Parents rooms are designed for parents and caregivers looking after babies and young children. Parents rooms can be used for changing babies, as a quiet place to breastfeed, or as a place to help younger children use the toilet. Different parents rooms may have different facilities, with some having facilities to warm up bottles, secure play areas, and more. Other parent rooms are more basic, just having an easy place to change a baby or help a young child use the toilet.
Can dads use parents rooms?
Yes. Parents rooms are not generally intended only for mothers. It's all in the name! Parents rooms are intended for all parents and caregivers of children and babies.
Fathers and other caregivers may need access to baby change tables, feeding areas, toilets and other facilities provided inside parents rooms. Afterall, it's not just mothers who go out and about with their children. Dads need to change their babies as well.
This is all another benefit of parents rooms: all parents can use parents rooms either by themselves with their child, or together with their child. This can be beneficial if a baby is being particularly fussy and the parents need to help each other; rather than on parent taking the baby to a single-sex space. The other benefit is that parents rooms are a convenient place to bring an older child who needs to use the toilet: it's more convenient than trying to bring a kid into an adult restroom that's not designed for it.
What facilities are normally inside a parents room?
Facilities vary from location to location, but they may include:
- Baby change tables
- Feeding chairs
- Microwaves
- Sinks
- Children's toilets
- Adult toilets
- Family toilets
- Private feeding areas
Finding baby change facilities
Not every venue provides the same facilities, and baby change tables are sometimes located inside gender-specific toilets. These days most many venues make sure that baby changing facilities are in both the men's and women's toilets or in a unisex accessible toilet, but that's not always the case, so it's good to find out beforehand.
Family Facility Finder helps parents and caregivers find suitable family facilities before they arrive. Whether you're looking for a venue with a dedicated parents room, or you just want to make sure that somewhere you're going has changing facilities accessible to men, you can find out on our baby change facilities map; all you need to do is filter by venue type and the facilities available. For example, you can filter the map to only show shopping centres, and then only show shopping centres where users have reported that a parents room is present. You can even view reviews of the facilities so you pick the best one.