Mothercare (Shop) > Reviews (53)

Now being a mother to three children all under 4 years old, i must say i should have brought shares in all the baby shops....mothercare, toys'r'us, boots etc. The amount of money i have spent this past 4 years. ha ha.

My expierence with mothercare, has been lets say somewhat crazy.

When i had my first baby, i was a typical first time mum. the minute i found out i was pregnant, straight down the baby shops picking up those big catalogue's so i could sit at home a write a massive list of all the items i wanted to buy.....however useless they appeared! I still to this day cannot believe that this big retail stores have the cheek to charge you money however small (£1) for there catologues, i mean after all how else are we gonna know what they stock. anyway thats another matter.

so i picked out each item, brought it week by week through my pregnancy, until it came to buying a moses basket mattress. Now i am quite lucky i live near two mothercares one of which is a mothercare world, a superstore. So i had two chances of getting the right products i wanted. however it was near on impossible to be able to get the mattress i wanted. my Staines branch, yes it was only a small one but for some reason could'nt order it in or tell me when they would be getting it in stock. So i tried the Brooklands superstore one. What a surprise! not in stock, and yet again i couldn't order it or they couldn't tell me when item would be available. So after about 6 weeks of trying to get this mattress i was getting desperate with only about two weeks to go till due date. I ended up getting it from a private family run baby shop, which in the end worked out cheaper anyway!

Then when my son was ready for a toddler bed i popped into my mothercare world, aimed with the object of getting my son out of my bed tonight and finally claiming my bed back! But yet again when i got to the till, item not in stock madam!

But in this case i was able to order it to be delivered to my house at no extra cost, about 7 days later it arrived. Just one problem i opened the box and they hadn't put the screws or instructions in it. i called the mothercare direct helpline, they said they would send out the fixings asap. two weeks later still no screws! by now i was getting annoyed....being eight months pregnant with my second one i really wanted to get my son into his own bed. i called the mother care dirct again, asked them to pick up the bed and send out a new box, rather than just the screws...thought i might actually get it then. They continued to tell me i would have to take it back the store myself and order a another one, even tho i explained to them i was eight months pregnant, and it would be inconvient to me to do this, they still insisted i took it myself. In the end i struggled getting the bed into the car on my own and took the bed back to mothercare world. explained the situation to the staff and which they then told me they actually had the item in stock now so i did a straight swop.

So armed with my bed with screws, i headed home to assemble.

by the time i had finished, the quailty of the bed was awfull, it had all carpentry pencil markings on it, and just looked cheap, screws didnt fit properly, looked crap. So fuming i marched back with the bed and demanded a refund!! i gave up!

Another occasion i head over to the mothercare world with the intention of buying a chicco highchair. After driving about 25mins to get there i find out they dont have it in stock! Another wasted journey!

Then today, i needed a new mattress for my daughters cot bed.I was not going to make the same mistake twice, by driving all the way there to find out it was a wasted journey, so I logged on the net to check if they had them in stock. I gave the staines branch a call....NOT IN STOCK...oh but we have the more expensive version in stock! no thank you i wanted this one. So i try the mothercare world.....SURPRISE NOT IN STOCK!

I can't believe the luck i have when it comes to wanting a simple item such as a foam mattress for a cot bed. So in the end i went to my local toys'r'us, and buy my mattress from there....which yet again worked out cheaper anyway.

My advice, if you are buying something from mothercare in particular, firstly......ring them to check they have it in stock. or have a alternative item in mind.

secondly, check your getting the best price for your item, as in many cases i have found, tesco or toys'r'us to undercut there prices by as much as £15.00

which to any parent is a lot of money!!