Auntiecare! (Mothercare)

Member Name: katykicker

Product:	Mothercare
Date:	12/04/09 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great size, lots of stock and various sizes available. Working models for testing in store.

Disadvantages: A little expensive on some products.

I am not actually a Mother myself but an Auntie so this should be called Auntiecare in my case as I love to treat my nieces and nephews to little presents and as there seems to be a new addition every year or so at the moment I am always on the lookout for a bargain for them!

My review is based on my local Mothercare Harlow, Essex which I last visited around 10 weeks ago.

Mothercare sell a wide range of baby related products such as toys, clothes, prams, car seats, cots, bedding, weather accessories (umbrellas, parasols, sunshades, window protectors etc) and you could probably find pretty much everything that you'll need for your new baby shopping list but quite a few of the items are pretty expensive and possibly available elsewhere at a lower price or something that is very similar may be a lot cheaper elsewhere (in my experience).

One of the good features about Mothercare is that they have a lot of prams out on display and you can test them out, even seeing how easy they are to fit in your car and how they handle, how easy they are to fold etc and if you are going to be spending several hundred pounds on a travel system you will want to do this to see what works best for you and your car etc.

The baby clothes that I have purchased in the past have been pretty reasonably priced and have lasted well (until my niece or nephew have outgrown them of course!) and they have some lovely items which are very cute indeed (I go for looks, not practical things as I'm an Auntie not a Mum!).

They also have lots of matching items available so that you can match babies cot to their changing mat, travel system, changing bag etc and I personally don't see what the big deal is, I wouldn't spend another £100 on the more expensive products just so my baby was co-ordinated!

I find the store very helpful, there are always lots of staff around to ask questions with regards to clothing sizes and premature baby sizes etc (my nephew was born quite a few weeks early but actually turned out to be a large weight anyway due to diabetes.). The staff at the checkouts are equally helpful and will help you out to your car with heavy purchases. I can't fault the staff at all, even at busy times they are always calm and polite and get the queues dealt with as quickly as possible.

Another great feature about Mothercare is that you can join up to a payment plan for your pram and just visit whenever and pay off some of the balance. You can set the date to have the pram delivered and once it's all paid for that's it, they'll drop it off to you, you can even bring this date forward if baby happens to make an early arrival (as happened to my eldest brother).

I would definitely recommend visiting Mothercare, even if it's just to check out their sale clothing/toys or to test out a Travel Station before searching online for a better deal. Some of their prices are quite expensive but it is convenient where it is located here and that you can just buy pretty much everything in one store and then go home satisfied that it's all done and dusted!

I am rating this store 4/5, the only thing which lets it down is really some of the prices. Vest/Babygros are ridiculously expensive here, especially if they're only going to last a few weeks before your baby has outgrown them.

Summary: I would recommend visiting even if just to test drive some 'travel systems'.