of places you couldn't take a large pushchair in oxford, and even some places you couldn't take a pushchair at all, this is down to the older styles of the building so a sling or carrier might be easier to use. Most elevators were a good size for both of us and the pushchair some were a little more snug. 

2. Changing areas- We managed to find a couple of good places for changing, and most places will have some form of changing mat or station in them, the best on we found was in John Lewis, this has a changing room and feeding areas for breast feeding mothers as well as a dispenser you can pay and get a couple of nappies and wipes in a pinch if you have run out, this was a good little area and really comfortable, I didn't actually feed in here because I don't have any worries about feeding in public but for others who do this is a great little place. Some areas may just have a fold out mat in one of the toilets and others may have bigger areas like John Lewis did, Westgate in oxford does also have a separate changing area in and around where the toilets are but we didn't get chance to look at this.  

3. Expressing on the go- This is one i didn't really have to deal with as I just planned the feeds around the time I was due to express and I had a back up pump with me just in case, however if you were exclusively expressing milk and not breast feeding then you have to think about taking everything you need to express as well as considering how you are going to wash them between times that you need to express and how you are going to store/ use the milk. There are options for keeping things cool, storing and washing but then its weighing up, do you carry it all keep the day out shorter. 

So what did we do? 

We headed round the stores for some shopping, stopped in for a coffee, feed and cake, made our way around the city centre, and then made a plan for a late lunch, although their were easier options we could have taken we opted for the more challenging ones to test just how difficult it would be. 

Meal times went easy enough, and hubby as I have gotten very good at tag teaming a feed so he will eat whilst i feed then we swap, We stopped in for coffee in the cafe in John Lewis which was a good size, for getting the pushchair around and plenty of space to move around (really nice cake to) and all the shops we went into were a good size too move around as well, being in the car was a big help though we just parked in a normal bay which was a bit of a challenge but we managed it, I have plans to test the pushchair on the bus one day but it does make me a little nervous, However it was never the intention to use the pushchair on the bus on a day to day basis and instead I would be using a sling. 

All in all it was a pretty successful day out, I would like to get out for another and try some of the other places like the museums as well. 

Thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts, 

Scribble back 

Jessie 

x x x