'Stay-home' father's nappy-change nightmare

I have sympathy for your correspondent Ines Noe Moult ('Breastfeeding mothers need better facilities', South China Morning Post, September 26).

As a stay-home dad I can only empathise with her situation. I am free to bottle-feed wherever I wish. I would suggest the problem is even broader than just breastfeeding facilities.

There are very few establishments that provide parents' rooms or staff with some initiative, thereby allowing the father to change the baby's nappies. I regularly walk with other parents around the Peak and have coffee or a meal at the Peak Lookout afterwards. It was during a recent stop at this restaurant with a friend (a mother and her baby) that it became clear that the 'man-with-a-pram' concept was still a way off in Hong Kong.

When I inquired where I, a dad, could change my daughter the response from the manageress was 'Why don't you ask your wife to do it?' I indicated my wife was at work. The embarrassed response was that it was 'not normal' for men to change nappies.

She said there was nowhere except maybe the toilet floor where I could change the baby. I asked if I could use the table in the women's toilet for one minute. I was told this was impossible as it would mean closing the toilet. I was directed to an area where staff were having lunch.

I have met with this type of response in several establishments. Most 'world cities' can get their head around the idea of childcare not being limited to mothers and helpers and I suggest to serious hospitality establishments that installing a baby-changing table in the male toilet would not be bad for business.