Although we’re veterans of the Ideal Home Show and the London Motor Show, we’ve never been to the Baby Show before. There are three in 2010 – one in February in the ExCeL Centre in London’s docklands, the second in Birmingham’s NEC in May, and the third back in London for October, this time in Earl’s Court. We’ve just got back from the ExCeL show, and here’s what we thought… We weren’t planning on buying anything, as we’re only in the 22nd week at the moment, so we went by tube. When we came out of Custom House station, there weren’t that many other people going to the centre, so we thought it might not be too busy inside. We were wrong. It was packed.

Our first impression of The Baby Show was not good – it really hasn’t been thought out very well. They’ve crammed loads – and I mean loads – of exhibitors into the hall, but they’re all much too closely packed. Everywhere you went, you’d have people standing in front of an exhibitor, looking at their stuff, and people on the other side of the walkway who are also standing in front of an exhibitor. The problem is that this leaves barely enough space for people to walk past them – and when you remember that, since it’s a baby show, there are loads of prams, buggies and pushchairs crammed in, it’s simply madness. You have to either rudely push your way past people, or be polite and get stuck behind the people in front who are walking sooo sloooowly – which of course simply winds up the people behind. Basically, you’re going to end up either being annoyed, or annoying others. It was not a nice experience.

The entry fee was not cheap – £18 each – but I would be happy to pay a little more if it meant they could afford to use a slightly larger hall with more space. Not only were the walkways crammed, but some of the exhibitors had loads of stuff on display, and again, it was all crammed into much too small a space. It’s really difficult to check out a travel system when you’re bunched up against other people also trying out prams! And you can forget simply browsing the shelves of items – with people continually pushing past you, it was impossible.

So, our first -and lasting – impression was that it should have been held in a larger venue. I’m hoping that the Earl’s Court show in October will be better – although since we’ll be parents by then, we can just be like every one else and barge our pram into people regardless…

It's so hard to turn down a freebie!

Moving on from the stupidly small venue, now, we come to the variety of exhibitors. Here we were pleasantly surprised. As I mentioned earlier, there were loads of exhibitors. Some were small, specialist companies; others were big names like Mothercare, Philips and Tommee Tippee. We were very pleased to see Stokke had a big demonstration area, as we really like the look of the Stokke Sleepi crib/bed but haven’t found a local retailer who stocks it. Now that we’ve been able to have a look at one first hand, we’re happy to order one over the internet. We also discovered that the baby carrier/slings that we had been thinking about were stupidly complicated – the chance to see them and try them out was very helpful, and we actually found a much better one that we hadn’t come across before. There were also plenty of free samples being thrust into our hands at every turn – I was glad I’d taken my large rucksack along, it was crammed by the time we left!

What we were impressed with, even though it wasn’t of use to us this time, were the facilities for parents. There was a Pampers baby-changing area; a Tommee Tippee-sponsored feeding area, a play area, and a crèche. They were packed, of course, but they did seem quite well thought out.

Because there was so much to look at – and also partly due to the fact we were crammed in like sardines – we ended up spending a good four and a half hours in the show. There was plenty to look at, and it was definitely worth us going along. We did buy one item – a Philips Avent electric breast pump – and the discount (even cheaper than buying online) nearly offset the cost of the tickets.

So to sum up, it was a worthwhile, if not exactly pleasurable, day out.