Baby-friendly hotel: the equipment list, the safety checks and what to publish

A baby-friendly hotel holds, cleans and publishes a short exact list: a cot built to TS EN 716, a high chair built to TS EN 14988, a way to warm milk, a baby bath and a bottle-washing point. Parents book on the list and the photo, not on the words "family-friendly".

For example, a guest messages the front desk at 22:40 about a cot whose mattress slides when she lifts the baby out. The hotel has a cot. It does not have a cot that works. That gap is what a baby-friendly claim is really about. This article gives the list parents actually ask for, the standards to buy against, the cleaning and inspection routine for each item, and the exact sentences to publish so the promise survives a Saturday night in August.

What do parents of a baby ask before booking?#

They ask a short, exact list, and they ask it in the first message rather than at check-in. The list is about equipment and access, not about entertainment. The five core questions are: is there a cot, is there a high chair, can I warm a bottle, is there a baby bath, and can I wash and sterilize bottles.

The follow-ups decide the booking. Is the cot already in the room at arrival, or does it come on request? Is there a charge? Does the cot fit beside the bed with the floor space left, given that not every room type can hold one? Then comes the route to the room: lift or steps, door widths for a stroller, and whether the cot can be carried there without a flight of stairs.

The buffet and the pool have their own questions: a baby food corner, a blender, sealed jars for sale, and a place to sit a high chair without blocking a service aisle; a shallow section with a visible depth marking and a step or ramp. The word "family-friendly" answers none of these. A parent compares two hotels on the five answers, and the hotel that lists them wins the message thread.

How many cots, high chairs and baby baths should a hotel hold?#

Count demand first, then cover the peak week with a spare pool. Par stock is arithmetic, and each item is counted on a different unit.

The method: put a cot and high chair field on the reservation, log every request including the refused ones for one season, divide by room nights to get requests per 100 room nights, then multiply by the room nights of the peak week. A refused request you logged becomes a purchase decision next season. A refused request you did not log is a lost booking you cannot see.

Cots are the constrained item because they consume floor space, so the real question is which room types can hold a cot beside the bed without blocking the door or the balcony. High chairs are a restaurant item: count them against the peak breakfast half-hour and the seats in the restaurant, not against the room count. Baby baths are used once and then cleaned, so a smaller pool works if there is a drying place and a clean store; a wet bath stacked in a cupboard is a complaint. Bottle warmers and sterilizers are shared equipment: one per floor or per building, with a stated location and hours, is easier to promise than one per room.

The table below is a worked example for a hypothetical 60-room hotel. It is illustrative, not a benchmark.

For how the cot interacts with your age bands and extra-bed rules, see hotel child policy: age bands, free places and extra beds, and for the floor-space question, which room types can hold a cot beside the bed.

How should a cot be set up, and what does housekeeping check before every arrival?#

A cot is safe when the mattress fits the frame with no gap, the folding locks are engaged and nothing adult-sized is inside it. Housekeeping checks those three things before every arrival, not once a season.

Know which standard the item was built to. The TSE standard catalogue (opens in a new tab) (checked 7 November 2026) lists TS EN 716-1+AC for domestic cots and folding cots with an internal length over 900 mm and up to 1,400 mm, and TS EN 716-2 for the test methods; the standard does not cover carry cots, cribs or cradles. Ask the supplier for the test report and keep it with the purchase file.

Mattress fit is the first check: the mattress must be the one made for that cot, and a gap at the side means replacement, not adjustment. Check by hand at every setup. The folding mechanism comes next: locks engaged, no missing screws, no tape, no cable ties, no repair with a spare part from another cot. Inside, nothing adult: no hotel duvet, no pillow, no bumper, no loose blanket. Supply a fitted sheet and only what the cot's own instructions allow.

Position the cot away from curtains, radiators, sockets, window handles and balcony doors, and not under a heavy wall fixture. Apply a retirement rule: a cracked frame, a bent hinge, a torn mattress cover or a missing part takes the cot out of service the same day, tagged and removed from the store. Record the setup with one line on the housekeeping sheet: room number and initials.

How do you clean high chairs and baby baths between guests?#

Treat both as food-contact and skin-contact items: a written routine, a drying place and a person who signs for it.

