I have been a stay at home mum for two and a half years now and in that time there has only been a handful of days when I’ve not had Cherry with me.
The first year of her life was all about going to baby groups, mainly to discuss the new world of parenting with friends over a nice cup of tea. Then when she became a toddler and decided that she didn’t want to lie in one place while I chatted and drank tea, I decided that I didn’t really enjoy going to play groups that much anymore. I mean chasing your child around a room full of germs and screaming kids just isn’t that much fun is it?!
So we started doing other things instead.
One of which was taking a trip to Ikea. Not everyone’s idea of fun but if you went in the morning then you had the place to yourself. The novelty would wear off if we did it all the time though so I am always looking for something different to do with our time.
Now I have a new thing to add to our list because Kiddicare have just opened a store in Bristol and we went to look around on Wednesday, along with some other lovely bloggers – Ella, Em, Kate, Laura and Clare. I have bought lots of things from them online but this was my first time in-store and I was really impressed.
They wanted it to be more than just a shopping experience so with the cafe and event room you can easily spend a good few hours in there.
The store is huge and shelves of some products go right up to the roof, such as the highchairs in the photo below. I honestly didn’t know there were so many different types of highchairs! And I LOVED this bib bunting….
They have mini-trolleys for the kids which Iyla absolutely loved – and I put my bag in it so it saved me having to carry it! The car seat section was absolutely enormous and they offer free fitting. They also have a fab system where if they are too busy to help then you can enter your phone number to receive a text message when someone is free.
I didn’t take any photos of the clothing section but it is huge and all really reasonably priced. They stock Nutmeg clothing which is Morrison’s brand (Kiddicare are part of the Morrison’s family) as well as a few other brands. The boy’s and girl’s clothing looked so nice and I will definitely be buying some when I am next in there.
The bedroom furniture has all been set up in little individual bedrooms so you can see how it would work in a real life setting.
One of the things I loved was how everything is out and ready to test. They have a stair gate walk and a runway for testing pushchairs.
They also have electronic tags on everything which means the prices are updated on a regular basis.
There is a play area in the middle of the store with cars, dolls houses, slides and rocking horses.
Then there is an event room which runs different sessions. We tried out one of the music classes and all the kids enjoyed singing and dancing around with instruments.
They also have a cafe with another play area for the kids, and a feeding room which has very comfy chairs and a water machine. The only thing I would say is that although it is really nice to have a feeding room, especially when you have just started breastfeeding and want to do it in privacy, for me personally I would rather sit out in the main area as I do it really discreetly and wouldn’t want to make Cherry come in and wait with me. I’m sure it is fine to do so but maybe if the sign said that you are welcome to feed everywhere but if you want to go somewhere quiet then you can…
The toilets have been carefully thought out and every cubicle has enough room for a pushchair and has one big and one small toilet – perfect for when your kids are no longer in nappies – not like mine!
We had a great day and will definitely be going back again soon.
Disclaimer: Kiddicare invited us to look around the store and provided us with lunch and gave us a goodie back but I haven’t received any payment to write this post.
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