Family friendly shopping – Kiddicare Lakeside

It’s not as if I need an excuse to go to Lakeside – its got a giant shopping centre, an IKEA – home of the meatballs – plus a multitude of my other favourite stores in handy outlet form. So the addition of a GIANT Kiddicare is just a bit of a bonus, really!

The Wee Man is in the market for the next stage up car seat shortly, so we decided we might as well go and take a look…

I’ve always loved Kiddicare ever since I was pregnant with the Wee Man and figured out they were the best place to get our pushchair and car seat at a very reasonable price. I love their brilliant delivery service with one hour timeslots, and the fact that whatever I need for the Wee Man or Bubby D I can usually find it on their site and have it delivered the very next day. Having once visited the Peterborough store, I was hopeful that the Lakeside store would have a similar array of baby specialist stuff for me to look at, along with snacks and play areas to keep the kids happy.

Turns out it does have all that – and more.

Kiddicare Lakeside, rather than being set out on three levels like the Peterborough Store is all on one level. One really, really big level. So big, they actually give you signposts to navigate through it…

Of course, the Wee Man with his ‘play radar’ seemed to know instantly where the toy testing area was, and made a beeline straight for it. Bubby D saw a cosy coupe car, and that was it. They simply weren’t interested in moving for at least 15 minutes.

It probably would have taken even longer, but luckily it was past their lunchtime and their little rumbling stomachs won the play vs food battle when I mentioned that we could go and find the cafe. We didn’t even get to look at the menu as they saw the Jungle Bites cart and the Wee Man immediately grabbed a box with crayons in and started jamming in a sandwich and a drink. Bubby D wailed loudly until I picked one up for her and filled it with similar items (a sandwich, drink, fruit bag, packet of crisps and a yoghurt for £3 – pretty reasonable), and given how they were champing at the bit to start scoffing it all I thought I’d better get myself a quick panini rather than browsing the hot food menu. (Which, glancing at whilst finally sitting down with our food, does look rather nice).

As I expected, there were plenty of highchairs available and Bubby D sat happily in a Stokke Tripp Trapp to devour her lunch, while the Wee Man sat next to her shovelling his in. I had a wistful look at the Feeding Nest (a comfy area for breast and bottle feeding parents) and a quick peek – it looks very comfy and I was quite sad I don’t need to use it any more – before tucking into my own lunch.

Tummies satisfied, the kids flipped back into ‘play’ mode and clamoured to visit the play area next to the cafe. I was quite happy to let them, as it gave me the chance to sit down and enjoy my chocolate orange tart reclined on a comfy sofa whilst observing them through toddler height round windows in the side of the play area walls.

Another 15 minutes later and I extracted them from the play area and insisted on a toilet stop for the Wee Man. He was very, very excited that there was a little toilet next to the big toilet so that he could go to the toilet at the same time as me (and he insisted that I used it, even though I didn’t need to). I was pleased that the toilet cubicle, despite having two toilets in it, still had room for Bubby D to come in as well in her pushchair. Not to leave her out, next we went to the nappy changing area which was fairly basic but functional, and soon we were all refreshed and ready for some more exploring.

Wee Man enjoyed taking Bubby D for a ‘walk in the park’ down the blue racing lanes between several lines of strollers, and I had to avert my eyes from the massive amount of pushchairs on display on the shop floor and all the way up the walls as well! (I do have a bit of a weakness for pushchairs…).

The Wee Man then picked up a child size trolley and whizzed around the store happily, ‘helping’ me to shop whilst proving a giant liability to everyone in the vicinity. Luckily the small trolleys have large flags at the top, so you could kind of see him coming. We loaded it up with some nappy supplies for Bubby D, and then we found the car seats. Much like the pushchairs, there were a LOT of them. I’d noticed when we parked the car that there are car seat fitting bays too, nice and close to the store. Wee Man took a good look at all the seats, before declaring he wanted ‘that pink one’. I am not convinced by his car-seat-choosing criteria, but we’ll leave that battle for another day.

We all had a great time – I did my car seat research, the kids enjoyed their lunch, the play opportunities and the toilets – and I’m sure we’ll be visiting again soon. The staff were all very friendly and helpful, and took the time to chat to Bubby D and the Wee Man and make sure they were having fun. Now if only they had a shoppers creche…

 

PS. In case you’re wondering, they didn’t ask me to write this or anything. We had such a good time in nice family friendly surroundings I thought it was worth shouting about 🙂