On the high chair, the straps, the tray, the crevices around the seat and the gap between seat and frame collect food. Wipe, apply a food-safe sanitizer, then air dry; a strap that cannot be cleaned is replaced. Know the standard here too: the TSE catalogue (7 November 2026) lists TS EN 14988+A2 for free-standing high chairs for children up to three who can sit unaided, covering domestic and non-domestic use. Check the restraint and the stand at the same time as the cleaning.

Clean between uses, not between guests: a chair used four times at breakfast is cleaned four times, and the log shows four lines. The baby bath is cleaned and dried after every use, stored dry and upside down, never stacked wet; a cracked bath or a torn non-slip base leaves service. Storage discipline matters: a clean store and a separate dirty return point. If clean and dirty share a shelf, the routine has already failed. The log is the only evidence you have; a log with gaps is worse than no log, because it shows the routine was written and not followed.

How do you handle milk warming, bottle washing and baby food at the buffet?#

Give parents a fixed point with a person behind it, and keep the preparation of a feed in the parent's hands.

Milk warming means a bottle warmer or a jug of hot water at a stated place and stated hours. Staff provide the hot water; the parent warms the feed. Do not microwave a bottle on the hotel's own initiative. Bottle washing means a sink with hot water and dish soap, a bottle brush and a drying rack that parents can reach without walking through the kitchen, or a washing service with a stated turnaround time. For sterilizing, offer a steam sterilizer or cold-water sterilizing tablets at the same point, and publish exactly what is offered rather than the phrase "sterilizing available".

A baby food corner at the buffet is a low shelf at parent height with sealed jars, plain steamed vegetables, rice, plain yogurt and a small blender, kept away from the hot line and labelled like the rest of the buffet. Label the baby corner the way you label every other dish, and confirm packaged-goods labelling with your legal adviser; see allergen labelling in hotel restaurants and buffets. Staff do not advise on what or when to feed a baby. They supply equipment and hand feeding questions back to the parent.

What room and pool safety checks matter for a crawling baby?#

A crawling baby tests the room at floor level, so the checks are about what is reachable, tippable and openable, not about how the room looks.

Sockets within reach get covers, or a socket guard travels with the cot kit and is fitted at setup. The balcony door must lock and the handle must sit out of a standing child's reach; if the balcony cannot be locked, do not describe the room as suitable for a crawling baby. Wardrobes and televisions are anchored to the wall, the minibar has a latch, and no glass-topped coffee table stands in a room sold with a cot. No floor lamp with a loose cable, no table lamp within reach of the cot, no trailing extension lead.

At the pool, provide a shallow section with a visible depth marking at the water's edge, a step or ramp, and a pool area that can be closed. Parents read the depth marking first; make sure it is legible from standing height. Claim per room, not per room type: a "baby-proofed" label on a room type is a promise about rooms nobody checked, while a logged check per room is a promise you can keep.

What should a baby-friendly hotel publish, and how do you take requests before arrival?#

Publish the exact list, the count, the charge and a photo of the actual item in the actual room, then ask for requests at booking and confirm them in writing before arrival.

Say the item, the standard and the count: "12 wooden cots with fitted mattresses, built to TS EN 716" beats "baby cots available". Say the conditions: free or charged, set up before arrival or on request, and which room types can hold a cot beside the bed. Use a photo of the cot in the room it will be in, with the mattress visible; a stock photo of a different cot is a complaint waiting for the first night. Publish the negative list too: no bottle preparation, no babysitting, no baby food outside the buffet corner. The negative list prevents more complaints than the positive one.

Take the request at booking and repeat it in the pre-arrival message, then put it on the reservation so it appears on the housekeeping sheet. A request that lives only in an inbox is a request housekeeping will not see. Answer the five questions in one line each in a short block on the website, so the guest does not have to send a message to get them.

What to do next#

Start with the log, not the website: for four weeks, record every cot, high chair, bath and bottle request, including the ones you refused. That log tells you what you own, what you must buy and what you must stop promising. Then write the list you can actually deliver, photograph the cot in the room, and publish it with the charge and the hours. The baby-friendly claim is not an adjective you add to the description; it is the list you can keep on a Saturday night in August.