All properties featured on the website have been subjected to a strict selection process to ensure that, along with contemporary styling, their idea of child-friendly extends beyond the customary high chair and travel cot. As well as nursery equipment ranging from stairgates to sterilisers, they offer thoughtful extras such as 'baby arrival survival' packs (nappies, wipes, calpol sachets etc.), 3-wheel strollers, sand pits, dressing-up boxes and 'soft play' rooms (Gitcombe and Tredethick).
Parents are well looked after too. Most of the farm cottage owners lead daily egg collecting and animal feeding expeditions that not only ensure mini guests have truly memorable holidays, but also allow parents to enjoy a rare lie-in. All properties featured offer baby sitting services and local restaurant recommendations, or in-cottage catering for total relaxation. North Bradbury Farm boasts a dining room linked to baby listeners in the cottages, so parents to 'eat out' as often as they like and never need a babysitter. A number of properties boast pools, saunas, steam rooms and pre-bookable private chefs and beauty therapy.
The Baby-Friendly Boltholes Collection is the brainchild of Sian Williams, a travel PR specialist who developed the idea when she became a parent herself. "I'm a boutique hotel-junkie but I couldn't enjoy them as a parent. I'd be on toddler-induced tenterhooks awaiting the next food-splattering or objet d'art grabbing scene. I needed an alternative and the answer came from travel industry and media contacts who suggested cottages.
"I'd previously disregarded self-catering as not relaxing or indulgent enough for a break but research turned up a selection of cottage owners who 've invested real attention to detail in design and both parent and baby-friendliness. As well as offering the space, flexibility and facilities babies and toddlers need, they are just as focused on parental relaxation with services from babysitting and eco-nappy deliveries, to pre-bookable private chefs and beauty therapy."
For more details see
babyfriendlyboltholes
Read one of our members' reviews on one of their cottages HERE
June 2007
|
