A bit of advice for cafe owners...

Reschsmooth

... for customers with very small children/babies/etc.

Please train your staff to not lean over the pram or high chair with the cup of hot drink (coffee, tea, hot chocolate) to place it on the table. Please walk around the pram/highchair. With all due respect, I don't trust your staff enough to not accidentally spill the drink, and drinks that hot can do serious damage to a child that young.

Thankfully, I have no first, second or even third hand experience with babies being burnt, but, I definitely don't want it to happen to my son because of poor practice.

I accept that such an issue will not be at front of mind for a waiter/ress who doesn't have kids, so I ask you, the cafe owner, to train them.

Many thanks

Unknown

Actually, I'd offer that anybody with half a scrap of common sense wouldn't lean over a kid with a hot drink... or maybe I've just been fortunate with my cafes and colleagues!

beangroundanddrunk

Interesting... in my experience it isnt just the cafe staff that need training, but also the mothers! Maybe its just my cafe, but when you get 6 mothers and prams encircled around a table designed for 4 people, and the mums are all rocking their prams backwards and forwards, and have the entire table top covered with the contents of the baby bag (ie, baby wipes, spare nappy, bottle, jar of baby food etc x 6), there is not a great deal of consideration going on from the mothers about how their scalding hot drink is meant to end up being carefully placed on the table without getting it all over 'little timmys head'.... Obviously it is common sense not to lift a hot drink over a pram (or over the top of any customer for that matter), but equally mothers groups need to start getting some 'common sense' as well when they visit cafes and make it safer for everone, and acutally be more 'spacially aware' of the dangers in their surroundings. Unfortuantely most mothers groups seem to 'phase out of the real world' the moment they sit down. Cafe staff become 'invisible' to them, they dont seem to notice how loud their kids are screaming, that other customers are attempting to squeeze past the constantly moving prams. Instead, their entire focus is on conversations about 'chapped nipples' 'useless husbands' and the fact that '3 week old timmy can now blink and gurgle at the same time!'   Oh, the joys of mothers groups!!!!

Reschsmooth

Tamper, I don't disagree with you about mother's groups and their [it seems frequent] disregard for anyone around them - look at mothers driving 4WDs (actually, look at anyone driving 4WDs in metro areas!) There is an increased element of selfishness with society. However, notwithstanding your experiences with groups and their 4WD equivalent prams, I was referring to simple situations where my wife & I may be out for a coffee, and we have staff trying to pass the cup of coffee over the pram. Believe me or not, we try to be concious of where we place the pram and try to not block thoroughfares.

askthecoffeeguy

it seems to me that some cafes are geared up better than others when it comes to catering for mum's & babies & those that do go out of their way to make a comfortable space for young families tend to reap the reward of increased patronage across the board ~ this means allocating space for communal tables & spacing tables so that there is plenty of room to move between them.