East Bay Baby

There’s a great song about Ikea from Jonathan Coulton (you can find it here, just search for “Ikea”).  Seriously, this song runs through my mind every time I’m at Ikea, and sometimes upon noticing that people are giving me strange looks I realize that I’m singing the song.

Anyway the point of this post is not to plug Jonathan Coulton (who also does a great cover of “Baby Got Back”, found via the same link posted above), but to discuss Ikea.  Ikea is incredibly baby-friendly, which is surprising, given Sweden’s low birthrates.

The Ikea in Palo Alto, CA has these great baby care rooms.  There’s one on the lower level when you first enter the store, and another on the top floor near the cafeteria.  These baby care rooms are stocked with baby wipes and even diapers (size 3 only, but still…)!  There’s a changing table, a sink, and an Ektorp chair for nursing.  In the Baby Care room on the top floor next to the loud cafeteria, they also have these strategically placed speakers next to the  door so the music that they pipe in covers up most of the sound outside.  It really helps when you’re nursing so that Baby doesn’t get distracted by loud and sudden noises outside.  And if you have an older toddler with you, there’s a kid-sized table and chairs so he/she can hopefully entertain him/herself while you’re nursing or changing the baby.  My only complaint is that they should put another adult-sized chair (even a simple wooden chair) in the Baby Care room, in case husbands, partners, family members, or friends are in the Baby Care room while Mom is feeding the baby.

The cafeteria also has bottle warmers in case you need to warm a bottle.  I tried it once, and I couldn’t seem to get it to work – it took a loooooong time for the water in the bottle warmer to heat up.  Either the bottle warmer sucked or it was broken.  I just ended up filling a cup with hot water from the hot water dispenser attached to the coffee maker and warmed up the bottle that way.  (Caution: that water is HOT – you might want to mix it with some cold water so you don’t melt the baby’s bottle.)

I believe all Ikea stores have these amenities.