From my work colleagues (as a birthday present/maternity leaving present) and from a friend of mine I was given some gift vouchers for Mothercare – I figured they’d be handy whether it was to get baby stuff before baby arrives or for bits for baby after s/he has arrived. A few weeks back Mum and I went for a potter round the store. We knew that I needed cot bedding for definite but it would also be handy to get a changing mat. While looking we found the foam mats (like a handy one to keep under the sofa so you don’t have to go up and down stairs all day!) but we also found a cot top one. The cot top one wasn’t kept in stock but could be ordered over the internet for delivery to store. The cot top one is quite handy as we don’t really have the space for a separate unit but also it’s a fraction of the price of a unit. One end velcros around the side of the cot to hold it still and then the whole mat sits across the top of the cot (meaning that we use that space that you sort of lose unless baby is in the cot). In the store, the example can be hung down the side of the cot – in our case it doesn’t quite work due to the lack of space but we have a plan!
While we were in the store, the lady serving us asked if we’d like to come to the My Mothercare Event. We asked the date and when she said the 27th June, Mum and I looked at each other because it’s so close to my due date. We figured we’d book in anyway as they are bound to have people who book and don’t show for whatever reason (I’m sure a percentage is because the new mum has gone into labour before the event! Who knows maybe someone has gone into labour at the event??).
This morning I had a call from a lady at the store to check to see if we were still going. The lady was lovely and friendly and sounded excited.
We headed to the retail park and quickly popped into Hobbycraft for some bits that Mum needed for her current project.
On arrival, we were welcomed by a member of staff who ticked my name off and gave me a goody bag and a 10% off voucher, it contained some really handy bits like a bottle of Comfort fabric conditioner and a pack of Dettol wipes. There was a travel size/trial size of Oral-B toothpaste and a tube of Dove hair repair. There was also a Closer to Nature dummy. (Unfortunately mine is pink and while we don’t know whether Blueberry is a girl or a boy, our “boy” could end up with a pink dummy). Chris and I haven’t entirely discussed the thoughts around dummies yet, I’m not sure, according to my Mum I was never particularly fussed and with my brother he didn’t have one but soon found his thumb to replace it. Any thoughts on the dummies?
The format of the evening starts with time to potter round the shop and do a bit of shopping, we got two bits that my Mum had thought of but I hadn’t thought of, then wandered back to the front of the shop and window shopped/researched possible wedding outfits for Blueberry as my brother gets married in August and Blueberry can’t just go in a onesie hehe.
After about twenty minutes there was a little introduction talk to explain what was going to happen during the rest of the evening. There were three mini talks around the store, the first was about car seat safety and the products that Mothercare do. The rules around car seats recently changed and from now on they are to have Isofix points rather than strapped in by the three point seat belt that an adult might use. Before you panic there is overlap for the rules and they are going to phase out the older version in the future. As we’ve already got our first car seat, Mum and I found a spare seat and sat down for a chat while the presentation was finished.
The second presentation was for pushchairs, again we’ve had ours for months as it came in a set with the car seat. We were shown the Mothercare Expedior, Mothercare Orb and the Oyster Max. Originally we had looked at the Mothercare Expedior when we were looking at buggies but ended up going with the Hauck Shopper Shop’n’Drive Travel System (we got ours from Amazon UK after Chris shopped round for the best price).
The third presentation about nursery furniture and choices, again as ours is ready for baby (we’re in single figures to the due date!) we decided that we’d pay for our shopping items and head home.
There were a couple of organisations there who had stands including Water Babies, Busy Bees Nursery and Brilliant Nappies. I guess if those were the things that you wanted more info about they would have been handy. When we’d signed up they’d mentioned how in the past they had someone from St. John’s Ambulance or The Red Cross about first aid for babies and children.
Overall, for the number of “expectant” ladies who were there of different levels, there were a distinct lack of chairs, each talk area had four chairs and that was it. Mum did say that she’d get me one and make a fuss but I said it was okay and I’d just stand, at that point we decided to sit down away from the talk anyway.
As we got to the car and I think I had said it to mum in the store, had the event been available maybe around 23-28 weeks rather than this late on it might have been more handy. Having said that there were ladies there who were a lot earlier on than me and I imagine they did find it really handy, also as a first time mum I think it would have been handy especially given the number of choice there are out there for car seats and buggies etc. All in all it was nice to spend the evening with my Mum even if the Mothercare event hadn’t been 100% useful to me personally.
