Surviving Softplay

Soft play. Brace yourself because nobody braced me for how special soft play is. You’re planning a day out with the little one and chatting to your mum friends where to go and you settle on the local soft play. Easy for everyone, accommodating and cheap… what more could you want?

You walk in (after entering a 16 digit combination code found of the bottom of your receipt that your child has already torn in half) and bam, sensory overload. The decibels just hit 1000 and the sound of screaming children welcomes you and instantly the reminder of what soft play is really like comes rushing back. The smell of stale sweaty children and nostalgia of your school canteen is all too familiar. Brush off your shoulders, it’s time to armour up. The soft play war is upon us.

After finding the least sticky table to place your belongings, adjust to the noise levels and accustom yourself to the smell, you head to the ball pit. As you sit in the ball pit, cooing and playing with your little one who is putting every single ball in their mouth — you wonder when these balls were last cleaned or what lurks at the bottom of the pit but not for too long because here comes that one child. Dripping in sweat, snot dripping from their nose, reaching out for your child declaring “YOUR BABY WANTS TO PLAY”. Firstly, you are far too old to be in the Under 3’s area and actually, my little one is quite content with…