baby friendly restaurants and places

Hi

Just wondering if there are any baby friendly restaurants in and around Brussels (ie won%26#39;t get turned away because we have a 8 month baby with us). We%26#39;ll be feeding him our own baby food and being babies they may well cry during the meal.

Also:

1. What is the general Belgian attitude towards breast feeding in public places or restaurants?

2. Are there dedicated public areas where babies can get their nappies changed or dedicated breast feeding areas? Eg department stores or shopping center toilets?

Kind Regards

Liza and Trevor

|||

pretyy much every bar and resatuarant is baby friendly with the possible exception of the two and three star places.

There will not be many dedicated changing or feeding areas but there may be some in city two and inno.

There reallyu arent that many shopping centres or department stores in BXL

|||

Hello,

I know the Ikea-shops have a separate rooms for breastfeeding and nappie-changing.

On the whole I think the breastfeeding subject is left to the jugdgement of the mother.

Some breastfeed their baby in public, others don%26#39;t. Most people won%26#39;t be offended, as long as you do it in a discrete manner eg covering the breast a bit.

It might be safest to ask the restaurant staff whether they would mind before you sit down.

|||

1. I%26#39;ve been in Brussels for 28 years, spending a lot of time in restaurants and cafés, and while I have never seen anyone turned away from anywhere with a baby, I have also yet to see anyone breastfeed in public. Even in private the people I%26#39;ve visited have been discreet about it.

2. There%26#39;s a baby-changing place in the ladies loo between City 2 (the only shopping mall in the city centre) and Galeria Inno (the only department store) on what I think is the second floor of both: it%26#39;s the level on which there%26#39;s a connection between them, which is the ladies%26#39; fashion floor in Inno. Museums tend to be good too, there is definitely a changing area at the one in the Musée d%26#39;Art Ancien (sort of behind the bookshop: you don%26#39;t need to pay for the museum to use toilets, bookshop and cafés). Otherwise public toilets are not that common and those in (a few) metro stations keep shop hours. Be aware that it is usual to be charged to use toilets, even in some bars/cafés where you are paying for something to eat or drink (e.g. McDonalds). A good free place is the Sheraton Hotel at Rogier, take the escalator up to the 1st floor Crescendo restaurant and turn back as if continuing by escalator (you can also enter through the Italian coffee bar on the corner, go straight through and turn left). There is room there to change a baby although not designed as such.

|||

Thanks everyone for all those tips. We%26#39;ll certainly keep it in mind.

Kind Regards

Liza and Trevor

|||

-:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:-

This topic was inactive for 6 months and has been closed to new posts. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.

To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html

We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.

Removed on: 2:39 am, October 08, 2009