apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I would love that... But my husbands the type who would rather hang out in the ball pit rather than look at furniture...

Sounds good to me. I would take my son there (when he's potty trained) to enjoy a bit of a book or some small talk with my husband.

Interesting. The IKEA in East Palo Alto requires toddlers/tots to be pottytrained, so I don't see this as an option for some parents. I'm not sure about the one in Emeryville.

I'd hate to think that people would start to abuse the system ikea would pull it entirely. I've been awaiting the day my little boy meets the height requirement...

Yes, the one in E'ville requires potty-training. There's a pretty narrow height window, too.

I go to IKEA for the food sometimes. Like the childcare, it's an ingenious way of drawing us in.

We LOVE our IKEA dates!

We bring the whole family for dinner which is yummy and cheap, then after dinner the kids get to go play and hang out while we go and stroll the store.

The IKEA near me took out the ball room (actually they through the balls out behind the store) due to some nervous mother's fear of contagion.

this sounds a little like more real life time incorporated in to shopping. might as well be on a date in a wal-mart.

For a mother of an only child, this seems like a good boost to a child's social life... the best things is it's entirely flexible(rain or shine) and cheap!!

It won't last long, first kid that gets hurt, first parent that sues, and it will be over.

It's not quite date night, but my friends and I meet there quite frequently for lunch with our little ones.

The food is fresh and cheap, they have every imaginable necessity for our kids (highchairs, bibs, diapers, play areas) and we love the relaxed atmosphere. Plus we get to do some shopping while we're at it.

My family has done IKEA dates for almost 30 years. I used to be the (extremely excited) kid who was dropped off at the ball pit.

I know parents who do the same thing at McDonald's with a Playplace. They grab a cheap cup of coffee and chat at a table while they let their kids play on the giant Habitrail.

I remember the shopping trip to Ikea when I was 8, to find my super-dooper bunk beds (white metal was so in back then) and they dropped off my brother and sister in the play land. It's been there for as long as I can remember. Whenever I go to Ikea, the play land is never too busy and always is well managed. As a kid, it was awesome!

As long as it's not used as a replacement for ACTUAL child care/early learning, it's a good time to be had by all!

yeah, most of the time there is an hour or half hour limit (depending on how crowded the store is) and they will page you 2 or 3 times and then call the police. And, if you abuse the time limits or anything else repeatedly, they'll put you on a ban list...and enforce it. Plus, I don't think any good parent should leave their child in there and walk away. I worked in Smaland...and the workers had no special training and the equipment/balls/fabrics etc were hardly ever cleaned/sanitized...despite what we told people. Generally, only in the event of a confirmed "accident" was the ball pit emptied. So that meant only if the child could and did vocalize what happened....and, parents lied quite frequently about their kids being potty trained. That is to say, we'd catch people removing diapers and then trying to send them in!

In the winter, I take my kids to the Paramus store every couple of weeks for the day. We stroll around and they play with the kid stations in the store, then we eat lunch and they play for a few hours in the play area in the cafeteria while I watch them, then we stroll some more. They always get a stuffed toy while we're there (they are so cheap), and then my husband meets us for dinner after he gets off work (10 minutes away). We have dinner, we stroll some more and decide what we're going to get or just talk about ideas for a project, and on the 45 minute drive home the kids fall asleep for the night.

And then 3 days later, they usually come down with some kind of cold. But boy, we had fun!

the one here in round rock (tx that is) has a gigantor screen where they play movies for the kids. i, luck would have it, have a kid that is straight up fearful of the televion (its a nightmare's fault) and we can never drop her there.

IKEA is a pretty easy place to keep your kid distracted and happy though. we do scavenger hunts for colors or things that are exactly 12" (paper tape measures provided by store).

We love IKEA playdates! My son does not want to stay in the playarea, so instead we go to to the kids' furniture section to play and then to the resturant for eats. It's a great, inexpensive playdate especially in bad weather.

I love dropping my daughter off at childcare and she has a blast. The only downsize is that they don't have enough workers supervising the kids and sometimes the wait time to get in can get pretty long.