Best Pram – Best Pushchair – Best Stroller

… and I’m ashamed to confess, the credit card barely saw the light of day. My report card surely reads, ‘must do better’.

We arrived at 11am and had a leisurely stroll into the hall (all the while casting admiring, covetous glances at the sheer range and number of lovely prams around). Our ‘plan of attack’ was to do a quick once over up and down each of the aisles to get a feel for what’s what, whilst making a note of the stalls that had sufficiently piqued our interest to warrant a return visit after lunch.

It wasn’t at all busy, so despite the prams, babes and bumps all following a similar trail, we were able to stroll up and down the aisles without encountering any pram rage at all. So far, so good.

One of the funniest sights from the day was the Fisher Price stall, who’d created a ‘welcome to your baby’s world’ display, with adult-sized versions of their vibrating baby bouncer and Rainforest gym. The image of a mother laughing like a drain as she joyously kicked and bounced away, oblivious to her two terrified children clinging either side of her, and surely wondering what kind of freaky parallel universe they’d woken up in, will be burned in my memory for a long, long time. Fabulous! I only wish I’d had the guts to kick off my shoes and join her. An inspired display and all kudos to Fisher Price for creating it.

Now onto the freebies. The drill when attending a fair of any kind - be it baby related or otherwise – is universally understood as thus: attend fair armed with little more than your handbag, and return to your car five hours later carrying your own body weight in carrier bags full of leaflets and brochures you’ll probably never look at again, much less read, all for the thrill of maybe finding a sample-sized freebie hidden amongst the dross. It’s a bizarre ritual really, but it’s the way it’s always been and we all know the rules of the game.

Indeed, this simple fair-going transaction has evolved so far that ‘bag givers’ simply stand, arm outstretched with a patient yet weary smile, as a steady procession of  ‘bag takers’ grab one for themselves, their mum, their best friend, ‘oh and better not forget one for Mrs Wembley at number 2 whose daughter’s hairdresser is about to have a baby’.  You get the general idea.

So, I’ll cut to the chase: huggies are giving out a free nappy, NUK were giving out a free breast pad, Fairy were giving out samples of washing powder and softener, Bounty were giving out their usual ‘stuffed to within an inch of its life’ bag of product samples and, for me at least, - the creme de la creme, the Daddy of free carrier bags, came from The Baby Directory company, who were giving out free county-specific directories in the most gorgeous rope handle gift bags. I actually don’t understand why they were giving out these useful, A5 sized directory of child-related resources for free, since they could have easily charged for the bag alone, but, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I snaffled my directory for the Central area, whilst Paul grabbed one for the Anglia area too (well, we *do* straddle the two areas!)

In terms of facilities, the Baby Show organisers couldn’t really have done much better, with just some of the hightlights being The Pampers’ Baby Changing Room (providing free nappies, wipes and a whole bank of changing stations, which had mums and babies queueing around the block), The Tommee Tippee feeding area (which provided a welcome haven for babies to be breast or bottle fed in comfort), and the ‘My First Friends’ Creche (which offered parents a free creche so they could stroll around the show in peace).

I was very pleased to see such a large number of ‘green’ companies represented, with tens of different reusable nappy companies having stalls - in my opinion www.onelifeworld.co.uk being by far the most inviting stand, with soothing colours, natural wood and understated lighting and displays – aswell as lots of other stunning organic clothing and lifestyle products on offer.

Also worthy of praise were some of the smaller independents who had the winning combination of unique and beautiful products and genuinely cheerful greeters. I especially loved the beautiful alphabet prints from www.littlefolk.co.uk (despite them not having an ‘L’ is for Luca print) and www.simplycolours.co.uk were doing a roaring trade with their while-you-wait personalised T-shirts in gorgeous, vibrant colours and funky fonts. These would make a lovely, personalised gift for a big brother or big sister on the arrival of new baby, and – were it not for the queues of people waiting to be served - Luca may well have been wearing a ‘Luca 01′ T’shirt for his first birthday. 

My only gripe with the show is that it was actually pretty small for a £13.50 entry price event, especially  considering so many of the more well-known companies and food areas occupied such large spaces. Our initial stroll around was completed in just under an hour and I could have probably called it a day at that point, such was the repetitiveness of the products on offer, especially knowing that a five-minute search on google would easily throw up the same products for similar, if not cheaper, prices. But people like me go to somewhere like the Baby Show for the experience as much for the chance to get a ‘good deal’, and I was disappointed that there wasn’t more innovative products on offer. Dads, in particular, seemed to get an especially raw deal with just a token nod in their direction with the inclusion of male-directed baby carriers and the ‘lovely-but-definitely-not-an-impulse-buy’ Volvo stand.

Having completed our first lap, we went for an over-priced and distinctly average lunch and then went back in for another hour or so, but – in all honestly - I just wasn’t inspired enough to start buying. This is so out of character for me, I’m sure Paul thinks I’m coming down with something.  Ah well, onwards and upwards, fellow pram addicts. Next year, maybe?

Popularity: 3% [?]